President & Chief Executive Officer
Request an Interview Follow on Twitter/XDr. Poliakoff became part of the ACTA team in March 2010 as the Vice President of Policy, and became ACTA's third president on July 1, 2016. He previously served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and research at the University of Colorado and in senior roles at the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Council on Teacher Quality, the American Academy for Liberal Education, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
He has taught at Georgetown University, George Washington University, Hillsdale College, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Wellesley College. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Yale University and went on to study at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and the University of Michigan, where he earned a Ph.D. in classical studies. He has been a junior fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies, and his research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, and the Alexander Von Humboldt Stiftung. He is the author of numerous books and journal articles in classical studies and education policy and has received the American Philological Association's Excellence in Teaching Award and the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Distinguished Service to Education Award.
Like many universities, Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh are struggling to protect free expression, encourage a plurality of views and foster habits of civil discourse on their campuses.
“There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country. Without such knowledge, he stands uncertain and defenseless before the world, knowing neither where he has come from nor where he is going.”
The study of American history and government is undergoing an unprecedented renewal, akin to the phoenix – a mythical bird that is reborn by rising from the ashes of its predecessor. Major universities have recently launched independent institutes, sometimes called “schools of civic thought,” dedicated to the in-depth exploration of an American political tradition that […]
The American college campus can return to sanity. It won’t be easy, but Ann Arbor is showing how this can happen.
Over the last 60 years, there has been unconscionable neglect of civics and American history at both the K-12 and university levels.
Censorship is ugly behavior, whether it comes from the right or the left. Fortunately, it is most often self-defeating, but it is a warning sign of deeper pathology. So we see in the matter of philosopher, filmmaker, and humanitarian Bernard-Henri Lévy’s new book, Israel Alone.
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