Academia at a Crossroads

08/14/24 • 51 min

2 Listeners

The challenges for university presidents keep coming, from Middle East protests to standardized testing and admissions debates, to complaints over classroom content and pedagogical methods. The American public has little faith in college administrators right now, according to polling, and it’s often unclear how institutions can move forward and assuage the critics. Not to mention how to best educate our future leaders and citizens. A panel of wide-ranging experts on college life tackles these issues head on at the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival, sharing examples from their schools and answering audience questions. Two college presidents, Dr. Sian Beilock of Dartmouth and L. Song Richardson, formerly of Colorado College, bring the perspective of leadership to the conversation. Theo Baker, a Stanford University student and investigative journalist known for exposing falsifications in the former Stanford president’s research, speaks to the student experience at a well-resourced institution. And the CEO of U.S. News and World Report, Eric Gertler, explains how the higher education watchdog publication is observing the landscape. Financial Times editorial board member and columnist, and provost of Kings College, Cambridge University in the UK, Gillian Romaine Tett, moderates the discussion.

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Previous Episode

Peter Thiel — On the Record with an Iconoclast

Whether they publicly tout it or not, U.S. technology companies play a powerful role in politics, cultural issues and the way we live. Founder and investor Peter Thiel is one of the more visible and outspoken Silicon Valley figures. A member of the so-called "PayPal Mafia," a highly successful group of PayPal founders and employees, Thiel waded into the limelight in the lead-up to the 2016 election when he became an avid supporter and funder of the Trump campaign. While Trump and Thiel’s relationship has reportedly suffered since then, he explains in this interview at the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival why he’ll likely still vote for Trump in 2024, but not donate to any campaigns. Co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Andrew Ross Sorkin presses Thiel on what another Trump presidency could mean for the country and democracy. Since this conversation was recorded on June 27, Trump selected Thiel’s mentee J.D. Vance as his vice presidential pick, and Thiel reportedly may be warming up to stronger support of the campaign. Sorkin also picks Thiel’s brain on the future of AI, cryptocurrency and cultural clashes in Silicon Valley and the tech world.

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AI Superthinker

Where will artificial intelligence be in five years, or 10 or 20? What happens if the technology is regulated? And if it isn’t? How will it shape the world and the way we live our lives? The CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, has been working in this young field for more than a decade. He knows the AI landscape inside and out, and is a level-headed advocate for the technology’s future. He talks with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin, the co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” about how to proceed carefully and bring out the best version of AI while fostering progress. He believes friction and regulation aren’t necessarily a bad thing for an industry that could literally change the way we think about ourselves as humans. Suleyman is the bestselling author of “The Coming Wave: Technology, Power and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma.” Their conversation took place at the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival.

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