This University Built an Honors College — and Then Destroyed It

Welcome back to The Honest Broker interview series —also available on our new YouTube channel. You can also find it on Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms.Today, I’m sharing my conversation with Jennifer Frey. Please support The Honest Broker by taking out a premium subscription (just $6 per month).Jennifer is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tulsa. She is also a faculty fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. She earned her PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh in 2012.She’s also a fierce proponent of liberal education. She brought that passion with her to the University of Tulsa, where she built a new honors college and served as the inaugural dean — until, after just two years, the administration cut its funding by 92%. When that happened, Jennifer responded in the New York Times, offering an ardent defense of the value of liberal education. In that piece, she wrote:When students realize their own humanity is at stake in their education, they are deeply invested in it. The problem with liberal education in today’s academy does not lie with our students. The real threat to liberal learning is from an administrative class that is content to offer students far less than their own humanity calls for—and deserves.I knew I wanted to talk to Jennifer about these issues. She joined me here in Austin to discuss the story of Tulsa’s honors college, the many problems facing higher education in the United States, and the value of helping students craft intellectual friendships. Below are highlights from the interview. For the rest of our conversation, check out the video at the top of the page.Jennifer’s family recently experienced a serious medical event, and her husband Chris had to be hospitalized. There is a donation page for her family as Chris recovers. Highlights from the Jennifer Frey InterviewJared: Jennifer Frey, thank you for joining me.Jennifer: Thanks for having me.Jared: Why don’t we start by just telling everybody the story of what happened at the University of Tulsa?Jennifer: I’m a philosopher, and prior to moving to Tulsa, I was at the University of South Carolina. In 2020, we were all on Twitter a lot, and I post a lot about higher ed. One day I posted about the University of Tulsa and how terrible it was because they had eliminated their philosophy department, which is happening at a lot of places, and there was an acceleration during COVID. You actually don’t need to have a financial calamity to just want to murder philosophy. You simply need to not value it.I checked my replies, and I got a reply from the president of the University of Tulsa that said, ‘Hey, Jen, we’re not that bad. You should come visit us.’ He followed up and said, ‘I probably agree with a lot of your criticisms. I’d love for you to come out.’ In November of 2021, I went to the University of Tulsa, and I gave a talk in which I criticized the university, but I also talked about why philosophy should always be at the center of a university. That was the first time in my life I got a standing ovation for a talk.It turns out the president had an ulterior motive. He wanted to start an honors college, which he said would be like a mini St. John’s College. Great books, liberal education. “We grew enrollment by 500%, and we were bringing 26% to 27% of freshman into honors….We were bringing in money, grants, and donors. Then it all ended.” Jared: For many people, building something like that is a dream.Jennifer: Yes. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. You should do that.’ Then he asked me to come lead it. I said no, but he was very persistent. Eventually, we agreed that I would help him build a college on paper. We worked together for about a year, and at the end of the year, I kind of fancied what I had come up with. Then he said, ‘I still need someone to run this college.’ I interviewed, and I was hired and decided to move the whole family halfway across the country to Oklahoma to start this new college. The transition to administration, and away from an intellectual life to a very practical life, was very difficult, but it was incredibly rewarding. But to make a long story short, it was really successful. We grew enrollment by 500%, and we were bringing 26% to 27% of freshman into honors. J