How to Broaden the Academic Tent
Broadening the academic tent will not be easy. But it is not impossible.
Courageous university leaders are now publicly recognizing that university faculties have a viewpoint diversity problem. The range of opinions regularly represented on campus has become too lopsided, leaving important questions unasked and significant topics understudied. This long-simmering intellectual problem is now a political liability, as increasing numbers of people feel excluded from the scholarly enterprise, and Americans are coming to believe they are ill-served by institutions they are asked to support. The academy urgently needs to broaden its tent.
Without practical models for increasing intellectual and political diversity on the faculty, though, it will become tempting to ignore the problem. That would be unfortunate. Universities face the prospect of spending decades as a political football. Even if they develop some effective defenses against the Trump administration, they are unlikely to recover the bipartisan support they need to confidently operate if they don’t pull their institutions firmly back toward the American center.
Over the last several years, we have been developing a suite of models to bring underrepresented intellectual and political perspectives into the heart of academic discourse. All of our models seek to change the course of current university practices while going with the essential grain of academic life.
Pursuit of Happiness
Estimating the Productivity of Community Colleges in Paving the Road To Four-Year College Success
Despite a relatively rich literature on the community college pathway, the research base on the quality differences between these institutions has been decidedly thin.
Faculty Viewpoint Diversity: An Instant Fix
To gain the trust of wary faculty, presidents need not only to set out a firm and precise understanding of the campus environment they would like to foster, but also to back up those words with consistent and determined action.
Bad News for America Doomers
Prophecies of America’s downfall conflate the United States, a people and place, with the US government.
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Vergil: Poet Laureate of the American Founding
Vergil was a favorite of the founding generation: the source of poignant lessons, powerful language, and political inspiration.
