Michael Roth of Wesleyan University doesn’t hang out with other university presidents. He also thinks some of them have failed a basic test of good sense and decency. It’s time for a conversation about college, and courage.
In our last couple episodes, we looked at fraud in academic publishing, fraud by researchers themselves, by some journals that aren't what they seem, and universities who hush hush their investigations of misconduct.
When you add it all up, it's a scandal.
Today we're talking about another scandal in higher ed.
No, it's not the fact that more and more Americans have decided that college just isn't worth the trouble.
We already covered that in a four part series called freakonomics.
Radio goes back to school.
We're also not talking today about the exorbitant cost of college.
We covered that, too.
Today we are talking about the fact that right now seems to be an absolutely terrible time to be a college president.
If you've been keeping up with the news, you already know this.
University of Pennsylvania president Liz McGill has resigned, as follows McGill's controversial testimony on.
Capitol Hill earlier this week.
The president of Harvard, Claudine Gaye, resigned today following accusations of plagiarism and the universitys alleged mishandling of anti semitism on campus.
And just like that, two Ivy League presidents gone.
You probably also know about that controversial testimony on Capitol Hill.
The part that got everyones attention was a line of questioning put forth by Elise Stefanik, a republican congresswoman from upstate New York, a Harvard graduate herself, who has been mentioned lately as a possible running mate for Donald Trump.
This was at a hearing called holding campus leaders accountable and confronting antisemitism.
It was held in response to some of the demonstrations on college campuses after Hamas attacked Israel, and Israel was in the early stages of retaliating.
Besides the Harvard and UPenn presidents, the hearing included MIT President Sally Kornbluth, the president of Columbia University.
Minouche Shafiq, was also asked to testify, but she had already committed to attending a United nations climate summit in Dubai.