The Daily Signal - Hillsdale College President Explains Why Campus Will Be Open This Fall

Episode Date: May 29, 2020

Hillsdale College will be one of the only colleges, if not the only college, this year planning to hold an in-person commencement ceremony for its graduates. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College and a trustee of The Heritage Foundation, joins The Daily Signal podcast today to discuss why the college has chosen to take this stand. He also talks about why Hillsdale College plans to be welcoming students back in the fall, Generation Z, and more. Listen to the podcast, or read the lightly edited transcript below. We also cover these stories: The Justice Department is investigating “unmasking” that occurred before and after the 2016 election. Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, says social media platforms should not be arbiters of truth.  President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday about 100,000 people who have died in the United States due to the coronavirus.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, May 29th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Dutas. It's safe to say that Hillsdale College will be one of the only, if not the only college this year, planning to hold an in-person commencement ceremony for its graduates. Mary Arne, president of Hillsdale College, who has also been on the board of the Heritage Foundation since 2002, joins me on the Daily Signal podcast today to discuss why the college has chosen to take this. stand. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star

rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now under our top news. On Thursday, President Trump announced an executive order affecting social media platforms. The order comes after Trump aired frustration on Twitter after the social media company flagged one of his tweets about voting with a fact check label with a message reading, get the facts about mail in ballots, pointing to an article from Twitter headlined, Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail and ballots will lead to voter fraud. Twitter told NBC that Trump's tweets contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have the label to provide additional context around mail and ballots, and that Twitter in May started a policy to control misinformation,

specifically when it pertains to coronavirus. Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder, of Facebook says social media platforms should not be arbiters of truth. Quote, I don't think that Facebook or internet platforms in general should be arbiters of truth. I think that's kind of a dangerous line to get down to in terms of deciding what is true and what isn't, Zuckerberg said on CNBC's Squawk box in an interview that aired Thursday when he was asked about Twitter's fact-checking. And he continues saying, quote, political speech is one of the most sensitive parts in a democracy, and people should be able to see what politicians say. President Trump tweeted Thursday about 100,000 people who have died in the United States due to the

coronavirus. We have just reached a very sad milestone with the coronavirus pandemic deaths, reaching 100,000. Trump tweeted, to all the families and friends of those who have passed, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy and love for everything that these great people stood for and represent. God be with you. Minneapolis experienced large protests for the second night in a row Wednesday in reaction to the death of African American George Floyd. Floyd died on Monday after being arrested and pinned to the ground by a police officer who held his knee to Floyd's neck, while Floyd told the officer he could not breathe.

The officers involved in the situation have been fired, but outrage across Minneapolis and other parts of America have led to large protest. protests. Protesters in Minneapolis looted businesses, including a target Wednesday night, and one demonstrator is reported to have been shot and killed by a shop owner. Video of the protests in Minneapolis show police firing rubber bullets from rooftops and releasing tear gas into the crowds. In a joint statement released Thursday morning, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, and the FBI's Minneapolis Field Office so they have agreed to launch, quote, a robust criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the May 25th, 2020 death of George Floyd.

The Justice Department is investigating unmasking that occurred before and after the 2016 election. Unmasking is the term used to describe when a government official or lawmaker asks for a person included as a conversationalist in a classified report to be named. It recently emerged that Michael Flynn, the former Trump National Socialists, Security Advisor wasn't masked at the request of the Obama administration officials. Justice Department spokeswoman Carrie Kupak told Fox News Hannity that Attorney General William Barr had appointed John Bash, who is a U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas to head the investigation. Kupak said that Batch would be working with John Durham, a U.S.

attorney in charge of the investigation of how the Russia collusion narrative and probe began. Hupac added. Unmasking inherently isn't wrong, but certainly the frequency, the motivation, and the reasoning behind unmasking can be problematic. And when you're looking at unmasking as a part of a broader investigation, like John Durham's investigation, looking specifically at who was unmasking whom, can add a lot to our understanding about motivation and big picture events. Another 2.1 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, according to the Department of Labor's latest report released Thursday. This brings the total number of unemployment claims to just over 40 million since COVID-19 led to the shutdown of large parts of the economy in March.

The Heritage Foundation's Paul Winfrey and Charmaine Yost have urged state and local leaders to allow economies to reopen in areas of the country with few COVID-19 cases, writing, quote, just five states, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California, account for 54% of all of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and 61% of all related deaths. Most counties, 80%, have had less than five deaths related to the new coronavirus. China's National People's Congress chose to approve a controversial so-called national security law passed almost unanimously, which has been sparking protests across Hong Kong. According to the Heritage Foundation's Mike Gonzalez,

it effectively nullifies the one-country, two-systems model between Hong Kong and China, hampers Hong Kong's presence as a global financial center, and also hampers pro-democracy efforts in Hong Kong. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Larry Arne, president of Hillsdale College, on why Hillsdale College has chosen to have an in-person commencement ceremony, even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. I'm Amy Swearer. And I'm Giancarlo Conoparo.

