ACTA's Veronica Bryant welcomes David Rohrbacher, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs and Professor of Classics at the New College of Florida. NCF made headlines after they skyrocketed from an "F" grade to a "B+" rating in ACTA's What Will They Learn? Project (WWTL), becoming this year's "most improved school." WWTL assigns letter grades based on the rigor of the core curriculum at over 1,100 American colleges and universities. This improvement was thanks to a total overhaul of their general education program in 2024. Professor Rohrbacher discusses how that change came about and the innovative academic reforms that engage NCF students in substantive, serious coursework.

On this episode of Higher Ed Now, ACTA's Michael Poliakoff hosts Washington & Lee University's John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics, Lucas Morel. Professor Morel currently serves on the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission and ACTA's National Commission on American History and Civic Education. He has also co-edited the book "Measuring the Man: The Writings of Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln," a groundbreaking new volume on how abolitionist Frederick Douglass's view of Abraham Lincoln evolved as America navigated its way through the Civil War and, eventually, to the Emancipation Proclamation.

A very special video version of this episode is available on YouTube now!

ACTA's Academic Affairs Fellow Veronica Bryant welcomes Glenn Corn, who spent 35 years working in the national security and international affairs community. Mr. Corn served as CIA chief of station for four different Eurasian and Middle Eastern countries. He now teaches graduate-level courses in International Affairs and Security Studies at the Institute of World Politics. In addition to his teaching work, Mr. Corn provides strategic advising and consulting, acts as a visiting fellow at George Mason University's law school's National Security Institute, and serves as an expert contributor to the Cipher Brief. Mr. Corn compellingly argues that language learning is essential, both for an intelligence career and for national security.