Harlow Giles Unger on Patrick Henry & American Liberty

The Learning Curve Harlow Giles Unger

[00:00:00] Alisha Searcy: Welcome back to the Learning Curve podcast. I’m your host this week, Alisha Thomas Searcy and joined by my friend, Albert Cheng. Hey, Albert, how are you?

[00:00:30] Albert Cheng: Hey, Alisha. I’m doing well. Hope you’re doing well too. Happy 4th.

[00:00:34] Alisha Searcy: I am doing great and happy 4th. I’m actually in Boston for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools conference.

[00:00:41] Albert Cheng: Oh, great. Great.

[00:00:42] Alisha Searcy: So that’s been fun this week, but I’m looking forward to our show today. I want to jump right into the stories of the week. And mine comes from Chalkbeat, New York. The title is Randy Weingarten says teachers are frustrated with New York City’s reading curriculum mandate. So, as we all know, Randy Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

[00:01:06] She’s been in that role for quite a few years and very well known in terms of union leadership. And so, this is an interesting story for me because as everyone knows, the science of reading is the approach that we should be using across the country to teach reading and literacy in our classrooms. It started in other places, but Mississippi is kind of known now for the leader and we call it affectionately the Mississippi miracle.

[00:01:33] And so other states are kind of joining in and I’m happy to see this. What’s interesting about this story. is you have the teacher union president, a national one, expressing frustration about the implementation of the curriculum in New York City. Now, number one, the local union in New York City is actually supportive of these mandates, supportive of the training that’s happening.

[00:01:58] And so, it’s an interesting break that she’s not In alignment with her own local union. So that’s one of the first things that I find politically interesting. I do think that there’s some important points that we should take from this article, though, that if teachers are having concerns about how it’s being rolled out, we should listen.

[00:02:20] Because these are the folks, you know, on the ground who are having to implement new standards, new curriculum, and we want them to be trained well and trained effectively so that they can do this. I think if you’re following what’s happening in Mississippi, they’ve had these huge gains in terms of reading proficiency at the elementary level in particular.

[00:02:38] But largely because they’ve made the investment not just financially, but also in terms of making sure that teachers are properly and effectively trained. And so, if teachers are saying this is not working, I think, you know, we ought to listen, but there are two quick points that I want to make here. One of the things that Randy Weingarten has said in one of her previous interviews is that the choices of curriculum have been terrible.

[00:03:02] Again, not something that you want the National Teacher Union president to be saying, and certainly not in alignment with what the local union is saying. And so, at the end of the day, we know that the science of reading is important. It’s critical, I would argue. I think that all States and school districts need to think about not just ensuring that there’s an effective rolling out of this curriculum, but that we go back to teacher preparation training programs and ensure that the training is done there.

[00:03:34] So that teachers are learning in their very infancy of their teaching career, how to teach reading, right? So that we’re not depending on school districts right now for teachers who are in their 15th year of teaching to now learn how to teach students how to read. So, this is an important piece. What I want people to take away is the science of reading is important.

[00:03:55] We know because it is research based that it’s effective. It’s going to make sure that our kids can read, and we know that nationally our reading proficiency level for third and fourth graders is well below 50 percent. That is unacceptable. This is a way that we can address this, and we need Ms.

[00:04:12] Weingarten and others to kind of get on board and make sure that you’re speaking effectively about the rights and the wrongs of this but ensure that all districts and states are rolling this out effectively.

[00:04:24] Albert Cheng: Yeah, it reminds me of the Tweet of the week, I don’t know if it was last week, a couple of weeks ago, we featured an article about some schools experience rolling out some of the new curriculum that’s consistent with the science of reading, and yeah, implementation is always that X factor there with any policy idea and program we implement.

[00:04:42] We want to implement and we really got to get that right and I think you make a great point about needing to really attend to the even, you know, teacher training and changing institutions and it seems like to make a generational shift really in how we train our teachers to teach reading, so. Well, I hope these efforts are successful and these are the things that keep me up at night, you know, you got a good idea with good evidence, and it just gets undermined by the potential for it to be undermined at the implementation stage is always a tough challenge.

[00:05:13] Alisha Searcy: You’re right. You said it very well. Thank you.

[00:05:16] Albert Cheng: You mentioned you are at the National Alliance for Public Charter School Conference right now. Yes. Yeah. So, uh, you know, I guess I got a hot topic in the charter school world. I know this is not a new story, but there’s, it’s a new development in an old story.

