Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
The president gives the speech. But the provost and the dean live with the consequences.
The decisions where free expression and academic freedom actually live or die are usually made one or two rungs below the top, by the people who take the angry donor call, field the legislator's complaint, and decide what to do when a faculty member's op-ed sets off a firestorm.
This panel from the Heterodox Academy Mountain West Regional Conference at the University of Wyoming puts three of those people in the room. University of Wyoming economist Matt Burgess moderates, with Scott Beaulier, Dean of the College of Business at the University of Wyoming, and Pamela Carriveau, Provost and VP of Academic Affairs at Black Hills State University.
They get candid about the real work: holding competing principles in tension, handling donor and legislator pressure, navigating state DEI directives, protecting tenure in South Dakota, and the calls they wish they'd handled differently. It closes with a frank Q&A on AI, the pace of change, and what they each wish faculty and students would stop doing.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction: why governance below the top matters
9:36 The panelists: holding principles in productive tension
16:13 The hard cases: donors, legislators, and defending faculty
32:38 Getting it right: protecting tenure and navigating DEI directives
42:41 When it goes wrong: the Sally Mann case and other regrets
51:25 How presidents, trustees, and government can help
1:01:46 What we're not talking about: AI and the pace of change
1:10:30 Audience Q&A
1:25:13 Closing
#HeterodoxAcademy #OpenInquiry #AcademicFreedom #HigherEd #UniversityGovernance #ViewpointDiversity
The president gives the speech. But the provost and the dean live with the consequences.
The decisions where free expression and academic freedom actually live or die are usually made one or two rungs below the top, by the people who take the angry donor call, field the legislator's complaint, and decide what to do when a faculty member's op-ed sets off a firestorm.
This panel from the Heterodox Academy Mountain West Regional Conference at the University of Wyoming puts three of those people in the room. University of Wyoming economist Matt Burgess moderates, with Scott Beaulier, Dean of the College of Business at the University of Wyoming, and Pamela Carriveau, Provost and VP of Academic Affairs at Black Hills State University.
They get candid about the real work: holding competing principles in tension, handling donor and legislator pressure, navigating state DEI directives, protecting tenure in South Dakota, and the calls they wish they'd handled differently. It closes with a frank Q&A on AI, the pace of change, and what they each wish faculty and students would stop doing.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction: why governance below the top matters
9:36 The panelists: holding principles in productive tension
16:13 The hard cases: donors, legislators, and defending faculty
32:38 Getting it right: protecting tenure and navigating DEI directives
42:41 When it goes wrong: the Sally Mann case and other regrets
51:25 How presidents, trustees, and government can help
1:01:46 What we're not talking about: AI and the pace of change
1:10:30 Audience Q&A
1:25:13 Closing
#HeterodoxAcademy #OpenInquiry #AcademicFreedom #HigherEd #UniversityGovernance #ViewpointDiversity
