Articles

Most recent posting below. See other articles in the column to the right.

Are Students Customers? No
August 29, 2008 By Peter Wood
NAS Executive Director Peter Wood replies to Ed Cutting with an opposing view, that "the 'customer service' model of higher education is an illusory path to real academic reform."

Are Students Customers? Yes
August 29, 2008 By Ed Cutting
One of our members, Ed Cutting, argues that students should be treated with a customer service model based on the free market. After all, higher education can't get much worse, can it?

The Georgia Diversion: Faculty Aren’t Biased, Students Are, Says the Peach State. Really?
August 29, 2008 By Peter Wood
The University System of Georgia conducted a "Survey on Student Speech and Discussion," which has been heralded as proof that the U.S. doesn't have a problem with bias in the classroom. But we have our doubts. Clouding the results is a mistaken substitution of "tolerance" for freedom of speech.

Socialism for Sophomores
August 26, 2008 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst has outdone itself in offering a descent into radical ideology pure and simple. Its Social Thought & Political Economy program reveals to us how easy it is to add a socialist mentality to a multiculturalist religion.
3 comments - Last on 08/29/2008

The Communitarian ResLife Movement: Part 4 (Final)
August 25, 2008 By Tom Wood
Is the university a public square?
2 comments - Last on 08/26/2008

“Protect Our Freedoms” APSA Members Petition
August 25, 2008
Members of the American Political Science Association, which is scheduled to have its annual meeting in Toronto next year, have drafted a petition that consideration be given to relocating the meeting on the grounds that Canada has shown hostility to the freedom of speech.

When I Squeeze You, You Make Noise!
August 22, 2008 By Peter Wood
NAS executive director Peter Wood considers the rationale behind Princeton's "25 Most Influential Alumni" list. Not to miss among the "Portraits of Influence" is the man who gave us the Rubber Ducky song.

The Communitarian ResLife Movement: Part 3
August 21, 2008 By Tom Wood
What can a mission statement tell us about a college's susceptibility to communitarian ideals? Thomas Wood compares the mission statements of Harvard, Berkeley, and U of Delaware.

Unwelcome
August 20, 2008 By Ashley Thorne
Multicultural welcome receptions at California State University at Chico raise the question, "Do differences really define who we are?"
1 comment - Last on 09/19/2008

The Communitarian ResLife Movement: Part 2
August 18, 2008 By Tom Wood
Thomas Wood explains how the three circles of sustainability overlap to produce a new pedagogy in residence halls.
2 comments - Last on 09/23/2008

Olympic Ironies
August 15, 2008 By Ashley Thorne
Perhaps the Olympic spirit reflects good, instinctual, but stifled life principles - rejected especially by higher education. Enjoy it while you can.
1 comment - Last on 08/18/2008

Now on Sale
August 14, 2008 By Peter Wood
Lovely handcrafted hobo sticks and bundles now available for purchase from NAS.

Can Social Workers Be Competent? And Other Conundrums Arising from Charles Murray’s Call for Replacing College Degrees with Competency Exams
August 14, 2008 By Peter Wood
Charles Murray asserts that the degree should be replaced by the CPA-like certification. NAS executive director Peter Wood comments on Murray's suggestion and indicates possible flaws in the scheme.
3 comments - Last on 08/22/2008

A Degree in Agitprop
August 11, 2008 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne
Prompted by one of our Argus volunteers, NAS looks into a degree program in social justice education at U Mass Amherst. There we find one of those fantasy studies we thought existed only in such realms as Miskatonic or Hogwarts.
2 comments - Last on 08/13/2008

A Critic in Full: A Conversation with Tom Wolfe
August 11, 2008 By Carol Iannone - Academic Questions
This article, an interview with Tom Wolfe, appeared in the current issue of NAS's publication, Academic Questions (vol. 21, no. 2).
1 comment - Last on 08/16/2008

Dizzy Diversity
August 07, 2008 By Ashley Thorne
Today NAS completes its serializing of Getting Under the Skin of "Diversity" by Larry Purdy. Purdy, one of the lawyers who represented Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter in the U.S. Supreme Court cases Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, takes us inside an upside down house of racial preferences.

If I Ran the Zoo XIV
August 05, 2008 By Erin O'Connor and Maurice Black
Erin O'Connor and Maurice Black point us to Dr. Seuss's commencement address that urged, "swallow what's solid," but "spit out the air!"
1 comment - Last on 08/06/2008

A Bill Becomes a Law
August 04, 2008 By Steve Balch and Peter Wood
NAS president Steve Balch and executive director Peter Wood tell about the American History for Freedom Program, a tiny gem in the massive newly-passed Higher Education Act.
7 comments - Last on 08/05/2008