[00:05:30] I think you’re probably aware, and I know a lot of folks that you’re probably hanging out with this week, are aware in Oklahoma, there was a push to open up religious charter schools. And so certainly I think there was a previous attorney general who said that that would be okay, viable legally. And then I think they probably had a change in that position since, but anyway, all this to say, it’s gone up to the Oklahoma Supreme Court and the court ruled recently that public funds for religious charter schools would be unconstitutional. So anyway, I guess I just want to point this article out just to get them up to speed on this debate. And certainly, this is not going to be the last word. I mean, who knows if the Supreme Court’s going to take this up and how they’ll decide it. And I know in light of some of the other recent Supreme Court rulings, like in Espinoza and Carson v. Menck. And this has all sorts of legal implications. So anyway, I just want to flag that for our listeners and maybe Alisha, I’m sure you’re going to have that conversation come up with some of the folks you’re hanging out with.

[00:06:34] Alisha Searcy: I literally just left the session and that was one of the questions that came up and you know, this is one of those monumental decisions, right, that could change the way we think. Charter schools look and, you know, the conversation. And so, what’s funny, right, is that our guest today is going to be talking about Patrick Henry and he had some very strong opinions about the separation of church and state. So we know where he would stand on this decision.

[00:07:00] Albert Cheng: Yup. I mean, I think it just underscores, you know, how do we thread that needle between free exercise and no establishment, I guess.

[00:07:07] Alisha Searcy: Right. And parent choice. So, there’s a lot all wrapped up. Excellent. Well, thank you for that story. And after the break, as I said, we will have with us Harlow Giles Unger to talk about Patrick Henry as we celebrate July 4th.

[00:07:36] Albert Cheng: Harlow Giles Unger is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, educator, and historian. A New York Times bestselling author of more than 30 books, he is a former Distinguished Visiting Fellow in American History at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Among his books, Lafayette won the American Revolution Roundtable Book Prize and the Daughters of the American Revolution Book Award, among others. His bestseller, The Last Founding Father, James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, earned him the Washington Post designation as the premier presidential biographer. Among his other books include Line of Liberty, Patrick Henry and the Call to a New Nation, John Marshall, the Chief Justice who saved the nation, The Unexpected George Washington, His Private Life, Dr. Benjamin Rush, the Founding Father who Healed a Wounded Nation, John Quincy Adams, and more. And most recently, Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence. He is a graduate of Yale University. Well, Harlow, it’s a pleasure to have you on The Learning Curve. Welcome. Yes, welcome.

[00:08:44] Harlow Giles Unger: Thank you for asking me.

[00:08:46] Albert Cheng: This week is the 4th of July and I know you’ve written lots of books, but we’re here to really talk about Patrick Henry and the biography that you have of him, Lion of Liberty, Patrick Henry and the Call to a New Nation. As we celebrate the 4th this week, could you just paint us a portrait of who Patrick Henry was and why he was so important to the cause of American independence?

[00:09:10] Harlow Giles Unger: Well, some of the founding fathers with a sense of humor said that Patrick Henry, not George Washington, was the real father of our country. George Washington had no children. Patrick Henry had 22. And 17 of them sired 55 grandchildren who in turn left us generations of Henry who now more than 100,000 in America today. So apart from his obvious importance to the Henry family, Patrick Henry was largely responsible for our declaration of independence from Britain and for our victory in the War of Independence. As a boy, he was homeschooled by his parents on an isolated farm in the Virginia mountains. He later studied law on his own and earned national celebrity defending some poor farmers against the powerful Anglican Church.

[00:10:01] He was elected to Virginia’s assembly and demanded reforms in Britain’s colonial government. Britain’s king scoffed at Henry’s demands and Henry responded with his famous speech that ended, give me liberty or give me death. And with that, Virginia declared independence from Britain and inspired 11 of the other American colleagues to follow suit. Virginia elected Henry its first governor, and under his leadership, went on to win its independence with Britain’s other American colonies.

[00:10:33] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Wow. So, it sounds like he, uh, catalyzed a lot of the revolution there, given that that overview he just gave us. Well, let’s dig into some of the other parts of his life that you mentioned. You mentioned a little bit about his childhood. Uh, he was born during the Great Awakening, uh, mid-18th century religious revival in colonial America. Can you say more just about his family and just the background there, his early life, religious convictions, his education? How did that all propel him to, you know, the legacy that he eventually had?

