April leads Braver Angels’ national program of community debates, and is co-director of the College Debates and Discourse alliance between Braver Angels, ACTA, and BridgeUSA. April designed Braver Angels Debates and has grown the program from its first debate to serving over 1,000 participants per month. Serving on the leadership team at Braver Angels, she oversees a team of 50 volunteers and staff to administer the organization’s community debate work and is lead voice in public-facing communications. Previously, she provided research and editing for David Brooks’ weekly columns at The New York Times. Most recently, she cofounded and served as the Associate Director for Brooks’ new Aspen Institute initiative, Weave: the Social Fabric Project. She has also worked at the U.S. Treasury Department, the New Haven Mayor’s Office, and as a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton. She grew up in Kansas, studied anthropology at Yale University, and now lives in Los Angeles with her dog June. If you want to know more about April and all the work that she does, check her out on our podcast.
Cornell University’s Student Assembly recently approved Resolution 31, which “implores all instructors to provide content warnings on the syllabus for any traumatic content that may be discussed, including but not limited to: sexual assault, domestic violence, self-harm, suicide, child abuse, racial hate crimes, transphobic violence, homophobic harassment, [and] xenophobia.”
On March 29th, Michael Poliakoff testified along with other higher education experts before the Workforce and Higher Education Committee of the Ohio Legislature regarding SB 83, “The Enact Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act.” Introduced by State Senator Jerry Cirino, SB 83 would prohibit mandatory DEI training and ban political litmus tests in hiring and admissions. The bill would also require new trustees to receive orientation regarding their fiduciary responsibilities to their school and Ohio taxpayers.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) is delighted to welcome the Institute for Advancing American Values at Boise State University, the Center for Free Enterprise & Entrepreneurship at Florida Southern College, the Humanities Center at Miami University, and the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage at the University of Oklahoma into the Oases of Excellence network.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has unequivocally made clear that being a college trustee is a serious job for serious people. Some may say he is engineering a “hostile takeover” of New College of Florida (NCF); others will say he is saving higher education from “woke indoctrination” and wasteful spending through his new appointees to the […]
Will every State University of New York (SUNY) student be compelled to absorb fashionable social justice theories,without being required to learn the basics of American history or government? Is the whole of the American experience less important than a narrow slice of it? SUNY reported this week that it has added a new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice general education […]
A new series at the Palm Beach Synagogue is bringing thought-provoking speakers to the island to discuss social and cultural topics. The Levy Series, sponsored by synagogue members and Palm Beach residents Paul and Karen Levy, begins Wednesday with New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens speaking on cancel culture and the Jewish community. The […]
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