Author Profile

Peter Wood

Peter W. Wood is Executive Director of the National Association of Scholars. He is the author (with Michael Toscano) of What Does Bowdoin Teach? How a Contemporary Liberal Arts College Shapes Students (2013); A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now (Encounter Books, 2007) and of Diversity: The Invention of a Concept (Encounter Books, 2003) which won the Caldwell Award for Leadership in Higher Education from the John Locke Foundation. He is a graduate of Haverford College, Rutgers University, and the University of Rochester, from which he received a Ph.D. in anthropology in 1987. He previously served as provost of The King's College in new York City, and as associate provost and the president's chief of staff at Boston University, where he was also a tenured member of the anthropology department. His essays on American culture have appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Minding the Campus, The National Review Online, Partisan Review, Frontpage Magazine, The Claremont Review of Books, The American Conservative, Society and other journals.

Articles by Peter Wood

In Fisher II, the Supreme Court Should Look at Reality, Not Pretense

Dec 11, 2015 ·

On December 9, the Supreme Court heard arguments on a crucial case dealing with racial preferences in college admissions, Fisher v. University of Texas. It would be ideal if the Court would recognize that the University of Texas has been unable to show any legitimate academic justification for its racial preference regime. Its “educational benefits” claims are empty.

The Student Loan Scandal – A Problem of Leadership

Jun 27, 2007 ·

Editor’s Note: Peter Wood is executive director of the National Association of Scholars. A longer version of this essay was originally published May 14, 2007 on Minding the Campus

In mid-January, a brief item appeared on an inside page of The New York Times, headlined “Student Lender Investigated.” The article noted that the New York Attorney General’s office was looking into “student loan marketing” by Sallie Mae, “the nation’s largest lender to students.” Attorney General Cuomo had requested information about “preferred lender lists,” i.e. the lenders that colleges and universities recommend to their students. The article also noted that “some loan companies have criticized” such lists, alleging that lenders got onto the list “in exchange for payments or other benefits.”