[00:11:06] Harlow Giles Unger: Well, he was one of seven children of John Henry’s first wife. John Henry was a superbly educated Scott commoner who came to America and settled on 1, 500 acres in Virginia’s Piedmont Hills. The nearest settlement was Hanover. A hamlet with only a combined country store tavern and a tiny courthouse.

[00:11:29] Henry and his wife homeschooled Patrick and the other boys, but his father was Anglican and his mother was Presbyterian. The two religions confused Patrick Henry because of their opposite views on royal infallibility. Patrick decided to reject both religions. And he chose American secularism for his life. University education in those days was of little value in the frontier, so Patrick went to work when he was 15. After failing at several jobs, he married the tavern keeper’s daughter, and in exchange for a room and board, he went to work in the tavern tending bar and playing a fiddle to entertain customers.

[00:12:12] Many were lawyers from the courthouse across the road. He took to listening their legal arguments at the bar, they interested him so much, he decided to buy some law books and then attend trials. Finally wound-up debating lawyers at the Tavern Bar, and he developed a spellbinding way of speaking and finally bought a license to practice.

[00:12:35] You didn’t have to go to law school in those days to practice law in Virginia. Three years later, some destitute farmers approached him to defend them in a lawsuit by the Anglican Church. His victory startled the English-speaking world, catapulted him into Virginia State Assembly and to leadership in the American Revolution. It toppled the English empire.

[00:13:01] Albert Cheng: That’s quite the education. Uh, it all started, I guess, with a tavern job and listening to the patrons. That’s fascinating to hear of his beginnings. Let’s get into his, you know, you were, you were alluding to the rise of his career, both as a lawyer and a public servant. So, I think you were alluding to a legal dispute, the Parsons cause.

[00:13:22] Yes, I agree. You know, 1760 to 63, and then, you know, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. So, all of this, and let’s build to the revolution, really. It seems like, you know, all of this led to his role in shaping colonial Virginia’s opposition to Great Britain’s imperial policy. So, connect the dots for us with what you just talked about.

[00:13:44] Harlow Giles Unger: Patrick Henry had only practiced law for a few years in 1763. A group of farmers came to him to defend a suit by, of all people, the Anglican Church, a huge Anglican Church. By law, the church then taxed all property. But a disastrous drought had left many small tobacco farms with such poor crops, they would have to sell their farms to pay their taxes.

[00:14:09] When they refused, the church sued them, and they turned to Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry. He was the county’s least experienced lawyer, and therefore charged the least fees. Once in court, though, he started very well, until he came for time for his closing argument, and he seemed to freeze. He bowed his head and said nothing.

[00:14:32] Seconds went by, a minute, then another, not a word. In fact, he had practiced long hours rehearsing for that very moment, opening with a dramatic pause to cloak the courtroom in suspense. When he finally spoke, he was brilliant, whispering one moment, thundering the next. In contrast to the Pompous accents of the church lawyers, he spoke the mountain drawl of his jurors.

[00:14:59] His tavern days had taught him how to win their minds and hearts. He turned into a prosecuting attorney instead of a defense attorney. He charged the priests with unchristian greed. With extracting the last pennies from poverty-stricken farmers, forcing their wives and babies from their homes. After deliberating only five minutes, the jury awarded the church one penny.

[00:15:28] The spectators roared, they hoisted Henry on their shoulders and carried him out of the courthouse around the village square. In defying Britain’s Anglican church, Patrick Henry inspired them. And almost all Americans to fight for independence from the Anglican Church and from Britain.

[00:15:47] Albert Cheng: Wow. Fascinating account there. Well, let’s get into probably what folks know him most for, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death,” which he declared in a speech to the Second Virginia Convention on March 23rd, 1775. So, this was at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, and Really here, he’s credited with convincing the convention to pass a resolution to deliver Virginia troops for the Revolutionary War. So, tell us about this pivotal event and really how it spurred the push for American independence.

[00:16:18] Harlow Giles Unger: Absolutely. And that church still exists. It’s beautiful. I visit it often. If you get to Richmond, everyone should go and visit it. When Britain increased control over the colonial economy, colonial leaders convened the first ever intercolonial congress in Philadelphia to plot joint resistance.

[00:16:39] But their debates yielded nothing. They did tiresome rhetoric until finally a rider from Boston burst into the hall, none other than Paul Revere. He brought news that Massachusetts had declared independence and was preparing a war against Britain. He asked other states to follow suit, and that’s why Revere was there.

