Ultimately, it is the Board of Trustees that will decide about investment policy. Myself, I am eager to find ways of supporting Gazan relief efforts, and of doing whatever we can to promote a sustainable peace in the region that would acknowledge the rights of all parties. I’d like to think students know that. [ Read More ]

A college education should enable you to discover capabilities you didn’t even know you had while deepening those that provide you with meaning and direction. To discover these capabilities is to practice freedom, the opposite of trying to figure out how to conform to the world as it is. [ Read More ]

This Passover, more than any I can remember, feels like we are stuck in a narrow place amid the crisis in the Middle East and the rise of antisemitism around the world. Campuses are boiling with unrest because many students feel that their institutions are participating in patterns of murderous oppression. [ Read More ]

On campuses across the country, Islamophobia and antisemitic harassment can destroy the conditions for learning, but mass arrests of peaceful protestors and the censorship of speakers for their political views only undermine academic freedom in the long run. [ Read More ]

Immanuel Kant turns 300 this week, and those of us in higher education should take a moment to salute this grand old man of modern philosophy...as a college president and teacher, I will be celebrating Kant’s idea of the modern student: someone in the process of learning to think for oneself in the company of others. [ Read More ]

Silence at a time of humanitarian catastrophe isn’t neutrality; it’s either cowardice or collaboration. We don’t need institution-speak, but we do need leaders of academic and cultural institutions to call on our government and our fellow citizens to address this crisis. [ Read More ]

The remarkable story of Janina Mehlberg almost didn’t see the light of day. A Holocaust survivor and a mathematics professor in Chicago, Mehlberg stood out for making her way in an academic field dominated by men. But while teaching her students and giving conference papers, she was privately writing an account of her life’s most remarkable episode: her daring impersonation of a Polish aristocrat in World War II, a deception that allowed her to aid Poles who had been imprisoned by the Nazis. She kept it all secret, but her husband, a survivor and distinguished philosopher of science in his own right, preserved and translated the memoir after her death in 1969 [ Read More ]

We must affirm the core principles of civic education and take specific actions to defend democracy while it is still possible to do so. When the Kalven Report counseled schools to stay neutral in 1967 (rather than support civil rights or criticize the Vietnam War), even its cautious authors made an exception for moments when “the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry.” This is such a moment. Whatever party or candidates one supports, colleges and universities must defend democracy to defend their very mission, to defend their values of free inquiry and teaching. At this time that means calling out the dangers of tyranny while inspiring democratic practices among young people (through efforts like D2024) so that we can defend our country from the incendiary forces now gathering around Donald Trump. [ Read More ]

College presidents are not just neutral bureaucrats or referees among competing protesters, faculty and donors. We must not hide behind the language of lawyers. We must speak up on the issues of the day when they are relevant to the core mission of our institutions. Leaders of colleges and universities must not allow ourselves to be put on the defensive by politicians who are mostly interested in scoring points. We must defend academic freedom and intellectual diversity to ensure that demagogues don’t get to decide what we read or how we teach. [ Read More ]

From early fascism in the first decades of the 20th century to scientifically based socialist experiments after World War I, Vienna was home to every sort of innovation, from logical positivism and psychoanalysis to modernist architecture and mathematics. Mr. Cockett presents as many as he can. We never learn about individual thinkers in depth, but we do develop an appreciation for the city’s varied and powerful legacy. [ Read More ]

It’s one thing to allow ideas to be debated, universities should welcome healthy challenges to core values, but the school leaders should also defend the values that have allowed the right for debate to evolve in the first place. [ Read More ]

By thinking together with openness about our civilization and the violence it seems to engender, we hope to find our own ways of coming to terms with it, of not being blindsided by it, and, perhaps, through study, conversation, and learning from others, of reducing its most poisonous effects. [ Read More ]

I was surprised to discover just how much I enjoyed sitting in the professor’s seat. I’d already recognized how much I loved being a student but wasn’t sure that would translate to being, so to speak, on the other side of the equation. For an equation of sorts it is. Good students make teachers better, and a great teacher can motivate learning in ways that surpass expectations, including expectations that students have of themselves. [ Read More ]

One mother laughingly called herself a “perpetual student.” She meant she pursued learning for the sheer joy of inquiry. But the term is usually one of gentle derision: someone who keeps taking more courses as a way to avoid holding down a job. In other words, a slacker, or a loser. I think that’s wrong. We should begin to see this sort of lifelong learning as a way for individuals to gain not just knowledge, but liberation. In its ideal form, being a perpetual student is not an act of avoidance but rather a path to perpetual self-determination and freedom. [ Read More ]

There is a long history of student protest in this country. And today’s demands from students for greater diversity and inclusion — among the faculty, in admissions and in what’s taught in the classroom — fall within that tradition. Back in the day, students raised their voices against apartheid and more recently have demanded concrete action to deal with the climate emergency. Students have pushed higher education to live up to the ideals we claim to espouse, and in so doing they have learned how to constructively respond to political differences beyond the campus. [ Read More ]

From elementary school to the university, educators want to create engaged learners. This will include some imitative training, to be sure, but the aim is for the student to learn without having a teacher to please. The point of creating a classroom of active students — whether they are collaborating on a design project or working through a classic text together to see how it might be relevant to their lives — is to make progress toward the goal of learning freedom. [ Read More ]

It’s not hard to find examples on today’s campus of illiberal students, if that’s what you’re looking for, but it’s even easier to find open-minded ones. You can still discover campus radicals, as I did 50 years ago, and also student-athletes and their fans who seem to live for the next home game. Yet students today are wary of stereotypes. No one wants to be just a jock or just a Social Justice Warrior. When you look beyond the headlines at the diversity of college campus cultures around the U.S., it’s clear that there is no monoculture in higher education. [ Read More ]

Strong students make better teachers, and both help create better citizens. I have had the good fortune of working with students whose seriousness and joy, playfulness, and purpose have illuminated for me the very subjects I was trained to teach. Working with students has also made me more attentive to the concerns of others. By exploring the complexities of the world, students and teachers practice making connections that are intellectual and effective. And today, when parochialism is encouraged under the guise of solidarity, it’s more important than ever for schools, colleges, and universities to promote citizenship by helping students increase their powers of aversive thinking, critical feeling, and of the sympathetic imagination. [ Read More ]

Wesleyan University is a small school. But we take pride in graduating students who will have an impact disproportionate to our numbers as they shape a changing world. Our renewed commitment to equitable and forward-thinking admissions processes is made in that spirit. I hope that many American colleges and universities will use their resources to do much the same, by ending legacy preferences and expanding access to their educational programs. [ Read More ]

Today there are more subtle means of denying members of historically marginalized groups the opportunity to be students. Privileges of access abound for the wealthy; now, in the name of a phony meritocracy, these opportunities are shrinking for black and brown Americans. I trust that we in Higher-Ed will keep in mind the historic link between education and freedom and will find ways to broaden access to our institutions so that they will do more than replicate contemporary social hierarchies. The quality of education in America and the future of our democracy depend on it. [ Read More ]

Teachers point students toward experiences and discoveries that become available through collaborative exploration. We must be on our guard against those who are afraid of that exploration; we must stand up against those who fear fluidity, who ban books, and who are frightened by free expression and creative transformation. Practicing education is like practicing democracy — both are collaborative, experimental paths of improvement.  [ Read More ]

The first of what will be two volumes of occasional pieces, The Ethics of Narrative collects 15 of White’s essays and lectures from his final two decades. Most of them are linked by a concern with how to translate an anti-foundationalist approach to history into ethical positions, or at least, as Judith Butler notes in the introduction, into ethical questions. How do the ways we conceive of history and agency create preconditions for practical judgements? How do these judgments in turn alter our perspective on what counts as progressive or reactionary historical change? Some of the essays are of the public intellectual sort, like his opining on patriotism or European identity. Others are rather academic reflections on the metaphysics of Western historiography or on symbols and allegories of temporality. [ Read More ]

