The beginning of a new year is a good time to think about what you’d like to see and do.

We at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal have compiled a list of academic changes we hope to see in 2024.

Jenna Robinson would like to see colleges and universities bring back reliance on standardized testing in admissions. She writes:

At competitive schools, it will ensure that only the most qualified students are admitted. At uncompetitive universities, testing will ensure that students are admitted only if they are truly ready for college-level work.

Shannon Watkins wants colleges to take general education seriously again:

Specific knowledge — and the ideas it contains — matters. General education is where students should not only gain a sophisticated understanding of the American republic in which they live but also come to appreciate the values and traditions that inform their very way of life. State-level reform of general-education curricula, requiring students to learn about their civic heritage, isn’t only permissible, it is necessary.

Ashlynn Warta advocates a return to academic rigor, which has fallen badly at many schools, leading to graduates who perform poorly in jobs. She writes:

I hope that 2024 will see the return of academic rigor: colleges holding students to a higher standard and thus better preparing them for workplace success. In doing so, colleges can help ensure that students’ and employers’ confidence will improve.

Graham Hillard would like to see the Supreme Court’s SFFA decision against racial preferences enforced and broadened:

Though 2024 is unlikely to see the matter concluded, higher-ed reformers should hope for a series of favorable rulings as the case makes its inevitable way to the Supreme Court. We ought, in other words, to cheer for admissions policies based on merit. America’s enemies will be rooting for the opposite.

And my own hoped-for change would be for college and university leaders to learn how to deal with unruly, demanding students:

Years of laxity in dealing with their inappropriate behavior has given militant students the idea that they can get away with anything. Administrators need to snap out of their stupor and strictly enforce the rules against all kinds of disruption. The model here is former Notre Dame president Father Theodore Hesburgh, who, in 1969, when the nation’s campuses were rocked with protests over the war in Vietnam, wrote a letter saying, “Anyone or any group that substitutes force for rational persuasion will be given 15 minutes of meditation to cease and desist.” Those who did not do so would face suspension or expulsion. College officials who want a peaceful campus where people use only persuasion to make their points should follow that example.