[00:17:00] Congress cheered, but only sent a polite petition to the British king to help resolve their grievances. Only Virginia’s Patrick Henry. urged the colonies to support Massachusetts. By God, he thundered, we must fight. Virginia was America’s largest, most powerful American colony then, and other colonies usually adopted Virginia’s economic and political moves.

[00:17:25] So when Patrick wrote home to Richmond, and warned neighbors to prepare for war with Britain, the other states began preparing as well.

[00:17:35] Albert Cheng: Well, as we’re kind of learning here and hearing from your account, just, you know, a man deeply involved with the founding period of our country. So, you know, Alisha’s going to get into some more details about Henry’s record as a lawgiver and governor, but I’d like to ask before we get to her, if you could just give us an overview, discuss his record as a lawgiver and governor. Yeah, would you be willing to do that, please?

[00:17:57] Harlow Giles Unger: Well, after Virginia declared its independence, it had to set up a government, even though it was still at war. And they elected Henry its first governor. He ignored the assembly and simply seized power when he needed it. George Washington badly needed supplies at Valley Forge.

[00:18:15] So, uh, Patrick Henry rounded them up in Richmond and sent Washington’s army the supplies that helped his army recover from the bitter winter of 76 and 77 and allowed him to go on to victory in the War of Independence. But Henry played other, less known roles in the American victory. He sent a small army of his own, for example, and raised and sent an army to oust the British from Virginia’s Huge Western Territory.

[00:18:47] That territory, which most people aren’t aware of, included present day Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. Having freed that area from the British, he went on to win four terms as governor. And his overwhelming popularity allowed him to ignore the state legislature and the Congress to revive Virginia’s economy on his own.

[00:19:10] On his own, he negotiated trade agreements with Spain and Cuba. Then, knowing that the legislature wouldn’t challenge his authority, he proposed, and the Assembly passed, the most historic measure at the time in Virginia history. It banned the importation of slaves. For the first time in the American South.

[00:19:33] Alisha Searcy: Very interesting history. At first, you know, as a former legislator, Mr. Ungar, I have to tell you, I don’t like hearing that a governor is not listening to a legislator, but, uh, sounds like he did some very important things that we are grateful that he did. So, we appreciate that. I would like to talk about, in 1786, James Madison got Thomas Jefferson’s statute for religious freedom passed through the Virginia legislature, and this law required a separation of church and state. So would you talk about Patrick Henry’s views on taxpayer support for religious institutions, and then summarizing the political tensions within state rivals like Madison and Jefferson?

[00:20:15] Harlow Giles Unger: Well, as I said before, Henry’s father was Anglican, and his mother Presbyterian, and the two religions had opposite views on the infallibility of the king of England. His mother actually scoffed at the idea of the king’s infallibility. So, in the end, Henry rejected both religious doctrines and embraced American secularism for much of his young life. As governor later in life, though, he tried to reconcile religious differences in the state. By asking the legislature to make all Christianity, and that was the term he used, Christianity the official state religion.

[00:20:55] Well, there were so many religions in Virginia that almost all Virginians voted it down. Then Thomas Jefferson decided to upstage him and propose a bill establishing religious freedom that ended all state ties to all the different religions forever. It helped spawn. Henry’s and Jefferson’s and Madison’s mutual dislike for Henry.

[00:21:21] Both Jefferson and James Madison, who was Jefferson’s protege, had college educations. And it seemed to irritate them that Henry was self educated, but as knowledgeable as they, and so many times, and often more so. And what infuriated Henry about Jefferson and Madison is that neither fired a single shot at the British in the Revolutionary War after Jefferson had pompously pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor to do so. Instead, he fled home to his mountain hilltop at Monticello.

[00:21:56] Alisha Searcy: It’d be very interesting to see what they’d have to say today about religious freedom and where we are. Thank you for that. So I want to talk about, like other Virginia founding fathers, Patrick Henry was a great, champion of human liberty who publicly opposed slavery and yet was also a slave owner. So can you talk about the moral contradictions here between his ideas about rights and liberties, yet his enslavement of human beings?

[00:22:25] Harlow Giles Unger: Well, first of all, he believed abolition would be as cruel as slavery in that day to set loose nearly 200,000 Semi-literate, semi-skilled people, one third of them children, an equal number crippled or over aged, unthinkable.

