A Google search for “college graduate employment readiness” produces over 2.5 million hits. Unfortunately, the top results have titles such as, “Study Finds Big Gap between Student and Employer Perceptions” (Inside Higher Ed); “Why Are So Many College Students Failing to Gain Job Skills before Graduation?” (Washington Post); and “2015 College Graduates May Not Be as Ready for the Workplace as They Think” (Time). The titles reflect an expectations–performance gap in skills.
The last few years has seen a rise in both controversial campus speakers and vociferous student protests (the latter often in direct response to the former). The college campus, which has long been a bastion of the free exchange of ideas, has become the nexus of this clash of ideals, and ignited a debate over free speech, hate speech, and censorship. In our Q&A series Spotlight on Campus Speech, Academic Leader Today brings campus administrators expert perspectives to help understand the current challenges of campus speech issues. For this installment, I interviewed Tom McDaniel. McDaniel’s conference presentation “Campus Freedom of Speech: Issues for Academic Leaders” was one of the top ranked sessions of Magna’s 2017 Leadership in Higher Education conference in Baltimore. His essay “Freedom of Speech Issues: A Legal Primer for Academic Leaders” was anthologized in The Academic Leader’s Handbook.
