A few weeks ago, Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier sat down to be interviewed for the “Call Me Back” podcast. It was released under the provocative title “How Vanderbilt University is Getting it Right”, and we think it’s well worth listening to in its entirety. The discussion traversed topics from campus culture to the vital role of universities as platforms for debate rather than arbiters of truth. Compellingly, it appears to be a real-world implementation of much of our vision for Columbia Renewed. So let’s dive in.
Podcast host Dan Senor begins with a striking observation: on many elite university campuses, there’s a “menacing heaviness” about student experiences. In contrast, Vanderbilt students he encounters seem to radiate positivity: “they’re like, the sky is blue.”
How? We think it boils down to five aspects, which Chancellor Diermeier spoke about at length.
Supportive community
Vanderbilt’s educational model is about growing holistically “academically and as people.” This means that the experience, down to the residential college model, is “IQ plus EQ.” In other words, students can best reach their potential not only if they are challenged in class, but also if they’re “member[s] of a community that’s supportive and challenging”, i.e. have shared experiences with fellow students.
The result? “Academically rigorous, kind of a happy campus culture, being a newly formed college football powerhouse… it creates an environment for students that they love and is very attractive.”
Columbia also shares the hallmarks of a common experience (the Core Curriculum) and, let’s not forget, are now Ivy League champions. The comments of an incoming first-year student who reported that encampments brought an (otherwise absent) “sense of community” points to gaps in fostering a cohesive and supportive student experience.
Free expression
Chancellor Diermeier talked about the importance of free expression. In this context, he means not just the Chicago Principles, which we also adhere to, but also that it must be extended to everyone, even those with whom you disagree.
He critiques the “rush to righteousness”—a tendency to identify a “right” answer and dismiss further dialogue. This mindset has led to disruptions like speaker shout-downs and the erosion of genuine discourse. Vanderbilt’s commitment to fostering debate over silencing dissent offers a model for navigating these challenges.
Institutional neutrality
We’ve written extensively on this topic, and Interim President Armstrong has appointed a committee to study it. At Vanderbilt, the administration was put to the test during a wave of pro-Palestinian protests and demands for institutional action on campus.
Vanderbilt’s response was resolute: the university upheld its commitment to neutrality, rejecting calls for divestment from Israeli-linked entities and emphasizing the importance of debate over directives. “The responsibility of our faculty members is not to use the classroom for political propaganda or for political advocacy.”
To Diermeier, this extends throughout the operation of the university: “It’s very important that universities don’t just stop in terms of speeches, but they go all the way so that everything that they do is consistent with their mission and with institutional neutrality. Don’t use the endowment for political purposes. Don’t select vendors on whether they have a particular political orientation. And then crucially, it needs not only to be at the level of the president and provost, the university level, but it needs to apply to departments, schools, and so forth. Always driven by the same values.”
Civil discourse
An important element of Vanderbilt’s culture is a commitment to civil discourse (people hold differing views on our campus). Upon arriving on campus, freshmen participate in a “community creed” signing ceremony that reinforces shared values. Students take this very seriously as a part of their experience, and it is constantly reinforced because “one thing that we’ve noticed is that students are not necessarily prepared from their high schools to be ready for this culture and to thrive from this culture.”
Diermeier shares a proud moment: the day before the election, Vanderbilt hosted a debate between College Democrats and College Republicans on contentious issues like immigration, abortion, and federal bureaucracy–”which is not possible at most campuses today,” But this didn’t arise in a vacuum: “this can’t be done by decree, you have to work on it, it has to be clear, those are the values, and then you have to have programming in place so that everyone understands.”
Strong leadership
Even amid backlash, Vanderbilt maintained its policies and disciplined those who violated them.
In the second half of last year, Diermeier welcomed students back with a reminder that institutional neutrality and civil discourse were part of Vanderbilt’s values. But now a more radical set of students emerged: “the group responded and said, we don’t believe that institutional neutrality shouldn’t apply here, it’s too important. And we also don’t feel we’re bound by civil discourse.”
Vanderbilt stood firm. When students occupied the main administration building, students were arrested, charged with assault, suspended, and expelled. He did what he said he would do, and did not back down in the face of opposition.