In “The Age of Guilt: The Super Ego in the Online World,” he turns to the psychoanalytic concept of the superego to understand why so many are obsessed with judging themselves and others. Human beings are fundamentally divided, according to Freud: We are ambivalent creatures who want things we are afraid to want. Freud introduced the idea of the superego in the 1920s to describe how one part of our personality judges other parts. The superego is an internalized authority that at once holds us to a standard we are incapable of meeting and punishes us for our deficiencies. When we torture ourselves with self-recrimination or simply feel guilty for not living up to our aspirations, it’s the superego at work. The online world offers a way to displace this work by satisfying the desire for judgment with social media outrage. Instead of punishing oneself, one can share one’s judgments and be “liked” for having high, or at least crowd-approved, standards. Living online, one can master group morality and be mesmerized by physical perfection. The internet is “the great enforcer of super-ego socialization.” [ Read More ]

History is written, we’d like to believe, from the impulse to create a record of the past that is as accurate as possible. More frequently, I suspect, history is written for some personal or political purpose in the present. Sometimes, though,we turn to the past from an obligation to preserve what we care about from the oblivion of forgetting—expressing a form of piety. Mostly, the histories we read are formed out of a combination of these impulses, and in “Unearthed” they are closely intertwined. [ Read More ]

We don’t need the government to tell college students and their teachers what to think or what they can study. All members of a campus community should feel that they can enter into controversy without fear of being silenced or constrained. A commitment to the free exchange of ideas and pursuit of knowledge involves a wide range of protections for speech and expression, even when noxious or offensive. This commitment does not allow for interventions by government into what values must guide research. [ Read More ]

Our pragmatic approach to liberal education is one of the reasons more than a million students from outside our borders flock to U.S. colleges and universities each year. Their confidence in our institutions is no replacement, though, for the trust of our fellow citizens. To strengthen that trust, we must demonstrate that our educational institutions foster open inquiry, deep research, and pragmatic approaches to the pressing problems and opportunities before us. If our colleges and universities graduate practical idealists rather than narrow-minded conformists, we will be serving our nation and the world. [ Read More ]

(Bradatan) looks at how various thinkers — Seneca, Mohandas Gandhi, Simone Weil, Emil Cioran, Yukio Mishima — detached themselves from an obsessive drive for worldly success by reckoning with failure and death. Bradatan wants us to grasp how striving to succeed prevents us from dealing with our mortality and hence from living a more meaningful life. [ Read More ]

Pigliucci doesn’t want his readers to be puzzled. He wants us to realize that becoming conscious of our own faults and practicing to reduce them will make us “better human beings.” By “better” he simply means more attentive to others, more kind, more generous and less prone to do the wrong thing because of bad people around us. The Stoic advice: Accept the things we must, improve what we can. [ Read More ]

Whether Cavell was writing about pain or narcissism, language or privacy, he gave the impression of someone finding his own voice, his own variations on classic texts. The Claim of Reason was based on his dissertation, and in his later work the topic of voice in philosophy would become more and more important to him. Some might say that eventually he came to enjoy the sound of his own voice more than was necessary. As for me — I liked the music. [ Read More ]

We in higher education must energetically cultivate democratic values — including freedom of expression, rights to representation, and the protection of the vulnerable — at home on our campuses. And we must take a stand against the would-be strongmen who threaten these values in our country and beyond. As educators, we should encourage our students and colleagues to join us in fighting for basic democratic rights. And should that fight be lost in America and the capacity to reason together be rendered pointless (or even persecuted), what then becomes of a genuine education? The nature and mission of our colleges and universities will change fundamentally. That so many are demanding just that should be warning enough. [ Read More ]

"A safe enough campus, though, isn’t just about prudent COVID policies—not just about balancing protection and freedom vis-à-vis the virus. “Safe enough” also means balancing protection and freedom with respect to living and learning with others," writes President Michael S. Roth '78. [ Read More ]

In “Empires of Ideas” William C. Kirby approaches the history of the research university by focusing on three settings: 19th-century Germany, 20th-century America and 21st-century China, providing case studies of institutions within each. Mr. Kirby is a distinguished Harvard historian of China with a long record of facilitating international cooperation in higher education, and in this timely book he makes a powerful argument about what it takes to be a leading university dedicated to the creation of new knowledge. [ Read More ]

We have often looked to schools and universities as places where inquiry and debate can take place without degenerating into pitched battles, but the words “culture war” are linked to higher education. [ Read More ]

I’ve been a college president for more than 20 years and have been teaching college students for twice as long as that. Last semester, though, I had a new classroom experience—teaching my first group of high school students in a program sponsored by the National Educational Equity Lab, in partnership with Wesleyan University. [ Read More ]

Essayist Colette Brooks fears that we Americans are so saturated in information (and disinformation) that our memories have been swept away. We are in a state of uneasy presentness, “like Zen moments without the mindfulness,” she notes in the preface to her book “Trapped in the Present Tense: Meditations on American Memory.” Brooks does not try to explain how we got here, nor how we might escape the seductive temporal traps intensified by contemporary technology. [ Read More ]

Campuses are a battleground in which students sometimes act out, but also older people play out their ideological and emotional disputes using the campus and students as a screen. Psychoanalysts have this phrase, “the good enough parent,” which is the parents who don’t make you psychotic. If you try too hard to keep the kid sane you’ll drive them crazy. But if you say, “To understand the law of physics go play in traffic” — that’s also not going to work. So you wanted a good enough parent. And I thought, Well everybody wants a safe enough space. [ Read More ]

Samantha Rose Hill's intellectual biography of Hannah Arendt is a timely look at one of the most impactful, if elusive, 20th-century political thinkers. The book makes accessible key themes in Arendt’s work. [ Read More ]

Like all stereotypes, the image of the woke college student suppressing the speech and thought of others is wildly misleading. My 40 years in higher education have shown me that no student wishes to fit such a stereotype, and the reality is that few actually do. [ Read More ]

“The University of Austin makes space for itself in this ecosystem, however, not with a bold new idea but by attacking the other species already out there. Its own justification for launching is that other institutions suffer from not being adequately devoted to truth, from a lack of civility, from a failure to protect free speech and from being too tied to the elite liberal consensus that has been branded lately as ‘wokeness.’” [ Read More ]

“In many countries, those in power can be held accountable by citizens. We don’t have to accept moral impunity. We can bear witness to these inexcusable crimes and act to stop their recurrence. Rubenstein’s book is sad and necessary work. If only we take heed, we can make medicine less perilous and reaffirm our own humanity.” [ Read More ]

"Rorty was at once an iconoclast and an adherent of progress — the odd radical who believed deeply in this country’s potential. His Pragmatism as Anti–Authoritarianism, a set of 10 lectures he delivered in Spain in 1996, has just been published. While many of the arguments are by now familiar, the verve with which they are made and their relevance to our current context make for a bracing read.”

