Peter Berkowitz
Peter Berkowitz is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of Reclaiming Liberal Education in America. His work focuses on liberal education, political thought, and American democracy.
Universities Have Not Reconciled Research With Liberal Education
At a Hoover Institution book talk, Peter Berkowitz argued that American universities have failed to reconcile research and professional training with their responsibility to provide undergraduates a liberal education. In his view, that education should prepare students to exercise the rights and responsibilities of freedom, not merely equip them for a profession. He called for universities to make the commitment concrete through a small required core of shared study and stronger protections for open debate and fair process.
Liberal Education Must Prepare Citizens for Freedom, Not Political Enlistment
Peter Berkowitz, a Hoover Institution senior fellow, argues in Reclaiming Liberal Education that American universities have too often replaced education for citizenship with progressive political instruction. He calls for a common core, classrooms open to serious disagreement, and institutional reforms led by trustees, donors, parents, and alternative programs—not federal control of academic life. The test, he says, is whether colleges can show that students encounter competing ideas and do their own intellectual work.