The ATHENA Roundtable—Alumni and Trustees for Higher Education Accountability—is an annual meeting of influential college and university trustees, educators, state policymakers, and alumni leaders from around the country who can make a real difference in the direction of higher education.
The conference spotlights critical issues in higher education, including core curricula, historical literacy, assessment, governance, accreditation, academic freedom, affordability, and teacher education. And it focuses on ways to strengthen relationships among trustees, presidents, faculty, alumni, and donors. ACTA has hosted the annual ATHENA Roundtable since 1996.
The Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education honors individuals who advance liberal arts education, core curricula, and the teaching of Western Civilization and American history. The Award is named in honor of Philip Merrill, a distinguished public servant, publisher, businessman, and philanthropist who served as a trustee of Cornell University, the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, the Aspen Institute, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Throughout his career, Mr. Merrill was an outspoken proponent of academic excellence and an articulate spokesman for the importance of historical literacy in a free society. Mr. Merrill was also a charter member of ACTA’s national council. The Award recognizes outstanding individuals for extraordinary achievement in promoting liberal arts education.
Read the remarks of our 2022 winner, John H. McWhorter, where he posed the question, “Is the problem free speech or modernity?”
A Selection Committee composed of distinguished educational and civic leaders advises on the selection of the awardee. Nominations come from prominent individuals in the higher education community and colleges and university trustees across the country. Candidates for the award include distinguished writers and scholars, college and university professors and administrators, government officials, and public-spirited citizens who have demonstrated a significant dedication to the advancement of liberal arts education.
Members of the Selection Committee are composed of Paula S. Fichtner, professor of history emerita at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York; Alan Charles Kors, emeritus professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania; Tom McMillen, former U.S. Congressman and former regent of the University System of Maryland; Abigail L. Rosenthal (Martin), professor emerita of philosophy at Brooklyn College of CUNY; Sally Satel, Yale lecturer and Brady Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; and Gordon Wood, emeritus professor of history at Brown University; Anne D. Neal former president of ACTA, President and CEO of National Association for Olmsted Parks; Hank Brown former U.S. Senator, Former U.S. Representative, president emeritus of the University of Colorado, and former president of the University of Northern California.
To nominate a candidate for the Philip Merrill Award, please click here.
*Indicates recipient is deceased
The Jerry L. Martin Prize for Excellence in College Trusteeship is presented to recognize exemplary service and leadership by college and university trustees in the public interest. It is named in honor of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s founding president Jerry L. Martin, who understood the critical role that engaged and informed trustees play in ensuring higher education excellence and accountability.
The Honorable José A. Cabranes, United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, warns of the destructive synergy of non-academic administrators and student activists on freedom of expression at America’s colleges and universities. He gave this speech upon accepting ACTA’s 2019 Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to […]
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., president of Purdue University, paid tribute to the transformative nature of the liberal arts when studied rigorously and in an atmosphere where the robust clash of ideas is allowed to flourish. He gave this speech upon accepting ACTA’s 2018 Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education on October […]
University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer delivers remarks upon accepting the 2017 Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education. He spoke of how the “openness of universities to divergent and clashing ideas, to analytic debate, to rigor, and to questioning, is a critical ingredient in illuminating societal, scientific, and humanistic issues.” […]
American higher education seems to be in a permanent state of crisis. Almost monthly, a federal court has occasion to reprimand some college or university for improperly chilling speech, even as some students continue to complain that campuses are too friendly to the wrong kind of speakers. Many institutions have cut back on faculty hiring, […]
The eminent historian Niall Ferguson has devastatingly skewered his (and my) field of study in a talk for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, subsequently published as “The Decline and Fall of History.” He starts with the empirical fact that undergraduates are running away from studying history: Compared with 1971 (coincidentally, the year I […]
Almost since the start of Power Line in 2002, we have reported with dismay the descent of American colleges and universities into a leftist bastion of illiberalism. Most of our focus has been on professors, and not without reason. They are the ones who have degraded the teaching of humanities through their obsession with identify […]
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Launched in 1995, we are the only organization that works with alumni, donors, trustees, and education leaders across the United States to support liberal arts education, uphold high academic standards, safeguard the free exchange of ideas on campus, and ensure that the next generation receives an intellectually rich, high-quality college education at an affordable price.
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