In “DSM: A History of Psychiatry’s Bible,” Allan V. Horwitz tells the story of how the third incarnation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders revolutionized our understanding of psychological suffering. As with so many revolutions, it’s a cautionary tale. [ Read More ]

“What would it be worth it if you go to college, and get out of college, the kinds of things that would allow you—for the rest of your life—to draw on the education that you've started to experience? That you've acquired the habits of mind and spirit that you continue to learn, and that doesn't have to be that expensive.” [ Read More ]

"And what students Boas came to have! Papa Franz, as he was often called, built the anthropology department at Columbia University, where, as he noted, his best graduate students were women. This was quite unusual, though King sheds little light on why this turned out to be the case. What [Charles] King does so very well is explain the complex ideas of these brilliant and unconventional women, while situating them within the scholarship (and political debates) of their times and exploring their complicated lives with sympathy. Gods of the Upper Air is gracefully written, and it succeeds beautifully both as intellectual history and group biography."  [ Read More ]

“Representing the past always draws on the impulse for accuracy as well as the interests of those doing the representing. I’ve argued that history and memory also draw on piety. There will always be arguments about accuracy and ideology, but perhaps we can agree to acknowledge, with the help of this thoughtful book, the very human desire to remember the most stirring dimensions of the past with piety, even with gratitude.” [ Read More ]

"College is for discovering what you love to do, practicing getting better at it, and learning how to share it with others. It doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, if you put your heart into it." [ Read More ]

“[Jonathan] Marks does show a devotion to the Enlightenment notion of helping students become the kind of people who can think for themselves: able to examine their own principles and change their minds when confronted with better evidence and argument.” [ Read More ]

“When Andy Grundberg wanted to take a photography course at Cornell University in the 1960s, he had to go to its agriculture school. It wasn’t long, however, before artists everywhere were exploring photography as a part of their creative practice, and by the 1980s, the medium was at the center of contemporary art and the ‘aesthetic driver’ of the most exciting work to be found in galleries and studios.” [ Read More ]

“Whatever our political allegiances, it is our duty as college and university leaders to combat shameful attempts to disenfranchise significant numbers of people.” [ Read More ]

“Messrs. Morson and Schapiro are worried not only about the fate of parochial academic disciplines; they are concerned about the development of a culture that undermines the possibility of democratic disagreement…The authors claim that too many faculty, students and citizens today believe in theories or take moral stances that claim to provide complete certainty about a vast domain of human experience. This commitment creates new fundamentalisms, making open-minded learning all but impossible.” [ Read More ]

“I recently asked the undergrads in my class on virtue and vice to send me a brief note about a time when they either forgave someone in a meaningful way or found that they couldn’t. Their notes spoke of love, sorrow, finding a way—or not—to maintain relationships in the wake of wrongs. Nobody mentioned cancelling anybody.” [ Read More ]

“We need critical feeling -- practiced emotional alternatives to the satisfactions of outrage. Outrage today is braided together with self-absorption, with the tendency to intensify group identification by finding outsiders one can detest.” [ Read More ]

"In higher education, some things will be different post-pandemic, especially if we can hold on to what we’ve learned over the past year," President Roth writes in this op-ed, focused on lessons from the pandemic on inequality, connection, and compassion. [ Read More ]

President Roth responds to riots at the U.S. Capitol, and calls on higher ed to "recommit to encouraging the kind of democratic practice that is fully in sync with the goals of liberal education: habits of discussion, compromise, collective aspiration and care for the vulnerable."  [ Read More ]

“A stranger arrives in an unknown city after a long voyage.” So begins Daniel Mendelsohn’s Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate, his study of three disparate writers who shared a commitment to mining literary traditions even as they redefined the genres in which they worked.” [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews "The Anatomy of Grief" by Dorothy P. Holinger, a "book for the bereaved" offering scientific explanations of what is happening in their brains along with stories of those learning to manage grief. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews "The Polymath: A Cultural History from Leonardo da Vinci to Susan Sontag" by Peter Burke.  [ Read More ]

President Roth discusses the importance of intellectual diversity on college campuses. Recognizing the progressive bias that dominates many elite colleges and universities, he advocates for finding ways to include conservative points of view on enduring questions. President Roth also spoke about two of his professors at Wesleyan who had an enormous impact on his life. [ Read More ]

President Roth is interviewed about Wesleyan's return to in-person learning this fall and its success thus far in preventing the spread of COVID. [ Read More ]

"In higher education, there is no contradiction between standing up to the fascist tendencies of racist authoritarianism and working for greater intellectual diversity," writes President Roth in this op-ed. "In both cases, we are defending the opportunity to learn through inquiry and discussion." [ Read More ]

In this op-ed, President Roth makes the case that "bringing students back to properly run campuses -- with frequent testing and careful housing and dining protocols -- may well be healthier than leaving these young people to their own devices and their hometown gathering (and watering) places." [ Read More ]

President Roth and the University of Virginia President Jim Ryan talk about plans for the fall, and how the pandemic, and this moment of racial unrest, could change the higher education system for good. 

President Roth writes that Trump's embrace of violence aims to promulgate fear and distract the public from "his inability to articulate a vision for the country at a time of moral reckoning, economic disruption, and international instability." [ Read More ]

In this op-ed, President Roth predicts that on-campus higher education will survive the pandemic, despite the predictions of many futurists, but that this moment is helping to clarify ways in which colleges should change. [ Read More ]

President Roth argues that for higher education, "There is no neutrality with respect to the resurgent populist authoritarianism one sees in this country and in so many others." [ Read More ]

President Roth speaks about his experience with distance teaching and learning for this podcast series chronicling shifting paradigms in the age of social distancing. "The campus as a place of amplifying learning, making it more resonant for the students, I think has become much more visible." [ Read More ]

“Magical thinkers are impatient and go with their gut. And in the early days of the pandemic, Trump happily declared that the coronavirus would just disappear like miracle one day.” [ Read More ]

President Roth responds to predictions that Covid-19 is going to "change everything" in higher education with a reminder of "the desire of bright young people from all over the world for an on-campus education remains strong...It’s because the connectivity among people and practices that takes place in person intensifies the learning experience." [ Read More ]

President Roth reflects on the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in this interview by Dani Shapiro P '22. [ Read More ]

President Roth is interviewed about his book, Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist's Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses. Heterodox Academy recently chose Safe Enough Spaces as the subject for its first ever book club. [ Read More ]

Responding to predictions about how the pandemic will change higher education, President Roth argues, "We are unlikely to see a massive migration away from campuses as a result of more students and teachers having 'discovered' distance learning. But professors are likely to use a wider array of digital tools so as to make their in-person teaching on campus as compelling as possible." [ Read More ]

President Roth calls for a “virtuous contagion” to stimulate voting and other forms of civic engagement among young people, and writes about how this can still be possible at a time of social distancing.  [ Read More ]

President Roth offers a snapshot of life on Wesleyan's campus as Covid-19 crisis escalated and a decision was made to suspend in-person instruction. [ Read More ]

President Roth is interviewed in connection with his latest book, Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses. He discusses his career path from intellectual historian to university administrator and professor, and offers his unique perspective on debates surrounding freedom of speech and political correctness. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews Laurel Leff's new book, Well Worth Saving, on how academic refugees from Nazi Europe struggled to find safety in the American university system. [ Read More ]

President Roth writes about the Wesleyan Engage 2020 Initiative (E2020), through which Wesleyan is supporting student involvement in the public sphere. [ Read More ]

President Roth discusses Safe Enough Spaces with Roxanne Coady, founder of RJ Julia Booksellers. The podcast is adapted from a public discussion between the two held at the Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore on Sept. 26. [ Read More ]

"Every age seems to need a bogeyman, some negative image against which good people measure themselves," begins this op-ed by President Roth, in which he attempts to set the record straight with respect to widespread negative perceptions of the "politically correct, 'woke' college student." [ Read More ]

President Roth discusses the place of religious faith in the classroom in connection with his book, Safe Enough Spaces. [ Read More ]

In this interview, President Roth discusses political correctness, parochialism, and why angry debate is better than no debate at all. [ Read More ]

In this blog post, President Roth provides a brief history of "political correctness," and calls upon students, faculty and citizens alike to "avoid falling into the tired tropes of both callout culture and accusations of political correctness." [ Read More ]

President Roth speaks on the "Unorthodox" podcast about free speech on campus and making students feel "safe enough, but not too safe" to explore new ideas and perspectives. (Roth comes in around 49 minutes). [ Read More ]

In this wide-ranging conversation, President Roth speaks with host Kris Boyd about balancing students' need to feel safe and included on campuses while keeping them open to new ideas. They also discuss the often misunderstood concept of "safe spaces." [ Read More ]

An excerpt of President Roth's book, Safe Enough Spaces, is published on Thrive Global. [ Read More ]

