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

Join us in person at Wednesdays at the Center as Eric Mlyn discusses American Higher Education caught in the crosshairs of American politics. 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. Speaker: 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. This event is organized by the John Hope Franklin Center, Kenan Institute for Ethics and the Sanford School of Public Policy. Event will be located in the John Hope Franklin Center, 2204 Erwin Road. Parking is available in the hospital garage. Vehicles enter the garage at 2223 Elba Street. A 1-hour parking voucher will be provided at the end of the talk.