680. Can Universities Win Back Our Trust?

What It Covers

Dartmouth president Sian Beilock, a cognitive scientist who researched choking under pressure, discusses how universities can rebuild public trust through institutional neutrality, standardized testing, free expression policies, and AI integration, while navigating federal pressure, campus protests, and declining enrollment completion rates below 60%.

Key Questions Answered

• •Institutional Restraint Framework: Rather than adopting the term "institutional neutrality," Dartmouth formalized a policy called "institutional restraint," developed by faculty and staff, which limits when the university or its departments issue official statements. The goal is preventing institutional positions from suppressing heterodox voices, ensuring individuals debate each other rather than the institution taking sides.
• •SAT Reinstatement Data: Dartmouth became the first Ivy League school to restore SAT and ACT requirements post-COVID after modeling data showed standardized scores outperform letters of recommendation and grades as success predictors. Critically, test-optional policies caused low-income students to withhold strong scores, making them less likely to be identified as high-potential candidates.
• •Free Expression Rankings: When Beilock arrived at Dartmouth, the school ranked in the bottom 200 on FIRE's free expression rankings. Within roughly three years, it reached rank 30, with students scoring approximately two standard deviations above the mean in tolerance for speakers across both left and right political viewpoints.
• •AI Mental Health Chatbot: Dartmouth is piloting Evergreen, a mental health chatbot built on Therabot research from scientist Nicholas Jacobson, which completed the first clinical trial demonstrating measurable benefits from AI-assisted therapy. The system monitors behavioral indicators like daytime sleeping and reduced social contact to flag students at risk during high-stress academic periods like midterms.
• •Graduation Rate Accountability: Only slightly under 60% of students at four-year institutions actually graduate, a figure Beilock argues universities rarely acknowledge publicly. She frames this as a direct institutional responsibility, connecting completion rates to the broader collapse in public trust, where currently seven out of ten Americans believe higher education is moving in the wrong direction.