In this op-ed, President Roth argues against the "free market approach to speech" on college campuses, which he says is misleading, and causes real harm to people while also failing to ensure an airing of diverse viewpoints. [ Read More ]

President Roth talks about the need to proactively cultivate intellectual diversity on college campuses, and teaching students intellectual humility. (Roth comes in around 29 minutes). [ Read More ]

President Roth speaks with host Michael Krasny about creating environments where students feel heard and accepted, but can also participate in debates that challenge their beliefs. [ Read More ]

In this essay, President Roth writes about the challenge of engaging students at a secular university in a class discussion on religious faith. [ Read More ]

This review calls Safe Enough Spaces "a timely book on a fascinating topic," noting, "Roth’s historical approach is useful and instructive," and "Roth is at his best at his most declarative." [ Read More ]

In this op-ed, President Roth advocates for creating "safe enough spaces" on college campuses, which "promote a basic sense of inclusion and respect that enables students to learn and grow — to be open to ideas and perspectives so that the differences they encounter are educative." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews former Yale Law School Dean Anthony Kronman's The Assault on American Excellence, which he calls a "paranoid picture of campus life." Roth concludes, "I am unpersuaded by the recycled anecdotes meant to show that a tide of levelers rejects the very notion of recognizing great achievement." [ Read More ]

President Roth speaks with On Campus Radio about why this is a unique time in campus politics, what it means to be truly "inclusive" on campus, and how to cultivate intellectual diversity at colleges and universities. (President Roth comes in around 41 minutes). [ Read More ]

In this op-ed, President Roth writes about the evolution of the term "politically correct," and argues "the phrase has long been a free pass for avoiding serious issues." [ Read More ]

President Roth engages in a wide-ranging conversation on Safe Enough Spaces with Jim Bohannon. [ Read More ]

President Roth talks on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show about the “safe enough spaces” he envisions on college campuses; recalls a free speech controversy on Wesleyan’s campus; and takes calls from recent college graduates. [ Read More ]

President Roth speaks on Wisconsin Public Radio about the benefits of diversity and "constructive disagreement" on college campuses, creating authentic intellectual diversity, and why state legislatures are not the appropriate bodies to safeguard campus free speech. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a new book by Ronald Rosbottom that explores what life was like for young students in France during the Nazi occupation. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past, a book in which author Lewis Hyde "doesn't ignore the pain of involuntary amnesia, but [...] is much more interested in the liberating aspects of 'getting past the past,' as his subtitle puts it." [ Read More ]

In this essay, President Roth proposes a "path toward recovery" for the beleaguered humanities. He writes, "in order to recover the trust of students and their families, we must overcome our cultivated insularity." [ Read More ]

President Roth offers his perspective on the relationship between critical thinking, the liberal arts, and interdisciplinarity. He also argues for the importance of pushing students to step outside their own viewpoints about the world. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a new book by Akiko Busch that considers the strategies humans have devised "to avoid being seen" at a time when nearly everything we do is visible to others through technology. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews Dave Cullen's new book, Parkland, which profiles the "extraordinary young people" who took action "to turn their tragedy into fuel for a political movement that would push back against the National Rifle Association’s stranglehold on American politics and create a path for legislation for gun safety." [ Read More ]

President Roth writes in Inside Higher Ed that in uncommon times, “traditional educational practices of valuing learning from people different from ourselves have never been more important.” [ Read More ]

“In a year when inducements to political violence have become normalized at the highest level, colleges and universities must do more than just encourage our students to vote,” writes President Michael S. Roth in Inside Higher Ed. [ Read More ]

President Roth reflects on the killing of 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh , and writes about how schools can empower students to “create a more hospitable and just country.”

In President Roth's review of The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, he agrees with the authors' defense of "free speech as essential to the mission of higher education," but pushes back on their "catastrophizing" and the broad generalizations they make about an entire generation of young people. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews Emory professor Vanessa Siddle Walker's new book on a previously "unseen network of black educators" across the South, who fought heroically "over many decades for equality and justice." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews Roger Scruton's new book on Conservatism, which provides an "enlightening" background on a variety of important conservative thinkers, but stoops to scapegoating Muslims to "rally the troops." [ Read More ]

In this op-ed, President Roth pushes back against political attacks on higher education institutions as being overly pc, writing, "Campuses are challenging places when they cultivate diversity of perspective, a sense of belonging and a common devotion to rigorous inquiry." [ Read More ]

President Roth debates issues of free speech and safe spaces on campus, arguing that there should be some spaces that are just safe enough to allow all groups of people to express their views. [ Read More ]

In this op-ed, President Roth expresses his hope that this year's graduates will feel empowered, and their capacity for inquiry, compromise, and reflection will be enhanced, by their college educations. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews Kenneth R. Miller's new book, The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness and Free Will. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews Steven Pinker's new book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress. [ Read More ]

President Roth reflects on the questioning of liberal education in China and the United States. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a new book that explores the "ways in which ideology, ethnic tension and war became a recipe for mass murder" in a town in present-day Ukraine during World War II. [ Read More ]

President Roth warns against the dangerous repercussions of increasingly politicized views of higher education. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews "The Most Dangerous Man in America," a new book exploring the bizarre links between President Richard Nixon and Timothy Leary, whom the Nixon administration attempted to "turn into the face of the enemy." [ Read More ]

President Roth discusses questions of free speech on college campuses with a panel of history professors and authors at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting. [ Read More ]

In this "On Leadership" interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education, President Roth reflects on progress made during his decade leading Wesleyan, his efforts to increase diversity on campus, and questions about campus free speech.
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In this interview, President Roth shares his perspective on the appropriate role of university leaders in influencing national political discussions. [ Read More ]

President Roth urges prospective students applying to college to look beyond just getting into the "best" school, and instead focus on finding what they love to do, getting better at it, and learning to share it with others. [ Read More ]

President Roth argues that fostering intellectual diversity on campuses is not only a "question of political fairness," but is imperative for the education of students. [ Read More ]

President Roth makes a powerful argument in defense of free speech on college campuses, and calls on colleges to pursue diversity broadly. [ Read More ]

In his review of the new book, "Free Speech on Campus," President Roth finds much to agree with in the authors' account of campus speech issues, yet points out some limitations of their dogmatic approach to freedom of expression. [ Read More ]

In response to recent statements by the Trump Administration about Title IX enforcement on campuses, President Roth reaffirms Wesleyan's commitment to supporting survivors while also protecting "the presumption of innocence and due process for anyone facing serious allegations." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux, in which author Cathy N. Davidson argues that "the digital revolution of the past few decades requires a revolution in higher education." [ Read More ]

President Roth responds to Mark Lilla's book, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, which criticizes liberals for emphasizing identity at the expense of solidarity. [ Read More ]

In response to news of a Justice Department investigation of affirmative action, President Roth discusses why we must resist efforts to restrict affirmative action. [ Read More ]

In this essay in Inside Higher Ed, President Roth examines campus intellectual diversity in a time of polarization. [ Read More ]

President Roth makes the case for an "affirmative action" program for the study of conservative, libertarian and religious ideas on college campuses. (WSJ subscription required to access article). [ Read More ]

President Roth writes in The Chronicle Review about teaching the iconic 75-year-old film Casablanca to today's college students. [ Read More ]

President Roth reflects on "Sensemaking" by Christian Madsbjerg, founder of the business strategy consulting firm ReD, which advocates for "a holistic apporach to solving problems: 'a method of practical wisdom grounded in the humanities.'" [ Read More ]

President Roth writes: "When freedom of inquiry and expression is threatened on campus, it will be threatened elsewhere in society. In the long run, it's the most vulnerable who have the most to lose." [ Read More ]

