STANFORD ALUMNI
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CRITICAL THINKING

 

March 16, 2026

 

College Leaders Reflect on the Future of Higher Education

 

Excerpts:

 

“At [Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research's] economic summit [two weeks ago], Provost Jenny Martinez, former President John Hennessy, and leaders from UC Berkeley, Brown, and Oregon discussed challenges and opportunities for universities.

 

“American universities are facing some of their steepest challenges in decades, including funding cuts, eroding public trust, political controversies, and an AI revolution that is transforming how students learn.

 

“But at Stanford’s SIEPR Economic Summit, leaders from several prominent U.S. universities argued that the moment could also be an opportunity to rebuild trust, discard outdated practices, and focus on what universities do better than anyone else.

 

“‘It’s a time for universities to go back to first principles -- what are we good at? What is our distinctive role in society?’ Martinez said at the summit. ‘We’re places of discovery and places of learning, and those are critical functions for society.’...

 

“If people aren’t sharing their views and learning to engage with those they disagree with, we can’t have the kind of functioning democracy that America has benefited from over the last centuries,’ Martinez said.

 

“She also emphasized the importance of academic freedom -- the ability to consider ideas that might seem unorthodox or controversial.

 

“Without it, she said, ‘you’re not going to get to the discoveries that are so foundational to the progress of science, of technology, of the economy and society.’”

 

[Followed by discussion of AI’s impact on learning, a new economic model for universities, and China and national security.]

 

Full article at Stanford Report. Video of the full one-hour panel here.

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​See also our Back to Basics at Stanford webpage.

 

Forming Virtuous Minds

 

Excerpts (links in the original):

. . . .

“The University of Tulsa’s Honors College is not the only program to face liberal arts cuts and closures. Since 2023, nearly 50 nonprofit institutions have closed their doors, with at least 40 merging with other institutions since 2020. This comes at a time when trust in higher education remains fragile, enrollments are down, and perceptions of a college education are at a low point....

 

“Political pressure from both sides of the aisle has hastened the decline of the liberal arts. The left has hollowed out traditional curricula, replacing the liberal arts with ideology-driven ‘grievance studies.’ The right, meanwhile, increasingly judges degrees by a single metric: whether they lead directly to a high-paying job -- a standard that consigns most of the humanities to irrelevance....

 

“. . . Courses in Western civilization must be strengthened, along with English and languages, while ideology-driven courses must go. Ian Oxnevad, the National Association of Scholars (NAS) Senior Fellow for Foreign Affairs and Security Studies, writes for Minding the Campus how the reform and restoration of language instruction is vital to the West’s civilizational continuation....

 

“. . . Schools must not equate ‘studies’ or ‘grievance’ programs with standard liberal arts courses. These programs often degrade education, radicalizing students by simply keeping them at arm's length from studying the fruits of their civilization. Very few students want to sign up for a program that teaches them to despise their way of life. No English literature graduate should leave their program believing that the English in their degree name ought to be struck out of existence after a four-year program of postcolonial theory, gender studies, queer theory, critical race theory, intersectional feminism, and fat studies.  

 

“The liberal arts are necessary to the health and vitality of our culture. A liberal arts education forms students into wise and thoughtful leaders with a deep understanding of the Western mores needed for society to flourish. Such education instills a never-ending hunger for not only the ‘hows’ but also the ‘whys,’ lending to continual growth and improvement, personally and then society as a whole. The liberal arts mold the whole person, ideally into a virtuous citizen. This is why it is our mission at the NAS to uphold the standards of a liberal arts education that fosters intellectual freedom, searches for the truth, and promotes virtuous citizenship.”  

 

Full article at National Association of Scholars.

 

See also “UT-Austin to Consolidate Seven Liberal Arts Departments, Including African Studies and Women's and Gender Studies” at EDU Ledger (formerly known as Diverse Issues in Higher Education): “Under the plan, the departments of African and African Diaspora Studies; American Studies; Mexican American and Latina/o Studies; and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies will be merged into a new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. Separately, the departments of French and Italian Studies; Germanic Studies; and Slavic and Eurasian Studies will be folded into a new Department of European and Eurasian Studies. The university has also launched a curriculum review to determine which majors and minors will continue to be offered under the consolidated departments.”

 

Also discussed at City Journal.

 

See also “UVA Ecofeminist Course Has Students Listen to Birds, Lichen, Etc. to Understand Oppression” at College Fix: “The syllabus defines ecofeminist research as ‘any mode of inquiry guided by critical ecological feminism, the idea that women and the more-than-human world share a political fate determined by a master model that divides up the world into unequal and antagonistic dualisms.’” 

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​See also our Ask AI webpage with detailed analyses of the issues colleges and universities are currently facing.

 

Other Articles of Interest

 

What’s Keeping College and University Presidents Up at Night in 2026

Full article at Inside Higher Ed.

 

What AI Can’t Give Your College Student

Full op-ed by Stanford alum and Sarah Lawrence Prof. Samuel J. Abrams at Real Clear Education.

 

AI Is Not Replacing Learning, It’s Exposing Where Learning Was Thin to Begin With

Full op-ed by U Virginia Prof. Xinyao Yi at Inside Higher Ed.

 

To Prepare for a Future With AI, We Must Educate Differently

Full op-ed by Junior Achievement USA CEO Jack Harris at DC Journal.

 

Why Grad Students at Columbia May Go on Strike

Full article at Free Press: “’They’ve singularly focused on pursuing policies that are meant to disenfranchise Jews and Israelis, as opposed to pursuing and negotiating on policies for the betterment of all student workers,’ one Columbia grad student told me." But see also “The powerful United Auto Workers won’t allow a strike on campus if the grad students’ union clings to its obsession with politics,” also at Free Press.

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Why We Care -- Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford

 

Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.

 

Immune ‘Peacekeepers’ Teach the Body Which Foods are Safe to Eat

 

Probing Electrical Signals to Understand Alzheimer’s Disease

 

New Approach Could Accelerate Historical Analysis by Teaching AI to Read Documents Like Scholars Do

 

Researchers Design 3D-Printed Materials for Fusion Reactors and Other Clean Energy Systems

 

Engineers Improve Infrared Devices Using Century-Old Materials​​​

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