Freakonomics Radio

Snapshot · Freakonomics Radio

680. Can Universities Win Back Our Trust?

Explore episode Jul 3, 2026

Where this was said

From Chicago to Barnard to Dartmouth: A Career in Administration

At 10:59 · chapter starts 8:40

Beilock recalls how she stumbled into administration by arguing with UChicago president Bob Zimmer on the Faculty Senate's Committee of the Council — and getting recruited to join his team as a result. After serving as executive vice provost, she was recruited to lead Barnard College in New York, where she encountered a cultural mismatch with the institutional neutrality framework she had internalized at Chicago. She then reveals a striking counterfactual: she had planned to wait and become a leading candidate for the Columbia presidency, but the Dartmouth offer arrived quickly and she took it — potentially sparing her from the upheaval that eventually cost Minouche Shafik her job. The segment concludes with Dubner and Beilock naming the three Ivy presidents who were ousted — Shafik, Penn's Liz McGill, and Harvard's Claudine Gay — as Beilock's 'class' of leaders.

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