we will hear from executive director ashley thorne who first conceived of studying, and reading programs as a way to illuminate what colleges really value. the first four reports established the subject and something professors and the general public take seriously. we will also hear from the director of communications, david randall, who wrote this report. he is phd from rutgers in history, joins the national association of scholars october 1st and his first assignment was to synthesize our collection of data on these common breeding programs into a coherent analysis. he did astonishingly good work in the last few months. we will have time later on for questions and conversation, but our keynote speaker, mark bauerlein, former director of research and analysis at the national endowment for the arts, and senior editor at first thing. let me add how grateful i am the first things is hosting the launch of this report, first things is one of the truce form walls in our society against the region's seas of mediocrity, that threaten to drown our public culture. follow these books that shape t