A few days ago in the Wall Street Journal, the “Notable & Quotable” section excerpted several passages from a book written by the great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter. Three sentences caught my attention. They point, I believe, in the direction of answering the question posed in my previous post: Why did college administrators and trustees […]
So, hey, who needs boring old history when a guy, or a girl, in college can load up on engineering, health care, technology – you know, the stuff that really pays? As Florida Republicans contemplate the higher-ed bottom line, many, according to the New York Times (Dec. 10), hanker to “steer students toward majors […]
The word “sustainability,” like the words “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” has acquired totemic status on college campuses. Go to your favorite college website, look under “Offices & Services,” “Research,” “Education” “Campus” or any number of other categories and you may find more space devoted to the word than is devoted to the offerings of certain traditional […]
By Frank Buckley One must be sympathetic to those who, observing the shipwreck which is the American humanities professoriate, suggest the abolition of tenure. Such proposals elicit furious denunciations from the academy and from the left. Getting rid of tenure would usher in a new McCarthyism, they claim (from their lips to God’s ear). It’s […]
In “Moving Further to the Left,” Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed reports the following: “Academics, on average, lean to the left. A survey being released today suggests that they are moving even more in that direction. “Among full-time faculty members at four-year colleges and universities, the percentage identifying as “far left” or liberal has […]
A Special Note from Thomas K. Lindsay, Editor in Chief of SeeThruEdu.com: Twenty-five years ago, Allan Bloom published his bestseller, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. His book gave rise to numerous studies over the years testifying to the fact that, since […]
Fortunately, I no longer teach in a place where I am forced to use a preselected textbook. When I did for many years as I taught freshman composition and literature survey courses in various units of the Georgia State University System, I found myself searching for a diminishing list of classic texts. At one […]
By Frank Buckley Cows don’t have a history, observed Ortega. They just are. So too with reality. It just is. Or so one might have thought. But reality does acquire historiographical significance where there is more than one of it. I’m not talking about alternative histories. As it happens, today we celebrate the 150th anniversary […]