Anthony Paletta is a freelance writer.
Antioch College, of fame for strident sexual interaction policies, and Abu-Jamal commencement speeches, has ceased to be. American colleges are not in the habit of disappearing, but then, there are few colleges anything quite like Antioch, as Peter Wood today notes in What Happened To Antioch? on the site today. In a universe of left-inclined […]
Read More
We’re featuring Brad Wilson’s excellent piece on Constitution Day from Academic Questions. He notes that colleges seemed taken aback, or positively dyspeptic, when faced with a 2005 federal requirement to make some sort of observation or commemoration for “Constitution Day” – September 17. Universities were widely alarmed at such an “intrusion” – even in very […]
Read More
Robert George and Cornel West have teamed up in an unlikely enterprise – co-teaching a Freshmen Seminar, “Great Books and Arguments” at Princeton. You can find the full story in the June issue of the Princeton Alumni magazine. George and West seem to radiate enthusiasm about the collaboration, and, particularly, about the challenges to their […]
Read More
I’d advise all to speed to John Ellis’ essay, available above, (or here) from the marvelous Academic Questions. These items are generally unavailable without a subscription, but we’ve arranged to provide you some occasional glimpses. The piece is a bit long, but worth every page. Defenders of the modern academy often assert that reform-minded critiques […]
Read More
John Rosenberg has an excellent post at Discriminations on, among other things, Lee Bollinger’s latest slippery utterances in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Rosenberg offers a superb paragraph’s description of the filigreed nature of diversity goals: Since preferentialists speak in platitudes and not principles, their defense of racial preferences provides no guides to policy makers […]
Read More
Martin Kramer, Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, spoke about the failure of Middle Eastern Studies at our colleges at a Center for the American University luncheon here in New York recently. He touched on the radical sympathies of many professors, flimsy research credentials, and prevalent anti-Americanism. Those unable to attend the […]
Read More
The Chronicle of Higher Education in this week’s issue points to a problem confronted by colleges: “the poor grades earned by many minority students.” Vacuous assertions that “diversity and excellence go hand in hand” tend to collapse when confronting figures like those found in the Chronicle piece: Data for 2003-4 U.S. colleges contrasted the percentages […]
Read More
Vijay Prashad employs an especially nimble means of comparison in The Boston Globe today. It seems that the University of Massachusetts is about to grant Andrew Card an honorary degree. Prashad objects to this, on a variety of grounds. That’s not surprising. University honors bestowed on any political figures (especially those rightward) tend to inspire […]
Read More
Joanne Creighton, President of Mt. Holyoke College, makes several worthy points on the behalf of women’s colleges in The Boston Globe today, but her case for the knowledge they convey is rather bizarrely ordered. Consider the admirable facts that she could cite first: 1. Mt. Holyoke has produced, in the last forty years, more graduates […]
Read More
Press Release: Dartmouth College Office of Public Affairs Dartmouth Board of Trustees Elects Stephen Smith HANOVER, N.H. – The Dartmouth College Board of Trustees has elected Stephen F. Smith as a trustee following a nomination vote by Dartmouth’s alumni from a slate of four candidates. Smith, a 1988 graduate of Dartmouth, will join the board […]
Read More
The yield of the University of California’s “holistic” admissions process is now becoming apparent with the release of enrollment figures. Admissions were conducted under a novel system for the current year, a “holistic process” which was promoted as a means to improve the relative chances of disadvantaged students who lacked AP courses and other academic […]
Read More
The Boston Globe reports: A judicial panel at Tufts University on Thursday ruled that a conservative campus journal “harassed” blacks by publishing a Christmas carol parody called “O Come All Ye Black Folk” that many found racist. The Primary Source, which published the carol, removed the lyrics from their site months ago, and replaced them […]
Read More