Two years ago, I moved to Tulsa to become the inaugural dean of a new honors college.  Then President @bradrcarson convinced me to leave my endowed position at Carolina to build the university’s sixth college. I am so proud of all we accomplished over the last two years 🧵(1/21) We:

grew enrollment by over 500%

raised retention rates to 85%

created a standardized great books curriculum from Homer to Hannah Arendt with small, Socratic seminars

revitalized study of Greek and Latin

centered character and civic education throughout the college

(2/21)

I've had an occasion to return to this piece by Fish because of a lecture I'm writing. I'm surprised by how much I dislike it. 🧵

https://twitter.com/thelampmagazine/status/1783983056367284510

Fish wants to argue that universities are not in the business of solving society's problems but the business of education. I agree! But once we look at how he parses a higher education, it turns out to be tired boilerplate about disciplinary knowledge and skills. Absolutely not!

Assisted suicide bills are always sold to the public as increasing autonomy and preserving dignity when we all know they do the opposite: they prey on the weakest and most vulnerable among us, precisely by denying their inviolable dignity and seeing them as better off dead. Utterly repugnant and shameful.

For folks who know me, it is not surprising that I don't have a political litmus test for hires. Please note that @McCormickProf & @CornelWest are both on my academic board bc they are lions of liberal education. I hire based on merit not politics/identity. I've also long supported and appreciated the work of @TheFIREorg @HdxAcademy and @AFA_Alliance for their embrace of viewpoint diversity, free expression, and academic freedom.

As usual, I both agree and disagree with Michael. If protestors do not abide by the rules, and refuse to move, they are by definition breaking the peace on campus. The bar for peaceful isn't set at refusal to engage in direct violence.

https://twitter.com/mroth78/status/1782807561084739957

If students refuse to obey the rules, to disband when unlawfully occupying spaces they have no right to occupy indefinitely, then they will need to be removed. They are not being wronged when this happens to them, because time and place rules are reasonable & just

Emma gives a very good overview of the classical education movement--one that is attuned to its diversity of forms and commitments. I do wish she had lingered more on classical pedagogy, however. Here's why 🧵

https://twitter.com/emmaogreen/status/1768697165625405800

Emma writes as if classical educators have not considered that people disagree about what is true good and beautiful. As if, somehow, this is a surprise to us. But of course, anyone who has anything like a canon knows this. The canon teaches it. Even Plato and Aristotle disagreed

As I finish grading my final class at USC, I want to share how impactful this book was for my students. In their final essays, many shared that they were deeply grateful to be forced to reflect on their mortality and finitude, that they will not return or sell this book. In our final classes, we talked about what a happy death would be for them and why. This forced them to think about what ultimately matters to them and why. Sadly, many will graduate with university degrees never having done that.