And if you want to understand what's happening at the Supreme Court, be sure to check out SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast. We take a look at the cases, the personalities, and the gossip at the highest court in the land. It's SCOTUS 101. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Larry Arm, president of Hillsdale College who also has been on the board of the Heritage Foundation since 2002. President Arnett, it's great to have you on the Daily Signal podcast.

Great to be with you. Big, big admirer of the Daily Signal. Well, thank you so much for making the chime to join us. You recently came out with a decision to hold an in-person commencement for the graduating class of 2020 at Hillsdale, which is something that virtually every other educational institution hasn't done this year because of COVID. Can you tell us about that? Well, first of all, the default is we're going to have college.

That's what we do. We've been doing it for 175 years. We didn't stop in the Civil War and we didn't stop in the World Wars and we didn't stop in the Great Depression. You wouldn't stop now unless there was a really good reason. And I don't think there is one. First of all, it now appears clear that this thing is not dangerous to young people. And if it were, that would be different.

but it's not hard to isolate old people because a college is full of young people. I'm an old person. Well, if I don't want to be around them, I could teach online. I'm not going to do that myself, but some will. And, you know, you've got to have to have, you have to have disaffectance. You've got to have a whole lot of things. You have to have quarantine rooms. Although I very much doubt we're going to need them.

We do have all that stuff. And the main thing is we have a right to have college, just like everybody has a right to do what it takes to make a living and to better himself. And so we intend to do it. And I don't think that we'll be stopped, but if somebody tries to stop us, we'll resist that. How did you come to the decision to have this in-person commencement as the plan is? Well, if you work in a college and you keep your eyes open, what do you learn? Commencement is the highest ceremony in a college. It is, it's not really the seniors big day out. It's the annual symbol of the achievement the college seeks, and that is to build in oneself the moral and intellectual virtues.

And that takes all of us. And by celebrating the seniors, we celebrate the common. an effort. And who comes to commencement? You know, who, what does it take to make the achievement of a grown person of good quality? It takes that person, you know, they have to work and have the talent. It takes the parents of that person. It takes the teachers. It takes the friends of the college and of the student. And so if you just look out at a big commencement crowd, we get three or four thousand, typically not that many this time I expect. If you look out on the crowd, those are all the people who've made this happen and they need to get together. And for the same reason, you know, John Henry Newman writes in the idea of University of Great Book of the

19th century that if you had to choose in a college between having a faculty or having a community among the students, you would choose the community among the students. because they learn from each other and with each other and they love each other. And so the idea that you can do that as well remotely is crazy. When the shutdown came, you know, we have a very aggressive governor in this state. She has promulgated 60-sun rules in about that many days, multi-page, detailed documents. The fact, the frequent ends.

asked questions has 850 points in it. So nobody can even read that. Anyway, when the shutdown came, the kids are panicked, right? Because first of all, let's say you're a senior and you're, you know, it's the last half of the spring term, your last term, you're deprived of something big. you're deprived of the culmination of all your work. You're deprived of the chance to say goodbye. And so, you know, I announced that we're going to find a day and have commencement. We're going to give the kids some travel money so they can all come back. And we're going to have a big party of just the kind you're supposed to have.

And we'll take care that it's safe, but we're going to do it. We all have also announced that you're planning to have in-person classes come the fall semester. And can you talk a little bit about just the background context and how you came to that decision as well to plan for your terms of this in the fall? Well, the big thing I needed to know, when this thing hit, the kids were away for spring break. And, you know, college is all over America announced that they weren't inviting the kids back. I announced that too, but only for two weeks. While I found out this one signal fact that matters in a college, is this thing dangerous to the young?

Because if it is dangerous to the young, they live closely together. That's the whole point. That's the charm of it. And so if they're going to get sick, they will get sick more often if they're together. if it's going to kill them or severely injure them, then you can't bring them back.

But come to find out that to the extent that this thing varies from the regular flu about its danger of severe illness or death to the young, it's less than that. And so they're not going to die of this. And, you know, they think they're immortal anyway. Here's a fact to pay attention to, I think. So the first estimates of the death rate of this coronavirus were 3.5% from the World Health Organization. Today, as we speak, there's a overall death rate projected on the Center for Disease Control website of 0.0026%.

