Repairing Academia’s Crisis of Meaning
Traditionally, higher education introduced students to life’s most fundamental questions: “What is good?”; “What is true?”; “Do our lives have meaning beyond the material?”; and so on. The focus used…
Our Accreditation System Has Bennett College Struggling for Life
Founded in 1873 in Greensboro, North Carolina, Bennett College is one only two of historically black colleges just for women. It has been a four-year college since 1926, but in…
What We’re Reading: A Defense of the University, Governance Guidebooks, and a Higher Ed Satire
Jenna A. Robinson, President In March, Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay penned “A Principled Defense of the University” for Areo. Coming from two of the authors of the “Sokal…
Commencements Show the UNC System’s Struggles with Political Neutrality
In 2017, the North Carolina legislature passed House Bill 527 (now State Law 2017-196) to foster open inquiry in the state’s public colleges and universities. One of the provisions ordered…
Politicized Art Schools Are Losing Students to the Atelier Movement
A series of disasters face art colleges and the art departments of American universities. Their campuses are closing, their freshmen numbers are dwindling, and their graduates are struggling. Getting more…
Keeping Journalists in the Dark: ‘Citation Cartels’ Limit Public Knowledge
The public relies on journalists to learn about and share academic research. Public knowledge can be undermined, however, when academics try to influence what research journalists cover or limit the…
From Indoctrination to Education: Salvaging the University
Editor’s note: This article is an excerpt from Coming Home: Reclaiming America’s Conservative Soul (ISBN: 9781641770569), to be published by Encounter Books on May 14. The promise of higher education…
Administrative Hardball at the University of Tulsa
On April 11, the administration of the University of Tulsa shocked faculty, students, and alumni by announcing the elimination of 40 percent of the school’s academic programs. Undergraduate and graduate…
Political Science Needs Intellectual Diversity, But Few Realize It
Political science is the study of homo politicus, what Plato considered the most quintessential of human behaviors. Over the centuries, it has generated a library of observations, theories, and findings…
A Lame Case for Diversity
Abigail Stewart and Virginia Valian are senior psychologists at the University of Michigan and Hunter College, respectively. As an opponent of group preferences and double standards to achieve diversity among…