In this essay, President Roth reflects on a recent visit to India and explores how and why Indian students are embracing liberal arts education. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews Anders Rydell's "The Book Thieves" on the Nazis' attempts to destroy book collections of Jews and rewrite Jewish history from a National Socialist perspective. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a new book, Age of Anger: A History of the Present, in which author Pankaj Mishra traces the populist violence and anger of today to "patterns set down in 18th century France and then repeated around the world as peoples deal with modernization and the loss of tradition." [ Read More ]

In the wake of a recent executive order on immigration, President Roth writes about the "vital role" colleges and universities must play in resisting bigotry. [ Read More ]

In an interview with WBUR Public Radio, President Roth defends the value of a broad liberal education, particularly in exposing students to different points of view, and highlights Wesleyan's efforts to incorporate a diversity of viewpoints into its student body, faculty, and among visiting speakers. [ Read More ]

Following a visit to China's Peking University-Shenzhen, which has decided to start an undergraduate liberal arts college, President Roth reflects on why commitment to a liberal education is more urgent today than ever. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews Mark Seidenberg's book, Language at the Speed of Sight, which makes a compelling argument "backed by decades of research, to show that the only responsible way to teach children to read well is to build up their abilities to connect reading with speech and then to amplify these connections through practice, developing skillful behavioral patterns hand in hand with the neurological networks that undergird them." (Article may be behind paywall). [ Read More ]

We in higher education must strive to build inclusive communities and express our care for one another in a context of fairness, one that includes ensuring a place for conservative viewpoints, writes Michael Roth. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews the impact of the Obama administration on higher ed, including improvements in financial aid and increased scrutiny regarding assessment. [ Read More ]

Writing for the Answer Sheet blog, President Roth discusses a controversial letter sent to students by the University of Chicago and comments on a Wesleyan debate about freedom of expression. [ Read More ]

President Roth calls out the dangers he sees the Trump campaign posting to our political ecosystem, and he urges other higher education leaders to "sound the alarm." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews The Selfishness of Others: An Eassay on the Fear of Narcissism by cultural journalist Kristin Dombek and comments on the timely example of Donald Trump. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews "In Praise of Forgetting," in which author David Rieff argues that "the impermanence of memory is often a good thing since forgetting can facilitate conflict resolution." [ Read More ]

President Roth announces that Wesleyan will establish the Wesleyan University Hamilton Prize for Creativity in honor of alumni Lin-Manuel Miranda '02 and Thomas Kail '99, creator and director of the hit musical Hamilton. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews psychoanalyst Adam Phillips' new book, Unforbidden Pleasures, which encourages readers to "explore new habits and possibilities without worrying too much about violating rules, or even being consistent with ourselves." [ Read More ]

President Roth speaks to admitted students and their parents during WesFest about three things every student should learn in college: discover what they love to do, get better at it, and learn to share it with others. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews There is Life After College, a new book in which author Jeff Selingo aims to reassure parents and students about life after college "by offering to make sense of the career options out there giving practical advice on how to find one's way among them." [ Read More ]

"As president of a university dedicated to broad, liberal education, I both deplore the new conformity and welcome an increased emphasis on STEM fields," writes President Roth. "Choosing to study a STEM field should be a choice for creativity not conformity. There is nothing narrow about an authentic education in the sciences." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell, a lively book that helps readers explore great philosophers and "rediscover how philosophy can be a mode of thinking that we can inhabit and learn from in our ordinary lives." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews two books—Wisdom's Workshop: The Rise of the Modern University, and Toward a More Perfect University–which offer different views of where higher education is today and how it got there. According to Roth, both authors "believe that American higher education can be improved, but they are confident that this improvement will occur through the evolution of its capacity for producing new knowledge and disseminating it." [ Read More ]

President Roth discusses how a liberal education empowers students to pursue important work after graduating, and why a push toward focusing solely on STEM fields is misguided. [ Read More ]

President Roth predicts that 2016 will see "a resurgent commitment in higher education to a pragmatic liberal-arts education." [ Read More ]

In 2016, President Roth writes, "I expect to see the bogeyman of political correctness circulate even more widely in academic circles and in national political discourse." [ Read More ]

President Roth argues that political correctness is a "charismatic bogeyman with strange powers to tittilate liberal and conservative writers alike." But the reality of campus life is quite different than the PC picture painted by critics. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews The Other Paris by Luc Sante, a book "devoted to recollection" of Paris's underside, "which has long been threatened and in recent years has become increasingly difficult to find." [ Read More ]

President Roth disputes the narrative of "coddled" college students, and discusses the reality of student activism on campus. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews George Makari's Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind, a history of Western thought about questions of how the human mind is related to the material world. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a new collection of writings by New York Times columnist Stanley Fish. "Whether he is writing about French theory, religion, poetry, law, liberal education, or politics in upstate New York... Fish is both stimulating and precise." [ Read More ]

President Roth reflects on the campus controversy over an op-ed published in The Wesleyan Argus, writing, "A campus free from violence is an absolute necessity for a true education, but a campus free from challenge and confrontation would be anathema to it." [ Read More ]

President Roth muses on the recent opening of a new American-style liberal arts college in Singapore, at a time when that model of broad, contextual study is under "enormous pressure" in the United States. [ Read More ]

President Roth pays tribute to a former Wesleyan professor and his mentor, Carl Schorske, who died this month at age 100. Schorske was "the great historian of anti-historical thinking" as well as "an extraordinary teacher–erudite, humane, and sensitive to the different ways that students learned." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviewed a new book, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, by Timothy Snyder, which considers Hitler's worldview as "essential for grasping the history of Nazi efforts to eliminate Jews from the planet." [ Read More ]

In a counterpoint to President Michael Benson of Eastern Kentucky University, President Roth makes the case for a broad contextual education, one which inspires "habits of attention and critique that will be resources for students years after graduation." [ Read More ]

In his review of Oliver Sacks' new memoir, On the Move, President Roth writes that the celebrated neurologist, "opens himself to recognition, much as he has opened the lives of others to being recognized in their fullness." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews New York Times columnist Frank Bruni's new book, Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania, which speaks not only to young men and women competing for admission to highly competitive colleges and universities, but more broadly to "the culture of manufactured meritocracy." [ Read More ]

President Roth explores the writings of Matthew Crawford, whose 2009 book, Shop Class, asks the question, "What is good work?" and whose latest book, In the World Beyond Your Head, examines "how it is we come to interact with, or flee from, the world around us in the first place, and how perception and the self prepare one for participation in a world of work." [ Read More ]

President Michael Roth reviewed In Defense of a Liberal Education by Fareed Zakaria, a refreshing change from the scores of books published in recent years decrying the state of higher education. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews Kevin Carey's controversial new book The End of College.  [ Read More ]

President Roth writes about the importance of exploring religious feelings and experiences in humanities education, and why these topics make students so uncomfortable. (Content available to subscribers). [ Read More ]

Responding to a new book by William Bowen and Gene Tobin, President Roth writes about how positive change is effected at colleges and universities, from his own personal experience. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a memoir by Roger Cohen, in which the author considers his own family's diaspora, revealing "how the threads of this legacy of displacement are woven together, all the while making visible tears in the fabric never to be fully mended." [ Read More ]

President Roth writes, "The attacks in Paris remind us that those willing to destroy freedom of expression in the name of their own totalitarian commitments can wreak havoc in a society determined to maintain openness and tolerance within the rule of law." [ Read More ]

President Roth calls on readers to commit themselves to the cause of making a broad contextual education available to all. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a new book by Joel Klein, "Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools," about lessons of school reform learned from his experience as New York City School Chancellor. [ Read More ]

As college admissions season heats up, President Roth makes the case for a broad, pragmatic liberal education. He advises prospective students to view college "as a remarkable opportunity to explore their individual and social lives in connection with the world in which they will live and work." [ Read More ]

