Beauty and Wisdom: Renew the Culture by Restoring the Liberal Arts
Universities are in dire need of reform. They are too expensive; the classwork is too easy; the curriculum too unfocused. Too many students drop out or don’t care. Indeed, many…
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“Great Books”
The Liberal Arts: What We Don’t Know
What is the value of a liberal arts education? At a time when parents are wary of taking on loads of debt to finance their children’s college degrees, it was…
Why Liberal Arts Colleges Are Failing and How to Revive Them
The loss of public trust in universities that has risen to front page news did not suddenly emerge in 2020. In 2018 the non-partisan Gallup organization found that, for the…
10 Books We’d Like to Find Under the Christmas Tree in 2020
One of my favorite projects at the Martin Center is the cultivation of our higher education library. So far, we’ve collected nearly 700 books about higher education and educational philosophy.…
True Learning Starts With Real Mentorship
There’s a chasm between the purpose of a liberal arts education and how many colleges and universities actually operate. Throughout academia, excessive value is placed on efficiency, research publications, and…
Whatever Happened to the Teaching of Western Civilization?
Stanley Kurtz ranks as one of this country’s most insightful critics of higher education. The National Association of Scholars chose wisely in commissioning him to write a report on what…
The Essential Ingredient for a ‘Deep Education’
About a year ago, Princeton philosopher Robert P. George came to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to speak about civil discourse and diversity of thought with the UNC system Board of…
The Four Perspectives of Higher Education Policy Explained
Explaining higher education policy is never easy (even to people who are involved in it). Over the years, while training young writers for the Martin Center, I have come up…
A Remarkably Hard College Course Proves Remarkably Popular
We’re used to hearing that American college students don’t like reading and avoid tough courses where they have to. But a new course at the University of Oklahoma (OU) proves…
Higher Education and the Threat of Fascism
In a recent essay published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley is haunted by a spectre—the spectre of American universities aiding the rise of fascism.…