White House plans to cut the National Science Foundation’s Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences division—to kill off what it sees as “ideologically driven social sciences”—would end long-running surveys that inform much of what we know about Americans’ lives and behaviors. Such knowledge has advanced organ donation, retirement saving, and poverty reduction. It turns out that understanding human behaviors helps overcome the stickiest barriers to progress, in these areas and many the administration prioritizes, such as AI and biotech. Read this article
By Danielle Allen State legislatures are frantically mandating right-leaning civic-education programs at public universities. The author, who began teaching civic education 26 years ago, argues that in the past decade we have made rapid and steady progress in students’ support for pluralism, civic friendship, and reflective patriotism. In inspiring terms, she describes how anti-polarization principles, state education policies, and networks of civics-education leaders are already enabling a “transmission of love of democracy to the next generation.” Read this article
By Corey Lochan and Rawnie Sun Early June’s Vanderbilt-Wash U. report decried “the substitution of political criteria for…scholarly criteria” in assessing humanities research. Though its authors call the report’s conclusions provisional, their validity has been widely debated in scholarly, administrative, and political circles. This article, from Vanderbilt’s student paper, focuses on bitter faculty reactions, as well as the view of some supporters that “even if the findings in the report are correct, it might be better, [in today’s political climate] not to make them public.” Read this article
By John B. King, Jr. SUNY’s Chancellor argues that making college affordable is essential for rebuilding public trust. At a macro level, affordability is less a set dollar amount than public confidence that clear opportunities accrue from a college degree. At a micro level, affordability must address essentials such as child care and food security. Highlighting effective SUNY affordability programs, he cautions that isolated efforts across a patchwork of states isn’t enough. To rebuild public trust, affordability must be a sustained, higher-ed-wide commitment.Read this article
By Hollis Robbins Ignore the Jonathan-Swift-like title; there’s a thoughtful argument here: We would better serve the growing number of people with some college credit but no degree (SCND) by establishing entities to assess “completed learning” independently and differently from university-granted transcripts and degrees. The case becomes more important as growing college closures increase the size of the SCND cohort. The article also takes colleges to task for the time and money they spend on certification of learning without doing an especially good job of it.Read this article