Speaking with Ashleigh Banfield on her show "Legal View," President Roth discusses the rising cost of higher education, and its importance. A film clip from "The Ivory Tower," a documentary on higher education featuring President Roth, is shown. [ Read More ]

The Wesleyan Media Project's research on campaign advertising is a prime example of liberal learning as preparation for citizenship, writes President Roth. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews 'At Home in Exile' on the Jewish diaspora, by Alan Wolfe. [ Read More ]

In an interview with host Jonathan Judaken, President Roth makes the case for a "pragmatic liberal education" and explains why a liberal university education matters in America. [ Read More ]

President Roth talks with Faith Middletown about students' fear about finding jobs in a competitive economy, as well as the hope provided by education that learning to think critically increases our ability to find meaning and contribute effectively to the world. [ Read More ]

On the 75th anniversary of Sigmund Freud's death, President Roth reflects on why the founder of psychoanalysis still matters. [ Read More ]

President Roth responds to recent critiques of higher ed, which claim elite institutions are either not prioritizing academic aptitude or are turning out "sheep" with few aspirations other than earning money. At Wesleyan and other liberal arts colleges, Roth says he has found not "sheep," but "students with whom I can learn and who are eager to find meaning in their lives as well as skills with which to live." [ Read More ]

In response to a new flurry of "nano-degrees," which train students in one specific skill set, President Roth writes, "...I'm very skeptical about the current re-fashioning of vocational education under the banner of Silicon Valley sophistication." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a new book by Elizabeth Green, in which she seeks to dispel the "myth of the natural-born teacher," and related arguments about teacher accountability and autonomy. [ Read More ]

Mark Edumundson's new book about lessons he learned playing football "enriches one's sense of a game that enthralls millions of Americans with its violence and its grace. It also reminds us of how the risks and rewards of athletics can be integrated with an education for life," writes President Roth in this review. [ Read More ]

Review: 'The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs' by Greil Marcus [ Read More ]

Looking to the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, President Roth writes that the long-running "tensions between the lofty and practical ideals for higher education are instructive for us today." [ Read More ]

In this interview, President Roth says that the debate over the value of a college education is hardly a new one, and that a liberal arts education is more important now than ever. [ Read More ]

President Roth writes on the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok, and the worldwide battle for access to education for girls and women. [ Read More ]

On Independence Day, President Roth writes about the promise of liberal education to provide students with "greater independence and capacity for productive work well beyond graduation day." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a new biography of Sigmund Freud, which makes use of a "paucity of verifiable facts" about Freud's early life to show how "this visionary pragmatist [came to understand] that we could construct meaning and direction from our memories in order to suffer less and live more fully in the present." [ Read More ]

President Roth discusses his book with WNYC's Leonard Lopate. [ Read More ]

President Roth writes about Americans' tradition, dating back to the country's founding, of arguing over narrow, vocational versus broad, liberal approaches to college education. [ Read More ]

President Roth tells KQED that it doesn't matter what you study in college, but rather how you study it. [ Read More ]

President Roth makes the case to Colin McEnroe that, despite the costs of higher education, a liberal education is essential and worth it. [ Read More ]

"The work of expanding your intellectual and cultural horizons is never done, and we trust that the education you take with you today will help you continue to animate a diverse and expansive world for decades to come," President Roth tells the class of 2014. [ Read More ]

President Roth discusses his book with Krys Boyd, and answers the question: What will yield the most advantageous results: higher education focused on science, engineering and math (STEM) or postsecondary schools based in liberal arts? [ Read More ]

President Roth warns against the proclivity of many undergraduates for critical deconstruction. He instead urges students to allow themselves to be absorbed in compelling work, and consider how they might find inspiration, meaning or direction in it. [ Read More ]

In an age when pundits continually question whether the cost of higher education is worth it and undergraduates behave like consumers, President Roth argues against notions that non-monetized learning is wasted or worthless. [ Read More ]

President Roth writes about the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok as "a war on women's rights, on education, and on creating the possibilities that all people, as philospher Martha Nussbaum has put it, can lead a fully human life." [ Read More ]

President Roth responds to the Supreme Court ruling that upheld a Michigan constitutional amendment banning consideration of race in college admissions. He asserts, "Under the guise of democracy and supporting the political process, the Court has allowed States to close off opportunities for those who would benefit from them the most." [ Read More ]

As high school seniors struggle to decide where to spend their next four years, President Roth urges readers to choose a college "at which you can thrive, finding out so much more about yourself as you also discover how the world works, how to make meaning from it and how you might contribute to it." [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews Schama's "excellent" account of Jewish history, in which the historian draws on many different sources, "drill[s] deep" into a specific subject, and "take[s] a wide-angle view of many countries over long periods of time." [ Read More ]

President Roth, writing as Sigmund Freud, on The Jewish Museum's decision to cancel a talk on Frantz Kafka by controversial feminist philosopher Judith Butler. [ Read More ]

Elizabeth Kolbert's new book argues convincingly that human beings "have been bad news for most of the world's living things, causing massive extinctions of species with which we share the planet," and, unless we change our ways, "we will certainly cause our own demise," writes President Roth in this review. [ Read More ]

"Openness to learning is a lifelong endeavor, and that openness is undermined when one believes one has vanquished uncertainty," writes President Roth. [ Read More ]

President Roth recounts his discussion at the White House with the Obamas and other college and university presidents about access to education, and how it can change lives. [ Read More ]

President Roth awards only a passing grade to Daniel Goleman's `Focus," saying the celebrated author of  "Emotional Intelligence" has a good idea that is only somewhat realized in his latest book.

"`Focus' has real moments of insight, strong pages on interesting research and its potential applications," Roth writes. "Unfortunately, in trying to be all things to all readers, Goleman’s book fails to consistently sustain and repay our attention."

An American Studies Association boycott of Israeli academic institutions is "a repugnant attack on academic freedom," President Roth writes, "Declaring academic institutions off-limits because of their national affiliation. 

"The ASA has not gone on record against universities in any other country: not against those that enforce laws against homosexuality, not against those that have rejected freedom of speech, not against those that systematically restrict access to higher education by race, religion or gender. No, the ASA listens to civil society only when it speaks against Israel. As its scholarly president declared, "One has to start somewhere." Not in North Korea, not in Russia or Zimbabwe or China — one has to start with Israel. Really?"

"America has long been ambivalent about learning for its own sake," writes President Roth, "at times investing heavily in free inquiry and lifelong learning, and at other times worrying that we need more specialized training to be economically competitive. A century ago these worries were intense, and then, as now, pundits talked about a flight from the humanities toward the hard sciences." [ Read More ]

President Roth writes about the importance of economic diversity and an inclusive environment on college campuses to creating opportunities for social mobility. [ Read More ]

President Roth shares his presentation on liberal learning as a form of pragmatic education with deep roots in American history, delivered Sept. 22, 2013 at the Social Good Summit at the 92nd St. Y in New York City. [ Read More ]

H.M., a famous research subject whose amnesia helped advance the field of memory research by leaps and bounds, is the focus of a new book by Suzanne Corkin that President Roth reviews. [ Read More ]

"[Bok's] book is too long to be called a report card, but it is a detailed progress report on the challenges and opportunities facing our nation's colleges and universities," writes President Roth in this review of Derek Bok's new book. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a new book by Mark Edmundson on the transformative power of great teaching, as well as the challenges posed to serious teachers by the modern higher education landscape. [ Read More ]

"How do we promote inclusion on campuses that claim to value diversity? In classrooms and dorm rooms, from athletics to the arts?" questions President Roth in an op-ed carried by the McClatchy-Tribune News Service. [ Read More ]

President Roth talks with WNPR host Colin McEnroe about the rumored decline in the humanities. [ Read More ]

"Teaching this MOOC has shown me that online courses will be increasingly viable and valuable learning options for those who can't make their way to campuses," writes President Roth in this op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. [ Read More ]

