W@TC: Democracy and American Higher Education: Higher Education in the Crosshairs

This presentation will focus on current and historical controversies surrounding the politics of American higher education, with a focus on recent state level interventions into the workings of public higher education. Particular attention will be paid to the emergence of right-wing populism and its attacks on DEI, tenure and shared governance. Eric Mlyn is a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics and Lecturer at Duke's Sanford School for Public Policy. He was the founding Executive Director of DukeEngage and Assistant vice Provost for Civic Engagement. Before that he was the founding director of the Robertson Scholars Program and served on the Political Science Faculty of UNC-Chapel Hill. He is currently the Director of the Certificate in Civic Engagement and Social Change and chairs Duke's Global Travel Advisory Committee. He leads a project on Democracy and Higher Education Democracy and Higher Education which gathers faculty, administrators, and members of the public to reflect on how the university should respond to ongoing threats towards democratic values and principles. He holds a BA in Political Science from Tufts University and PHD in Political Science from the University of Minnesota. During the fall of 2019 he will be a visiting scholar at the Tisch College for Civic Life at Tufts. Light refreshments will be served.