Democratic decline in the United States and globally, a lack of confidence in political institutions and an increasingly violent and divisive political climate raise many questions for the state of political learning and civic engagement. A decade ago, a task force commissioned by the United States Department of Education called on colleges and universities to affirm their missions to educate for democracy. Relatively few have made the investment, though dozens of higher education associations and organizations have publicly committed their support to prepare students to address the persistent public issues they are inheriting. While there has been a recent upward spike in rote civic knowledge and historically high youth voting rates, the United States has seen a decline in political rights and civil liberties and has been listed as a backsliding democracy. Since 2010, state legislatures have passed laws making it harder to vote, with access to the ballot increasingly dependent on which party controls the state legislature. Meanwhile, substantial dysfunction and hyperpartisanship in Congress, concerns over the impartiality of the judiciary and limited accountability and oversight of the executive branch have contributed to the loss of institutional capacity to address public problems and to declining public confidence in political institutions. These trends coincide with problematic rhetoric and growing scrutiny from public officials on how colleges and universities educate students on public issues, particularly those centered on class, race, ethnicity and social justice. Issues of free speech and expression have been further nationalized following a high-profile hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce that questioned the presidents of Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Pennsylvania about antisemitism on their campuses and as campus protests regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been met with heavy-handed responses. These episodes serve as loud warning shots to colleges and universities across the country. Academic freedom and freedom of speech - core tenets of a liberal education - are at risk. Can higher education step up and meet the moment? Collectively, contributors to this volume - who come from a broad range of institutions, experiences and perspectives - provide critical research and analyses, as well as innovative approaches for how higher education can fulfill its public role and contribute to building the democratic societies we need.

Following the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the presidential election of 2016, many prominent scholars and political pundits argued that a successful Democratic Party in the future must abandon identity politics. While these calls for Democrats to distance themselves from such strategies have received much attention, there is scant academic work that empirically tests whether nonracial campaigns provide an advantage to Democrats today. As Christopher Stout explains, those who argue for deracialized appeals to voters may not be considering how several high-profile police shootings and acquittals, increasing evidence of growing racial health and economic disparities, retrenchments on voting rights, and the growth of racial hate groups have made race a more salient issue now than in the recent past. Moreover, they fail to account for how demographic changes in the United States have made racial and ethnic minorities a more influential voting bloc. The Case for Identity Politics finds that racial appeals are an effective form of outreach for Democratic candidates and enhance, rather than detract from, their electability in our current political climate.

A faith that changed history: this is the story of William Wilberforce's struggle to abolish the Slave Trade and reform the morals of Great Britain. In God's Politician, Garth Lean provides an insightful and stirring account of how Wilberforce and his colleagues in the Clapham circle put their faith into action and changed the course of history. Their legacy was one of far-reaching moral renewal as well as testimony to the power of the individual to effect change in his world. Foreword by Charles W. Colson

In an environment of diminishing resources, growing enrollment, and increasing expectations of accountability, Lean Higher Education: Increasing the Value and Performance of University Processes provides the understanding and the tools required to return education to the consumers it was designed to serve the students. It supplies a unifying framew

An eye-opening analysis of collegiate activism and its effects on the divisions in contemporary American politics. The past six years have been marked by a contentious political atmosphere that has touched every arena of public life, including higher education. Though most college campuses are considered ideologically progressive, how can it be that the right has been so successful in mobilizing young people even in these environments? As Amy J. Binder and Jeffrey L. Kidder show in this surprising analysis of the relationship between political activism on college campuses and the broader US political landscape, while liberal students often outnumber conservatives on college campuses, liberal campus organizing remains removed from national institutions that effectively engage students after graduation. And though they are usually in the minority, conservative student groups have strong ties to national right-leaning organizations, which provide funds and expertise, as well as job opportunities and avenues for involvement after graduation. Though the left is more prominent on campus, the right has built a much more effective system for mobilizing ongoing engagement. What’s more, the conservative college ecosystem has worked to increase the number of political provocations on campus and lower the public’s trust in higher education. In analyzing collegiate activism from the left, right, and center, The Channels of Student Activism shows exactly how politically engaged college students are channeled into two distinct forms of mobilization and why that has profound consequences for the future of American politics.

How divergent campus cultures affect conservative college students Conservative pundits allege that the pervasive liberalism of America's colleges and universities has detrimental effects on undergraduates, most particularly right-leaning ones. Yet not enough attention has actually been paid to young conservatives to test these claims—until now. In Becoming Right, Amy Binder and Kate Wood carefully explore who conservative students are, and how their beliefs and political activism relate to their university experiences. Rich in interviews and insight, Becoming Right illustrates that the diverse conservative movement evolving among today’s college students holds important implications for the direction of American politics.