HxA Event: What Happened to College?
Details
Event Title:
“What Happened to College?" A Conversation with Neil Gross about His Latest Book
How to Watch:
This online event is FREE, but you need to be a member of Heterodox Academy to register to get the Zoom link:
https://heterodoxacademy.org/events/what-happened-to-college-a-conversation-with-neil-gross-about-his-latest-book/
Event Topic:
Attacks on DEI, declining humanities enrollment, funding cuts, claims of liberal indoctrination — the campus culture wars show no sign of slowing. Sociologist Neil Gross decided to test the claims against the evidence.
Building on his earlier research on faculty politics, Gross interviewed students and faculty and polled thousands more, across liberal arts colleges, state schools, faith-based institutions, and elite universities.
Join us for a conversation with Gross on his new book, What Happened to College?, and what his research found — including where campus communities are still getting it right.
Moderated by Nicole Barbaro Simovski, this webinar will explore core themes of Gross’ book, including:
- How political sorting shapes student choices, including schools, friendships, dating, and majors
- What the data shows about claims of professor indoctrination and inflated grades
- How student self-sorting has changed classroom and department dynamics
- What a handful of campus communities are doing differently to keep disagreement and cross-partisan friendship alive
This 60-minute webinar will preview key insights from the book and give you a chance to put your questions to Gross directly during Q&A. Register now to secure your spot!
About the Speakers:
* Neil Gross is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology and chair of the department of sociology at Colby College, as well as a visiting scholar at NYU's Institute for Public Knowledge. He's the author of several books on the politics of higher education, including Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? (2013) and Professors and Their Politics (2014), as well as his latest book What Happened to College? (2026). He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before going to graduate school, he served as a patrolman in the Berkeley Police Department.
* Nicole Barbaro Simovski has a PhD in experimental psychology with a specialization in evolution and human development from Oakland University in Michigan. She is currently the Director of Communications, Marketing, and Events at Heterodox Academy. She is the creator of Bookmarked Reads newsletter on Substack, which reviews books on a range on topics including science, education, current affairs, history, and interesting people..
About the Event Host:
The Heterodox Academy (HxA) is a nonpartisan collaborative of thousands of professors, administrators, and students committed to enhancing the quality of research and education by promoting open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in institutions of higher learning. It was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, a Georgetown University law professor, and Chris Martin, an Emory University sociologist.
To learn more about their mission, go to https://heterodoxacademy.org/our-mission/