President Roth reflects on his experience teaching "The Modern and the Postmodern" as a Massive Open Online Course this year in The Chronicle of Higher Education. [ Read More ]

In The Washington Post, President Roth reviews David Nirenberg's 'Anti-Judaism,'  "a thorough, scholarly account of why, in the history of the West, Jews have been so easy to hate." [ Read More ]

Diversity on college campuses is a "powerful hedge against the 'rationalized conformity' of groupthink," President Roth argues in The Huffington Post. [ Read More ]

In The Washingon Post, President Roth reviews Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt. Roth writes that Holt "takes on one of the biggest questions in conversations with philosophers and scientists: What is the origin of everything?" [ Read More ]

In The Huffington Post, President Roth describes Ross King's Leonardo and the Last Supper as the portrait of the Renaissance master as a middle-aged man, who had no limits on his talents nor his imagination, but nonetheless undertook commissions the way his patrons directed. [ Read More ]

For The Washington Post, President Roth reviewed Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks, a "graceful and informative" study of hallucinations caused by "neurological misfirings that can be traced to disease, drugs or various changes in neurochemistry." Drawing upon descriptions of hallucinations experienced with Parkinsonian disorders, epilepsy, migraines, and narcolepsy, "Sacks explores the surprising ways in which our brains call up simulated realities that are almost indistinguishable from normal perceptions," Roth writes. [ Read More ]

In the Los Angeles Times, President Roth reviewed Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art From Egypt to Star Wars by Camille Paglia. The book, which contains brief discussions of 29 works of visual art, seeks to help readers "find focus" amid the "torrential stream of flickering images." Roth writes: "Paglia's goal is straightforward: By offering images of great artworks and helping us to give them sustained attention, she hopes that readers will 'relearn how to see' with sustained pleasure and insight." [ Read More ]

In The Washington Post, President Roth reviews a new book by Chris Anderson, departing editor of Wired magazine, which explores how in today's world, "technology has liberated the inventor from a dependence on the big manufacturer." The Web has "democractized the tools both of invention and production," Anderson writes. [ Read More ]

President Roth writes about thinkers who offer deep criticism of the West's narrative of progress, including Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. [ Read More ]

Just ahead of the 2012 presidential election, President Roth recalls the 2008 Wesleyan Commencement Address delivered by then-candidate Barack Obama, with its appeal to graduates to serve their communities, their country and the wider world. President Roth notes that this call to service has been entirely absent this election cycle from both Obama and his Republican opponent Mitt Romney. "Why are both candidates today so reluctant to call for service? Why do they continually appeal to our desire to have our country do something for us, but rarely ask that we make personal sacrifices to improve our collective future?" he writes. [ Read More ]

In the Huffington Post, President Roth writes about the recent announcement that Wesleyan would begin offering free MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) through Coursera. He discusses how Wesleyan's online course offerings will differ from its on-campus courses, and what participating faculty members hope to learn from the experiment. [ Read More ]

President Roth discusses the recent calls to further specialize education and narrow what we teach students from K-12 and on to college at the exclusion of the liberal arts, especially the humanities. [ Read More ]

Following Rick Levin's surprising announcement that he would retire as president of Yale University, President Roth reflects on Levin's legacy. [ Read More ]

President Roth reviews a new book titled The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, in which author Dan Ariely, director of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, applies an experimental approach to how we "lie to everyone--especially ourselves." [ Read More ]

President Roth discusses the late 19th century debate over the purpose of education between two prominent black intellectuals--W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington--and its relevance to contemporary discussions on liberal learning and practicality. Washington advocated for an intensely practical, vocational education as a path to economic prosperity for ex-slaves and their descendants, while Du Bois emphasized political and civil equality, and "the education of youth according to ability." [ Read More ]

In The Washington Post, President Roth reviews Carlin Romano’s America the Philosophical, which is an effort to consider how intellectual life in America exceeds the boundaries that we try to set for it in academia. Roth applauds the attempt but questions the outcome [ Read More ]

While keeping in mind writings of activist Jane Addams, President Roth discusses liberal education, saying in part: "Liberal education today should prepare students for life, and many colleges have been increasingly focused on doing a better job of helping them transition from campus to life after graduation. Whether students do this through activism or internships, service learning or “intellectual cross-training,” they learn to make their education feed into what they will be doing in the world." [ Read More ]

President Roth writes about the consistent links between education and freedom that run through American intellectual history. [ Read More ]

Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth reviews Andrew Delbanco new book, College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be. Roth writes, "At a time when many are trying to reduce the college years to a training period for economic competition, Delbanco reminds readers of the ideal of democratic education." [ Read More ]

Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth shares his thoughts on commencement and the challenges the class of 2012 faces as they head out into the world. "We remember, but what shall we do with these memories? I trust you will gratefully acknowledge those who have sacrificed to nurture you, to guide you, and to protect our freedoms...I trust that you will practice forms of thinking that create opportunity rather than defend inequality and privilege." [ Read More ]

In a guest posting in a blog by the Post's Daniel DeVise, Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth announced the university's new path to a three-year degree, which does not skimp on academic courses or rigor, but requires no overloads. Roth also discusses his reasons for the three-year degree. [ Read More ]

Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth gives Claude Lanzmann's new memoir The Pantagonian an endorsement with a caveat: "The Patagonian Hare is full of Lanzmann’s cloying self-regard, but we accept it for the single reason that he created “Shoah,” his 1985 documentary about the Nazi war against the Jews, one of the masterworks of cinema. A man who produces a great work of art that succeeds in deeply affecting our consciousness of the past and of the human condition deserves to be listened to. And so we listen to Lanzmann." [ Read More ]

Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth discusses the challenges facing students and families when those college acceptance letters start coming in. This decsion may come down to costs, size of the instution, reputation, or even for some, a return visit to a few of the campuses being considered. Roth offers some suggestions for students and their parents to consider as they juggle this process. [ Read More ]

I read with sadness this morning that the great American poet, Adrienne Rich, died this week at her home in Santa Cruz. She was a brave and ardent writer, a gifted teacher and a powerful voice of conscience. There is no one quite like her in American letters. [ Read More ]

In his first book, Absolute Convictions, Eyal Press showed how anti-abortion crusaders in Buffalo achieved intense solidarity in pursuit of their goals, including the murder of an abortion provider and intimidation of others, such as the author's father. In Beautiful Souls, Press examines another side of strong group conviction: the ability to break ranks with others who display absolute unanimity. He wants to know, "Why, even in situations of seemingly total conformity, there are always some people who refuse to go along?" [ Read More ]

Next week Justice Antonin Scalia will be delivering the Hugo Black Lecture at Wesleyan University. It's been a long time since we've welcomed a Supreme Court Justice to Middletown. Justice Harry Blackmun visited the campus in 1993, giving the second lecture in this series. We've invited others, but given the busy schedule of the Court, we have not been able to arrange a visit. When Justice Scalia accepted the invitation, he said that he had heard positive feedback about the lecture series and Wesleyan from his former law clerk, Lawrence Lessig, who spoke here a couple of years ago. [ Read More ]

This week the Supreme Court voted to hear a challenge to the ability of colleges and universities to shape the racial and ethnic demographics of their student bodies. Currently, schools are allowed to use race as a factor among many others in achieving diversity for educational reasons. When the Court hears Fisher vs. the University of Texas, we may find that the justices set strict limits on how universities can consider race in their efforts to create an educational environment in which all students learn -- and learn from one another. [ Read More ]

It's been more than a little depressing to listen to debate performances over the last couple of months, in which candidates seem to gain in popularity by refining a formula of indignation and hostility. "How dare you," says the candidate, puffing out his chest, wondering how any questioner could sink so low to ask about a character flaw. The same candidate then dives even lower to cast aspersions on anyone who might be considered a rival. [ Read More ]

The news about the American education system has been bleak over the last year—from elementary schools that seem “designed to fail” to for-profit universities that are scooping up borrowed tuition dollars without providing their graduates with much hope of gainful employment. No surprise then that the American public has grown increasingly suspicious of educators and their institutions. [ Read More ]

