Evidence in Action Podcast – Leary, a former Amherst trustee and current executive vice president of the Urban Institute, speaks with “a fellow Mammoth” about his experiences both as a student and as president of the College. Their conversation also explores “key principles of the liberal arts,” the benefits and challenges of a diverse learning environment, and the role of evidence in decision making.
“[A] lot of attention is paid to what goes on at a college campus as a way of our larger society … working out its set of conflicts and anxieties,” Elliott observes. Liberal arts colleges “like to work on complex matters, we like to think about ambiguity, we like to think about context, and to have room for lots of nuanced discussion…. But the current media and social media environment really cuts against that.”
When Leary asks him about using evidence in his work as a scholar of public history, Elliott describes himself as “a document nerd”: “For instance, I’ve been reading recently some of the archives that we have about debates among Amherst faculty around the curriculum …. I love evidence that records debate and dialogue, and it helps understand why a decision was made, including the paths not taken, and that’s something that I think carries over from my scholarly to my administrative [work].”