[00:22:41] Where would they go? What would they do? How would they eat? The North had towns and cities with apprenticeships and manufacturing facilities. The South was a land of plantations and farms, one after another. When you left one farm, you found the entrance to another. There were few towns and cities and no opportunities for work off the fields.

[00:23:04] Is it not amazing, Henry said, in a country above all others fond of liberty, that in such an age, in such a country, we find men professing a religion most humane? But adopting a principle as repugnant as humanity is with the Bible and destructive to liberty. Although he owned slaves, as you said, he never bought or sold any.

[00:23:26] He couldn’t. He acquired the slaves he did own at the end of his life. on farms that he bought. He kept expanding his own farm by adding new farms. Virginia law made slaves integral parts of the property where they lived and made it a crime to separate them from each other. Henry rued his ownership of slaves and couldn’t reconcile it with his beliefs. He wrote to a Quaker friend of his about slavery. He said, “I will not. I cannot justify it.”

[00:24:00] Alisha Searcy: Hmm. Very powerful. Thank you for helping me to understand that. So, when I moved from 1781 to 1789, the Articles of Confederation was the first constitutional agreement among the 13 states. However, shortly after independence in 1783, the Articles began to falter and fall as the workable national framework for government. So, can you tell us about Patrick Henry’s opinions concerning federalism during this period?

[00:24:32] Harlow Giles Unger: Well, after the acceptance of the Constitution by other states other than Virginia, here’s what Patrick Henry said as Virginia was preparing to pass the Constitution. Debate. Ratification of the Constitution. As this government stands, and these are Henry’s words, as this government stands, I despise it.

[00:24:52] If I am asked what is to be done, my answer is overturn the government. Now he wasn’t talking about the British government, he was talking about the American government. More than a decade after he called for overthrowing the British, he accused the founding fathers recreating a British style government.

[00:25:10] In the United States, he said the Constitution, they wrote, would replace the British monarch with an equally powerful president. And instead of ascending the throne by heredity, he would seize power as the choice of a tiny, landed gentry, the equivalent of Britain’s nobility. And he was right at the time, and even today, to some extent.

[00:25:31] In America’s first popular election, fewer than 2 percent of Americans were allowed to vote. All of them, the wealthiest, white, property males, all of them voted for George Washington. What right, and these are Patrick Henry’s words again, what right had the authors of the Constitution to begin with the words, we the people?

[00:25:54] The people gave them no power to use their name. He said the wealthiest Americans had written the Constitution and seized what he called the two greatest powers of government, the sword and the purse. They could now oppress the people with weaponry and taxes, just as the British government had tried to do.

[00:26:14] Alisha Searcy: Wow. So, in 1785 to 88, fellow Virginian James Madison prepared to replace the Articles of Confederation with a new federal constitution. And Patrick Henry joined fellow revolutionary era figures like George Mason and, uh, Samuel Adams in leading the anti-federalist opposition to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. You spoke about this a minute ago about his opposition. Can you talk about Henry’s anti-federalist principle opposition to the new U. S. Constitution, including their insistence on a federal bill of rights?

[00:26:51] Harlow Giles Unger: Absolutely. Patrick Henry believed the Constitution’s failure to set any limits on government powers made tyranny inevitable Congress. These are Henry’s words. Congress will have an unlimited Unbounded command over the Commonwealth by passing any laws it deems necessary and proper and it didn’t define what necessary and proper was. He said the President would be able to exercise whatever he defined as executive power.

[00:27:21] Without defining what executive power was. And the Supreme Court would have powers over every court in the land and would hear cases without juries. He said the Magna Carta had guaranteed trial by jury across the English-speaking world since 1215. And now the United States had abandoned it. Nor did the Constitution provide for term limits for the president then, or members of Congress, or of the judiciary.

[00:27:50] No one overseeing the judiciary. All could serve indefinitely and collude to create a tyranny. Virginia guaranteed the rights that Patrick Henry demanded from the Constitution. But the Constitution even gave the new national government powers to negative state laws and imposed the very tyranny in Virginia and elsewhere from which Americans and Patrick Henry had freed them.

[00:28:20] Alisha Searcy: Thank you for that. And so, final question before we ask you to read us an excerpt from one of your books. We’re celebrating the Fourth of July, as Albert mentioned earlier, and we’re thinking about our founding fathers and our freedoms and liberties that we celebrate. Can you talk about Patrick Henry’s death and the enduring legacy that he has? And especially what citizens, teachers, and students should really remember the most about his contributions to our liberties.

