The forum for higher ed’s most consequential debates

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Dear Reader,

Twenty-five years ago, the first edition of The Chronicle Review rolled off the presses and into mailboxes. Much has changed — for one thing, the internet was in its infancy when we launched — but The Review’s mission has remained constant: Be the place where higher ed comes to argue with itself. Why? Because intellectual conflict and rigorous debate are essential to higher education.

How do we pursue our mission? By adhering to core principles.

Our job isn’t to tell you what to think; it’s to help you think. Review editors are conveners, not advocates. We curate a venue where viewpoints can constructively clash. While that can be entertaining, it also serves an essential purpose: helping readers figure out what they think about the most consequential questions confronting colleges.

Independence. If we want to be the place where higher education argues with itself, it helps not to put our thumb on the scale. This is something The Chronicle’s founding editor, Corbin Gwaltney, understood decades ago, and it continues to guide us today. Corbin insisted that The Chronicle would have no editorial board or editorial page, no party line to push on the sector. Rather, we would recruit writers who have something significant to say, are eager to take intellectual risks, and are willing to subject their arguments to rigorous editing.

Pitch a big tent. Monocultures make for dull reading — and yield little insight. To understand what’s going on in higher education, you must expose yourself to a wide range of viewpoints. The most valuable thing you read today might very well be an essay you disagree with vehemently. To know what you think, and why, you have to know why other people might think you’re wrong. “Steel sharpens steel” is a cliché for a reason. We believe in the value of placing disparate ideas in conversation with one another.

What will you find in The Review?

Expert analysis: Take a topic much in dispute: accreditation. Last month President Trump signed an executive order that redefined the role of accreditors. "This feels like an inflection point," write Greg D. Pillar and Laurie Shanderson in The Review. They see ample need for reform, but Trump's approach, they argue, "would transform accreditation into a political instrument, undermining the very neutrality that gives the process its value." Samuel Negus, on the other hand, argues that this misses what's notable about the executive order, which is how it will reorient higher education’s civil-rights regime. How this debate plays out will have far-reaching consequences for colleges.

Provocations: "An AI arms race is underway," writes Scott Latham, a professor of strategy at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. In a sweeping speculative essay, Latham sketches the contours of disruption and envisions the rise of autonomous AI universities, which he predicts will appear as soon as 2030. Hyperbolic? Maybe, but Latham's essay performs an essential service by peering into the future.

Provocations: "An AI arms race is underway," writes Scott Latham, a professor of strategy at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. In a sweeping speculative essay, Latham sketches the contours of disruption and envisions the rise of autonomous AI universities, which he predicts will appear as soon as 2030. Hyperbolic? Maybe, but Latham's essay performs an essential service by peering into the future.

In-depth conversations: What does longtime Columbia president Lee Bollinger think of the Trump administration’s punitive policies? We asked. Are colleges rife with antisemitism? And if so, what should be done? We put that question to a roundtable of scholars and advocates with very different views. What are the legal limits of Trump’s higher-ed interventions? We assembled an eclectic group of legal experts to weigh in.

For the latest from The Review, check out senior editor Len Gutkin’s must-read weekly dispatch from the frontlines of academic controversy. Simply put, Len is your smartest guide to the intellectual faultlines shaping academe. Sign up here.

Sincerely,

Evan Goldstein

Editor, The Chronicle Review