FEATURED
‘Cross-disciplinary conversation about how to renew higher education’
The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal has launched a new quarterly journal, From the Academy, that will focus on the renewal and reform of higher education with an eye toward answering the question: What is the university for?
The journal will “bridge the gap between academic scholarship and practical reform,” its publisher, Jenna Robinson, told The College Fix.
It will offer a “deeper reflection on the long-term direction of higher education rather than just its immediate controversies,” said Robinson, president of Raleigh, North Carolina-based Martin Center, a conservative-leaning nonprofit think tank dedicated to improving higher education.
From the Academy “seeks to generate ideas” that inform “both institutional leaders and policymakers, while also shaping the broader cultural conversation about what universities should be,” she said.
The publication brings together different voices, from policymakers, to scholars, to writers, all with varying expertise, focus, and perspective, “to create a space for substantive, cross-disciplinary conversation about how to renew higher education,” Robinson said.
The first issue, published in early 2026, focused on the importance of the liberal arts in education with articles by policy advisors, writers, and educators. Each future edition will similarly have a new single-issue focus.
Founder and Managing Editor Jovan Tripkovic told The College Fix that “despite the growing debate about the future of higher education, there is still no publication that offers a deeper, more holistic examination of the issues shaping our universities. That is the gap From the Academy seeks to fill.”
The journal derives its name from Russell Kirk’s longstanding column appearing in National Review. Kirk’s essays helped Tripkovic see the importance of “serious intellectual engagement with what is happening inside our universities,” Tripkovic said.
The current discussion around reform in higher education usually “centers on policy issues,” he said. While Tripkovic said he still believes such questions matter, “they often fail to address the more fundamental one: What is the university for?”
This is where From the Academy hopes to add to the discussion, he said: “The process of academic renewal begins by rediscovering that purpose.”
From the Academy will highlight a conversation about “the fundamentals of higher education” drawing attention to “the first principles of higher learning: the pursuit of knowledge, the formation of character, and the role of the university in a free society,” Tripkovic told The Fix via email.
“Higher education in America is at a crossroads,” Tripkovic said. “Public confidence in our institutions of higher learning is at an all-time low.”
He continued, “hundreds of colleges and universities have drifted away from their original mission—becoming centers of indoctrination rather than temples of knowledge.”
Similarly, Robinson said that “reformers across the country are already questioning long-standing assumptions about curriculum, governance, academic freedom, and the civic role of universities.”
The search for answers continues, she said. From the Academy will advance the broader movement that seeks “to rethink and renew American higher education” by presenting “constructive paths forward,” she said.
Editor Graham Hillard told The Fix that he credits “nearly all” of the “energy” in the higher education reform to advocacy organizations that “have been relentlessly getting the message out: Universities are too expensive, too woke, and too detached from either workforce-development needs or authentic liberal-arts education.”
“We want From the Academy to be one of those messengers.”
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