For the past month, I have been wrestling with questions that have yet to yield clear and satisfactory answers. For one, should an academic degree be considered a prerequisite for gainful employment? And is the labor market destined to rely exclusively—if at all—on academia as its primary job-training mechanism? Though not easily resolvable, these questions […]
Read MoreDescribed as a man who “always projected ‘moral and ethical rectitude,’” esteemed mid-1800s glacial geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin once made a profound statement at the 1888 University of Michigan Annual Commencement: “Falsity in intellectual action is intellectual immorality.” This statement appears to ring ever truer when one considers recent trends in 21st-century science. Before diving […]
Read MoreEditor’s Note: This article was originally published by the Times of Israel on February 18, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission. “It is time to escalate for Palestine,” wrote Bowdoin College’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). In early February, 50 SJP students occupied Bowdoin’s Smith Union, the […]
Read MoreEditor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on February 24, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission. Princeton University students can learn about “Investigative Theater for a Changing Climate” this spring. Students will create “an original work of theater” by “pursuing a creative inquiry into some aspect […]
Read MoreIn his monumental work Culture and Anarchy, 19th-century poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold laid out a novel curriculum that would revolutionize educational spaces in the coming century. Based on the Ancient Greek system of classical education, Arnold’s ambitious scheme envisioned the university as the center of cultural education—the cornerstone for understanding ourselves and the […]
Read MoreFrom 1636, when Harvard was founded, to about 2010, college enrollments in America tended to rise constantly, with minor disruptions, reflecting increased demand for higher education largely arising from population and economic growth. At the beginning of the American Revolution, fewer than one of every 2,500 colonial Americans attended college. By 2010, the proportion of […]
Read MoreWhether you believe Donald Trump is a victim of lawfare or fear that his appointees will engage in it, one thing is clear: Americans are losing faith in our institutions to deliver justice, and for good reason. Law is no longer just a tool for ensuring fairness; it has become a weapon for those in […]
Read MoreEditor’s Note: The following is an excerpt of an article originally published on the author’s Substack Diogenes In Exile on January 13, 2025. With edits to fit MTC’s style, it is crossposted here with permission. Over the last few months, I embarked on a sobering project: examining the textbooks used to train future therapists. Specifically, […]
Read MoreEditor’s Note: This article was originally published by PJ Media on February 11, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. Cultural anthropologists venture out into the world beyond the university to study and try to understand people and their cultures, often distant geographically and different in […]
Read MoreThe newly released Deep-Seek artificial intelligence (AI) program, which is manufactured, owned, and operated within the sovereign bounds of the People’s Republic of China, has disrupted technology markets across the globe and raised new questions in the foreign policy fields of Great Power Competition. An often overlooked aspect of this newly emergent technology, however, is […]
Read MoreAuthor’s Note: This excerpt is from my weekly “Top of Mind” email, sent to subscribers every Thursday. For more content like this and to receive the full newsletter each week, sign up on Minding the Campus’s homepage. Simply go to the right side of the page, look for “SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, ‘TOP OF MIND,’” and […]
Read MoreIt is easy to assume that the authors of Don’t Go To College: A Case For Revolution (2022) would be anti-intellectuals who never darkened a university’s doors and are jealous of anyone who did. Ah, but not so fast. Michael J. Robillard and Timothy J. Gordon were in the “belly of the beast” as students, […]
Read MoreEditor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on February 5, 2025. It was translated into English from French by the Observatory before being edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission. The contemporary period, which has been described as hypermodern, produces identity […]
Read MoreThe headline caught my attention: “Squirrels spotted hunting and eating animals for first time.” Reading on [emphases added]: Until now, squirrels were thought to be primarily vegetarian, cramming their cheeks full of seeds and nuts, which they often bury in underground stores to get through the colder months. But biologists were amazed to see Californian […]
Read MoreEditor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on February 18, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission. A panel of scholars recently discussing the 2024 presidential election outcome at the University of Virginia (UVA) largely blamed racism and sexism for President Donald Trump’s reelection, with one scholar […]
Read MoreEditor’s Note: The following article was originally published by the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal on February 17, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. Eleven universities across North Carolina have partnered with the PhD Project, which has been discriminating on the basis of race and ethnicity […]
Read MoreIn the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision, Student for Fair Admission, which banned the use of affirmative action in university admissions, the real possibility of suing higher education institutions under the federal False Claims Act was raised, not only for continuing to use race in admissions, but also for engaging in any “diversity, equity, […]
Read MoreAfter openly criticizing “anti-vaxxers” who did not buy into the whole COVID-19 vaccine hoopla, one of my professors at Emory University jokingly posed this question to the lecture hall: “Everyone here is a liberal, right?” As a freshman who had claimed a philosophical exemption just to attend my university, I cringed. Even though I was […]
Read MoreOhio Senate Bill 1, passed by the Senate, will be a big step forward for higher education. The bill would protect free speech; forbid discrimination based on race or other group identity; forbid indoctrination by faculty and staff; forbid “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs; and institute an undergraduate General Education Requirement in American government […]
Read MoreI recently published an article detailing the pervasive anti-Semitic environment at Sarah Lawrence College (SLC), where I have been a faculty member for the past fifteen years. In it, I presented troubling facts about the rise of anti-Semitism on the New York-based campus and shared my perspective on SLC’s handling of these issues. Rather than […]
Read More