That's more than 100 times lower than the initial. projections, and it shows that the death rates are concentrated among people over 70 years old, where they rise to as high as 0.1%. So the point is, I don't, you know, I mean, I think it's safe, but to be doubly sure, then, you know, we're going to take everybody's temperature and we're going to sanitize the rooms we bought, we already have, and we bought a bunch more equipment for that. And we've got a health care facility and it's got ventilators in it now. I doubt if we'll ever use them, but we bought some. So we're going to do what if. And then I just got off the phone with one of my favorite faculty members, a wonderful lady. And she wanted to talk to me directly

because she's afraid, given her age, to teach in class. And I said, well, don't. Nobody's going to be required to do that. The students, if they want to study from home, do so, and some of them may do it, especially if they have what they call comorbidities. But I said, no harm or pressure is going to come to you. The classrooms are set up. You can stay home, and they can be in the classroom, or they can be home. I would guess that very few of the students, nearly none, will stay home. And I would guess that six or eight out of 140 faculty.

members will teach from home, but I don't care how many of it is. We can handle it. That's another thing about this. Right now, it looks like a very, well, it looks like it seems true. A very concentrated part of the population is at risk to this. And so our reaction of that is not to protect them. Our reaction is to stop the whole country. But you can't do that. I propose. I propose. was to some people in the White House. I said, here's a new rule of public health. It should be the first rule. If you prevent people making a living, they will die,

which is why we call it a living. And so this whole thing of shutting down the whole economy, and I agree, I do not criticize that that was done, that it continues, seems to me, monstrous. It doesn't continue everywhere. It's just I happen to be in one of those places where it does. Well, President Arne, what kind of response have you received not only from current students or maybe students who are graduating, but also from potential students who are seeing the kind

of stand that you're taking and I'm sure are, have been able about it. What are you hearing? It's amazing to me. Hillsdale College is a, you know, a united, happy place. We're all here for the same reason. We all sign a code about that. we know we're supposed to be friends. And we are. Having said that, the college has turned into a big old love fest now. We classes, I taught three classes last term. And all the classes end with us all professing our love for each other. And I get a huge correspondence from students. And I, it sounds crazy to say it, but I don't have any complaints. And what they thank me for is being determined to go ahead and have. have school and for the seniors to have a proper commencement. Because think of, you know, think of

your own life. You are doubtless a young person. And you, these years are precious. The time of the young is actually more precious than the time of old people like me. Because what you do when you're young is you build the ability, morally and intellectually, to have a great life. And you need to be about that business urgently. And every achievement you make in that direction will have benefits over a long life that you can look forward to. So to interrupt the work of the young is an especially grievous thing. And we don't think like that. We just think, you know, because remember, we're governed now by expertise. You know, the federal government is more than half the size of the American economy.

And we've just borrowed 25% of the gross domestic product to pay people to stay home and not work. And they make these rules, but they don't really quite know what they're doing. If you work in a college and watch, you get a sense what makes it work. And that, you know, something inspires the labor that will turn an adolescent into an educated 21-year-old. And that thing is what's precious. And that's what makes America go too. So the point is, yeah, people are happy that we're going to come back to work. And if it were true that it were dangerous, well, first of all,

all, I think it isn't. But second, if you think it is, you don't have to come. Well, then that takes the pressure off that. And as I say, I think the overwhelming majority will come. We already hear from them. They're planning to come. Well, as you hinted at the beginning of the last question when you're answering it, can you talk a little bit about, for those who aren't familiar, maybe aren't familiar with Hillsdale College in the incredible institution you are. Can you talk a little bit about what makes Hillsdale's education so unique? Well, first of all, we're, you know, we're an old college, right? We were founded before the Civil War by some New England preachers who were classically educated

patriots. Some of them became friends with Abraham Lincoln. We had a big part in the Civil War. And, you know, we have the, every college in the world of English. any age, let's say, was founded with the idea that there's some things that are proper for a person to know because they're a person, the human things, right? And they're not job training, and although that's valuable. There's something different. They're what you need to know to be an excellent human being and a leading citizen. Hillsdale College was founded for that stuff.

And that gave rise. It was prevalent everywhere in the 19th and more than in about half the 20th century, that that gave rise to a curriculum that was common for all the students. And today we refer to that as a core curriculum, and very few colleges have one of any size. In our college, half the courses are the same for every student. And that means when we get together in the dining hall, whether you're a football player or a physics major, which, by the way, overlap quite a lot, or a singer or whatever, it means half the time. I mean, I'll put it this way. I have three students I've had in class who play in the National Football League,

and I have seven who've been clerks on the Supreme Court. Half the time those 10 kids took the same classes as each other, and a lot of them are friends with each other. So that's what, and then Hillsdale College doesn't take any money from the government, and that's a thing that started, you know, first of all, the money started being offered in about 1960. And that was an interesting story. I've written a book about it.

The Sputnik crisis, Russia got a saddle up in the air before we did. And that was seized as an opportunity to multiply federal influence in colleges and universities. And there's documentary evidence about that. They'd been wanting to do that for a long time. They tried to do it several times. And so, you know, we didn't think that was right. And we were just an old-fashioned place that thought, if the government is in charge of colleges, how can there be independence from the government to train for leadership and citizenship?