In the first half of 2011, we heard the word “deficit” in wave after wave of political discourse. The Republicans used it as a signifier of Washington’s lack of fiscal self-control—of an intellectually and morally bankrupt government that spent our money without concern for the views of those who had earned it in the first place. The “deficit” was real, and it was also symbolic of a failure to maintain an economy that promised a reasonable opportunity for creating a better future. [ Read More ]

The Occupy Wall Street protests have become an important topic on college campuses. At Wesleyan, some of our students have joined the group in Zuccotti Park in New York, and others have found a variety of ways of expressing their support. Given the mainstream media's treatment of the movement, it's easy to mock the lack of clear policy initiatives or to roll one's eyes at the absence of leaders to express a neat list of demands. But in talking with students and reading some of the statements from the Occupy Wall Street participants, it seems to me that we get a pretty clear picture of their discontent. [ Read More ]

The free inquiry and experimentation of our education helps us to think for ourselves, take responsibility for our beliefs and actions, and be better acquainted with our own desires, our own hopes. [ Read More ]

On this 10th anniversary of 9/11 let us simply acknowledge the claim that our painful memories still have on us. Let us recognize with piety that we still carry the traces of those traumatic events with us, and that we acknowledge their importance to us without trying to use them. [ Read More ]

1 day ago ... Labor is on the mind of our students and their families in a more general sense this year. The awful job situation in the United States has lasted ... [ Read More ]

This week, while President Obama and House Speaker Boehner gave dueling speeches of blame and recrimination, a new report was released showing the extraordinary increase in the disparity of wealth between whites and nonwhites in the United States. The new data allows us to understand the stalemate in Washington over raising the debt ceiling from another perspective. And it indicates that the defense of racial and economic privilege under the rhetoric of "taking back our country" or of "living within our means" further undermines our political culture today as it starves future generations of cultural and economic opportunity. [ Read More ]

Let us not ignore our responsibility to invest in the future by supporting education. We must not allow our representatives to protect tax breaks for the most advantaged while ignoring our responsibility to give the next generation the education they need. [ Read More ]

Sensible government seems to have become a contradiction in terms. Democratic leaders have no ideas of their own, while Republican leaders are dedicated to protecting the rich -- not to fiscal responsibility. [ Read More ]

... I am hopeful that those who will shape the future will also have cultivated the ability to renew the pantheon of great work from the past ... [ Read More ]

When it works well, our higher education sector offers a wide range of choices to students who hope to build on their education in different ... [ Read More ]

... Cultivation of specialization, powerful departments, and intellectual fragmentation are linked in an unholy alliance that undermines the ... [ Read More ]

Bill Gates has been calling for a targeted investment in the sciences and engineering. Steve Jobs recently emphasized the arts and ... [ Read More ]

... President Obama should realize that innovation in technology companies, automobile design, medicine or food production does not come only ... [ Read More ]

... I returned to Wesleyan University as president more than four years ago, and even though now some of this activism is directed against me, ...

... While acknowledging our separation from one another, Allen Shawn has made a brotherly gift that recalls the possibilities of connection ... [ Read More ]

... Obama has often repeated his goal for K-12 education: college preparedness -- but why make college the goal if students aren't going to ... [ Read More ]

... Anger is routinely mistaken for caring, for intelligence, and, worst of all, for courage. But when you sow rage, you reap violence. [ Read More ]

... Although as a university president I spent much of my time in meetings, my colleagues tell me that I'm happiest just after I come back from ... [ Read More ]

... Our frustration with Obama's leadership has not just been disappointment with specific policies that haven't worked. The frustration and the ... [ Read More ]

... In this age of degraded political discourse and anonymously funded attack ads, it's easy to see the reasons for the cynical withdrawal from ... [ Read More ]

Over the last thirty to forty years, higher education in America has viewed contributions to research as an essential part of its mission. In recent years the folly of this system has become increasingly evident… [ Read More ]

On this Labor Day all of us working in higher education should remember those who won’t have to report this week at all because there aren’t enough jobs… [ Read More ]

It's a curious week when the New York Times runs two stories that defend traditional liberal arts education. And it's only Wednesday! [ Read More ]

In thousands of homes with high school seniors aspiring to study at selective schools, the time has come for making tough choices. The thick envelopes (or weighty emails) arrived a couple of weeks ago, and the month of April is decision time. Of course, for many the decision will be made on an economic basis. [ Read More ]

When we were kids, our aunt told us to "clean our plates, children are starving in Europe." In Europe? Where did she ever get that crazy idea, I wondered. Halfway through Richard Reeves' excellent Daring Young Men, I learned that all across America in the late 1940s mothers were saying something similar to their children. [ Read More ]

On the eve of the health care vote liberal columnist Paul Krugman wrote in the Times that "our system is unique in its cruelty," as he urged passage of the imperfect but still progressive bill. [ Read More ]

A strategic planning process is valuable when it brings to the fore ideas that people already have about the direction of an institution but haven't articulated clearly. As our Chair of the Board Joshua Boger likes to say, "You don't make up a strategy, you discover the one you really mean to have." [ Read More ]

When I began reading The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, I had the feeling of reliving a bad dream.  The sordid and the sanctimonious, the crazy and the corrupt, the hypocrisy of those last years of the Clinton administration and, well, especially the hypocrisy were just awful to recall. [ Read More ]

This week political science professor Gerard Alexander hit a chord (or was it a nerve?) with his Washington Post essay on "why liberals are so condescending." Despite the recent successes of the Tea Party movement, Scott Brown, and a filibuster-happy Senate, Alexander repeats the old refrain: We conservatives get no respect. [ Read More ]

Last week's election of the photogenic Scott Brown in Massachusetts has been greeted with stupefaction. How could the unaccomplished Brown take over the seat of the Lion of the Senate? [ Read More ]

The antivocational dimension of the humanities has been a source of pride and embarrassment for generations. The persistence of this reputed uselessness is puzzling given the fact that an education in the humanities allows one to develop skills in reading, writing, reflection, and interpretation that are highly prized in our economy and culture. [ Read More ]

A couple of days ago on my university Blog someone wrote in: "The fact that being admitted into Wesleyan is even more difficult this year is great for Wes, but terrifying for people like me. Even though I applied ED 1 and will know in less than two weeks, it still is terrifying." [ Read More ]

Lately there has been much talk about a crisis in American higher education. Business leaders and army generals, artists and scientists are all trying to figure out how to build on what is working in our universities and to get rid of those things that have outlived their usefulness. What kind of college experience best prepares our young men and women for the challenges ahead? [ Read More ]

The disappointment was clear enough. The turnout in Virginia and New Jersey ensured that the progressive wave some of us last year thought might wash across the country had a strong undertow, or at least a rip current. The noise came from the shrill predictions that now there is a fresh conservative tide returning to wash away the hopes for change. [ Read More ]

The day before the election I attended our local Chamber of Commerce's annual Veterans' breakfast. One of our students who has received a new scholarship for vets was kind enough to attend with our Wesleyan University contingent... [ Read More ]

Although universities have often been sites of great political agitation, students have rarely played such an important a role in electoral politics. Part of the reason this has changed, we know, is that Barack Obama has generated enormous excitement among young people across the country. [ Read More ]

It was obvious that Senator McCain was doing whatever he could to get a rise out of his opponent, throwing everything from terrorist associations to the specter of class warfare (socialism!) at Barack. Obama smiled, occasionally shook his head with an air of bemusement, but generally refused to take the bait. [ Read More ]

Nowadays we hear the word "trust" used all the time in relation to the credit crunch and the steep decline in stock markets. It's bad enough for the economy when a business can't provide credit to a consumer. No car loan, no sales; no sales, no dealership; no dealership, no factory and so on. [ Read More ]