Macalester College is a small (2,000-plus students), highly regarded, and very selective liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is proud of its liberal reputation and international outlook, and … Continue reading “Macalester College: Liberal Arts or Monoculture?”
As more students have headed to college and a degree is seen as a way to shape students as workers and as citizens, higher education’s mission has become more important. … Continue reading “Reforming Higher Education: A Reading List”
When college officials violate people’s rights, they run the risk of bringing on lawsuits that can cost their schools a lot of money. The most common instance has been hyper-aggressive … Continue reading “The Oberlin Case Gives College Leaders a Teachable Moment”
Campus protests started in the 1960s, but protests on today’s college campuses have a different vibe. While protests in the past pitted students against university leadership, protests in the present … Continue reading “Why Is UNC Funding a ‘Hub for Social Justice?’”
Although the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s former chancellor, Carol Folt, will mostly be remembered for the numerous scandals and years-long protests on campus during her tenure, she … Continue reading “Arts Everywhere: Distracting from a UNC Scandal”
In 2015, Colorado School of Mines writing instructor Dr. Jon Leydens delivered a TED talk titled “engineering and social justice.” According to Leydens, in the mid-2000s students started asking him … Continue reading “The Rise of Engineering’s Social Justice Warriors”
Many professors cannot resist the temptation to smuggle their personal beliefs into the courses they teach. As long as those beliefs are “progressive,” there is little chance that higher-ups in … Continue reading “Social Justice Teaching Has Invaded Business Schools”
By wide agreement of writing professors and composition scholars, new freshmen arrive not only ill-prepared for college writing but many show little improvement after four years of undergraduate education. In … Continue reading “How Political Indoctrination Destroyed the Promise of Learning in College Writing Courses”
The latest racket in higher education, evident at my alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, is the disturbing proliferation of “social justice” as a degree program, a course … Continue reading “‘Social Justice’ is Overrunning the University of Texas”
A major in English was once a serious endeavor masquerading as a frivolous one. Despite the occasional “do you want fries with that?” condescension from business or science students, the … Continue reading “Three Ways Declining English Departments Can Be Relevant Again”