Diermeier then wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that free speech was alive and well. He meant it: “We were very clear that because we had a commitment to institutional neutrality, we would not use the endowment for political purposes, so we’re not going to negotiate over that. That was clear, and we’re not negotiating over our values.”
Takeaways
We applaud Diermeier’s vision for Vanderbilt and higher education more broadly: an optimistic, rigorous, and inclusive approach that embraces respectful, open dialogue. His leadership demonstrates how universities can navigate today’s polarized environment while staying true to their mission.
For Columbia Renewed, the roadmap is clear, and now a successful case study is out there. The challenge is no longer philosophical but managerial: translating institutional values into actionable policies, structured debates, and clear disciplinary processes. Building an intellectually vibrant campus demands more than lofty rhetoric about principles and values—it demands continuous effort, disciplined execution, and accountability.
News Roundup
– December 13, 2024. The Jerusalem Post reports that during a recent protest event on campus, the Columbia University Public Safety Department shared that the New York Police Department told them that about a “robbery and hate crime” where an anti-Israeli protestor forcibly took an Israeli flag from another student. When the flag owner pursued the “thief,” the flag owner promptly received a punch in the face. The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is on the case, and Governor Hochul has directed the NY State Police to investigate as well. On Tuesday, a representative from Columbia University Public Affairs said, “We are investigating this incident and working closely with the NYPD, which is investigating the incident as a hate crime, to do all we can to support their efforts to ensure our neighborhood is safe for our students. We want to be absolutely clear that any act of violence against a member of our community is unacceptable.”
– December 12, 2024. The Free Beacon reports on Columbia English professor Joseph Slaughter’s October 9th talk called “Hijacking Human Rights” has come under fire for some controversial language he used to discuss footage of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s 1970s plane hijackings as “pretty spectacular.” There has been outcry from both sides, some claiming that his remarks are wildly offensive and inappropriate, others that they have been taken out of context from the point he was trying to make. His argument was that the hijackings were peaceful, “nobody dies except one of the hijackers” and that they were part of a greater “national liberation imagery.” The article concluded with a statement from a Columbia University spokeswoman clarifying violence such as plane hijackings is antithetical to Columbia’s values.
– December 9, 2024. The Spectator also reported on recent Barnard College protests held by Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which called the event “NYC all out for Palestine.” The people at the protest walked around Barnard twice in a group, over 100 of them, holding a sign saying “Globalize the Intifada” and “Within Our Lifetime.” The chants heard that day included, “we will not stop, we will not rest, disclose, divest” and “Barnard, you’re about to fall.” They also shouted, “Feminism is resistance” and “NYPD, KKK, IOF, you’re all the same” backed by drums and horns. There was even a mock newspaper printed up called “The New York War Crimes” that told of violence by Israelis on citizens in Gaza. The CUAD Instagram account was briefly suspended last week, with so far no comment from Meta, but before their account was taken down, they wrote, “We must find our strength in the Palestinian people—we remain steadfast and committed to the goal of a free and liberated Palestine.”
– December 9, 2024. Forward reports on an interview they conducted with Nicholas Lemann, co-chair of Columbia’s Task Force on Antisemitism. Lemann reports the Columbia campus being quieter than others this year so far. However, behind the scenes apparently, there has been vehement disagreement over the rules of protest and who covers them within the university. He also shared some theories he’s heard around why the pro-Palestinian protests have not been muted even more by the school. One is that “it’s all about funding from Qatar.” Another is that the DEI offices have all the power. His personal belief is that it’s mostly “the blind man and the elephant theory” of big private universities where major players only see their own domain in a bigger image, and the different groups aren’t talking to one another, which makes it easy for skewed stories to arise. One of these, he says, is that the “Zionist donors” are holding much more power than they really are.
– December 8, 2024. NPR reports another story about the success of in-person socialization with Gen Z. Student Juliette Sartori from San Francisco was studying in Scotland and dealing with loneliness when she realized all her housemates were feeling the same way. She proceeded to start a club at the University of Glasgow named Dinner with a Stranger. It started with a questionnaire she distributed around the school asking people about who and how they would like to meet. After expecting about 30 people to fill it out, over 200 did. Every month the groups meet and discuss different topics; the first one was movies.