And, you know, a lot of colleges said that in 1960, and then one by one by one, all but five or six or seven have started doing it. And we just never did. And it's been good for us not to do it because it reminds us, Why? We have to think about our purposes seriously because we get financed differently than almost all of our competitors. So you all at Hillsdale College recently launched a website that's dedicated to parents and teachers for K-12 Class School Education Resources. Can you tell us about this? Well, we are sponsoring 22 charter schools now spread around the country and a bunch of others associated with us in one way and another. and it's growing.

And we, you know, first of all, K through 12 education is not rocket science. It's K through 12 education. And there are great ways to do it that are known best by people who do it. And so we do it and we have all these other schools and there are partners. And we built a curriculum that we're refining all the time. And the urgent thing this summer is we're trying to keep the intensity up in K through 12. education because learning is a very intense thing. And if you don't work hard, you won't learn. And I said earlier, that's a special tragedy for the young people because they need to learn now

so they can have a great life for the rest of their life. Well, as college costs continue to rise and young adults deal with huge student loan payments, some are wondering, especially at the time if the college education award, what would you say to someone who is questioning whether they should attend college. Well, if your purpose in going to college is to get a job and make money, then it sort of depends on the job. But it's not, as a general rule, a good idea. That's not really what college, when we think of higher education,

what makes it higher? It's not just more. It's also something above. And, you know, everybody has in common that they have to make a living. but also everybody has in common that they have to figure out what to do with that living and how to live. And college, in the old sense and the best sense,

is about that. So the reason to go to college is to become a better person. That will make you more employable. But, you know, if it's just to get a job, I can point you to a welding school in Detroit, actually, an inspiring place. And we supply the civil,

curriculum to this welding school. And you can be a certified welder in 12 weeks, 15 weeks. It costs $17,000. And when you walk out the door, you'll have a job paying $85,000. Now that's, you know, welders are in short supply. And I asked the people who founded it, their name is Mahan and they're very great people, manufacturers in Detroit. And I said, well, aren't robots?

going to do the welding. They said probably it doesn't matter. He said the people we train, they become supervisors in a year or two because they become adaptable and know how to work. And the point is you don't need a four-year education in the stuff they teach in colleges today. You know, that's as much an obstacle as it is to help getting a job. So if you're going to, you know, I'll say, if you're going to go just for that reason, probably shouldn't come to Hillsdale College because you're going to have to learn a foreign language and read a bunch of 3,000-year-old books. Well, as the university president, just lastly here,

what do you think about Generation Z who are beginning to go to college and how do they compare to past generations? Well, that's hard to say because, you know, it's, you know, but yeah, we should be in a position to say, what I can really answer is, how do we compare the students today to the students five years ago and ten years ago.

Well, the ones who are going to college now have always had a cell phone and always been on social media. And, you know, our kids are unusual. They're pretty good, and they come here because they know it's difficult. It's not easy to get in. But they are not used to arguing.

And what I mean is, you say this, I say something back and then you compare your views and try to reach a resolution of it. Social media teaches people to be just emphatic. You just assert what you want to. Free to announce people. Now, our kids don't do that, but there is a lot of that on social media. There will be denunciations of me in the comments on this podcast, I'll bet you.

Right? And because we just do that, right? Whereas if you're in the presence of somebody, you're much more reluctant to do that. And that's bad, right? And it's not good for young people. This idea of unidirectional conversations, that is to say, you talk and I talk, but we don't really listen to each other. That's not good. And so instant is another thing.

I just wrote a really great article called Deep Reading. And a very brilliant man, and he explains that if you read a very difficult book, first of all, there are some books that you should read for the rest of your life. And you can't read very many like that. One of my greatest professors said, first graduate school class I ever went to, you should pick three books. And by the time you die, you should know what's in them. And that means you don't have to read them over and over again. well if you do that you've put a bunch of stuff together

that reaches everywhere human knowledge goes and if on the other hand you read a bunch of tweets the quantity might be the same but the effect is not the same so I think for young people like our schools right we have these what they're 15,000 kids in the schools now

and they all follow curriculum that we devised with the schools well, they don't use technology in the classroom because they need to learn to read and think and compute and do it themselves. So yeah, I worry about things like that and we notice some change in our student body but, you know, we're a pretty intense place

and so we can adjust our reaction to that is, well, okay then, it's got to get tougher. Well, President Arn, thank you so much for joining us today on the Daily Signal Podcast. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. Good work for you. And you guys are great people. And that'll do it for today's episode.

Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal Podcast. We do appreciate your patience as we report remotely during these weeks. Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. And please lose your review or rating on Apple Podcasts and give us your feedback. Stay healthy and we'll be back. back with you all on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Shrinco and Rachel Del Judas.

Sound design by Lauren Evans, Thelia Rampersad, Mark Geinie, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.