[00:28:51] Harlow Giles Unger: Absolutely. I think everyone needs to remember the enormous differences, though, between Patrick Henry’s world and ours. There were enormous differences in the meanings of their words, of their thoughts, even when the words are the same.

[00:29:10] To most founders the phrase, all men are created equal, meant fewer than 25 percent of Americans then. That limited what independence would mean to all Americans. Like most Americans, Henry grew up and lived in a wide open, sparsely settled land. Free to hunt, fish, swim, and roam the fields and forests, far from any government agenda.

[00:29:36] Only his parents and his own common sense dictated his early conduct. The same held true for most other free, white, wealthy American men. 95 percent lived in rural areas. We call the way he lived liberty. George Washington called it anarchy. As did most of the founders and authors of the Constitution.

[00:30:01] Liberty versus Anarchy. The document infuriated Henry and his followers, who called themselves anti federalists. They said it failed to protect the very individual rights they had fought to free the Americans from. Although the first Congress tried placating him with a Bill of Rights, it left the federal government so much power that 11 states later decided to leave, quit the country, to go their own way.

[00:30:31] Their civil war cost more than 600,000 American lives. So, I think Americans today should hail Patrick Henry as one of our two greatest crowning fathers of our independence of our nationhood. And of our Bill of Rights. But he was human. He was a man of his times. His vision of government reflected his times, not ours. The shape of that government has changed since then and will certainly continue to change to reflect the times of future generations

[00:31:01] Alisha Searcy: of Americans. So, would you end by reading an excerpt from your book, one of your favorite paragraphs?

[00:31:10] Harlow Giles Unger: Absolutely. Patrick Henry was 37. and had witnessed the horrors of slavery across Virginia’s farmlands. It left him an inconsolable abolitionist the rest of his life. I think this letter he wrote to a Quaker friend of his had meaning for today’s poverty, homelessness, substandard schools, ignorance, and other ills of the nation. Here’s what he wrote about slavery. Is it not a little surprising that the professors of Christianity Whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart should encourage a practice so totally repugnant.

[00:31:51] What adds to the wonder is that this abominable practice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times that boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences and refined morality. Have brought into general use and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and tyranny. Is it not amazing that at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country above all others fond of liberty, and in such an age and such a country fond of liberty, we find men adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive to liberty. Those are Patrick Henry’s words 250 years ago. I think they still hold true today.

[00:32:46] Alisha Searcy: Absolutely very powerful. Thank you so much for being with us today.

[00:32:49] Harlow Giles Unger: Thank you very much for inviting me.

[00:33:03] Albert Cheng: Well, yeah, I really enjoyed learning more about Patrick Henry in that interview.

[00:33:07] Alisha Searcy: Definitely learned a lot.

[00:33:09] Albert Cheng: Well, that’s going to take us to the end of our show, but hey, we’ve got the Tweet of the Week, and this one comes from US News Education, and for those of you that are into these kinds of things, you know that US News likes to put together rankings of lots of institutions of higher education, so they’ve just released the 2024 Best Engineering Schools in America.

[00:33:32] So for those of you who are curious about that, take a look. Up top, we have MIT. And then, I don’t know, I got to take a little bit of issue with number two and three here. So as a alum of the University of California, Berkeley, I saw that they put my alma mater as number three, just behind Laura. Archrival Stanford University, so anyway, I don’t know, I guess it’s always just kind of fun.

[00:33:57] How many of these makes a comp, Albert? Well, I’d say I guess it’s fun to kind of look at these rankings and figure out what they mean and have some of this fun jest with what it is. I love it. Alisha, that takes us to the end of our show, but who do we have next week?

[00:34:12] Alisha Searcy: Next week, I’m very excited. We’ve got Dr. Marguerite Rosa, who is the Director of the Edunomics Lab and Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. If you’ve never heard of her, you definitely don’t want to miss. She’s brilliant and she’s fascinating and a little bit entertaining. So, make sure you join us next week. Well, it’s been great to be with you, Albert. Thanks for joining. Great episode today, and we’ll look forward to chatting again next time.

[00:34:40] Albert Cheng: Yeah, always a pleasure. And yeah, great interview. Great conversation.

[00:34:43] Alisha Searcy: See you next week.