Articles and Archives

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Spring and Summer Highlights

Here at NAS, we’ve made a habit of every season posting a round-up of the some of the best articles from the last few months, in case you missed one or would like to revisit your favorites. For another way to keep up with us, you can subscribe to our RSS feed. 

Because our last such post was on April 1, we have quite a few items to highlight. Here we present the top 5-8 articles from each month since then. Enjoy! 
 
April   
 
“The Only Work I Can Get Here Involves Diversity Programs”
04/07/09 By Margaret Matthews
"There I was, just one person sitting there, but she was seeing a group." An administrator longs to escape the racial labeling that characterizes her department.
 
04/07/09 By Peter Wood
How the financial crisis traces its roots to postmodernist "value-creating" and removal from reality.
 
04/09/09 By Ashley Thorne
Colleges get ready to use a “climate action litmus test” in hiring new campus leaders.
 
04/14/09 By Peter Wood
A reprint of the article, originally published March 17, 2009, in which NAS broke the story about Virginia Tech's diversity policy.
 
Millennium Falcon: The Bias Birds of Prey
04/17/09 By Ashley Thorne
The University of Arizona's Millennial Student Project targets "unconscious bias."
 
04/23/09 By Ashley Thorne
A letter from President Bob Kerrey to the New School community evades the real problems behind the student protests. This article was linked by Instapundit.
 
04/27/09 By Douglas Campbell
A "Report from the Academy" published in Academic Questions. This article earned a high volume of reader comments and engendered some controversy (see Reason? Reason? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Reason! Scholarship Today). 
 
04/28/09 By Peter Wood
A nation’s manner of educating shapes the character of its people, so how does American education mold our culture today?
 
May  
 
05/04/09 By Peter Wood
What does “global citizenship” really mean?
 
Snitch Studies at Cal Poly: We Snare Because We Care
05/05/09 By Peter Wood
The university launches a new bias incident reporting system to enforce "respect."
 
05/12/09 By Glenn Ricketts
Debate over President Obama's Notre Dame commencement address sparks anti-Catholic fervor.
 
05/15/09 By Ashley Thorne
What will happen when the sustainability revolutionaries take over the college curriculum? On eco-ethics, impact points, and “helping dad become a better man.”
 
05/18/09
A Duke grad student reacted strongly to the AQ article by Douglas Campbell, “The Classroom Without Reason.” In this posting, we reprint his comment and present responses from both Professor Campbell and NAS president Peter Wood. 
 
05/21/09 By Peter Wood
10 principles for restoring the integrity of our education
 
June  
 
06/03/09 By Peter Wood, Glenn Ricketts, and Ashley Thorne
Two categories of 20 questions each for parents of high school juniors and seniors: either play the role of an über-progressive or ask the questions colleges never want to hear.
 
06/08/09 By Peter Wood
On the transformation of the idea of "shame," especially on the college campus, and how the right kind of shame is actually seen as honorable.
 
06/11/09 By Ashley Thorne and Peter Wood
There are many orphaned college mascots who need a good home. Will you give them the love they need?
 
Clash of Symbols
06/16/09 By Ashley Thorne
When Elsa Murano, the first Latina president of Texas A&M University, resigned, some lamented the loss of the institution's "symbol" of diversity.
 
06/24/09 By Peter Wood
This year a UC Santa Barbara professor sent an email to his class, comparing Israeli actions to those of the Nazis. But where did this professor's academic field, "critical globalization studies" actually come from, and should it exist in the university in the first place?
 
July   
 
07/06/09 By Russell K. Nieli
This summer NAS was pleased to present a major review essay by Russell K. Nieli, lecturer in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, critiquing three books supporting affirmative action.  The essay gained attention from the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and on Phi Beta Cons.
 
07/08/09 By Peter Wood
Why academic freedom is not a defense for Ward Churchill 
 
07/24/09 By Ashley Thorne
A professor is bullied out of a job because of her controversial views, but NYU upholds academic freedom.
 
07/27/09 By Peter Wood
NAS president Peter Wood presented this scholarly paper synthesizing NAS's work on sustainability at a conference in Switzerland this summer.
 
07/31/09 By Peter Wood
What does gender have to do with climate change? UNESCO’s 8 themes of education for sustainability
 
August  
 
A First Look at Second Nature
08/03/09 By Ashley Thorne
Will education for sustainability become Second Nature? NAS investigates an organization which has played an important role in the story of sustainability’s rise to the position of dominant ideology in the American university.
 
08/05/09 By Peter Wood, Glenn Ricketts, and Ashley Thorne
Goucher College launches a new program to train students to help marginalized communities realize their dreams.
 
08/12/09 By Ashley Thorne
Should education be free? NAS weighs the merits of “open education”
 
08/20/09 By Peter Wood
NAS's articles on sustainability; why no one criticizes the sustainability movement; and international visions of sustainatopia.
 
We Need Your Help!
08/20/09 By Peter Wood
NAS begins a project examine how political theory is conveyed in the American undergraduate curriculum. First we need to know: who are the key authors and what are the key books in the liberal, conservative, libertarian and radical traditions? This post received plentiful responses from readers.
 
08/24/09 By Peter Wood, Glenn Ricketts, and Ashley Thorne
What you won’t learn in new student orientation about bias police, eco-crazies, diversity, religion, and ideology.
 
08/25/09 By Michele Kerr
An education student's firsthand account of her time in a graduate program where she was expected to walk in lockstep. To see Stanford’s reply to Michele’s piece, click here.
 
September  
 
09/01/09 By Peter Wood
Most colleges don't seize the opportunity to do something original. We suggest they try a new approach, such as the labyrinth curriculum.
 
09/03/09 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne
10 reasons to oppose the sustainability movement on your campus
College students hear a lot about sustainability these days, but do you know what it really means?
 
Dem Bones, Dem Barebones Education
09/03/09 By Peter Wood and Glenn Ricketts
Online education gains respectability as the wave of the future. This article received a number of in-depth comments from our readers. We take this as a sign that of this topic’s significance to our readers, and we hope to provide a platform for more discussion of online education.
 
 
09/10/09 By Peter Wood
The feminist-lesbian-leftist called higher education out as a "rote regurgitation of hackneyed approved terms."
 
Tray Chic
09/11/09 By Ashley Thorne
Colleges experiment in trayless dining...and mind manipulation.
 
09/17/09 By Peter Wood
It’s 2029. Do you know where your university is?
 
 
 

 

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Take Back the Classroom from PowerPoint

Restrict PowerPoint use in teaching to pictures and videos, writes Jason Fertig. Too much PowerPoint usurps professors' authority and accustoms students to lazy thinking.

Collegiate Press Roundup 9-2-10

Student journalists examine topics from presidential speeches to campus smoking bans.

Will You Promote Diversity? Virginia Tech Tests Faculty Candidates’ Commitment

A major public university has fashioned a “diversity” litmus test for faculty hiring

FIRE Educates for Free Speech on Campus

FIRE will offer a Free Speech Seminar in NYC on September 14.

University Speaker Series: Arab Feminism, Black Feminism, and "A Southern Queer Love Story"...No Comment

A program on gender and diversity at the University of Richmond will explore "emancipatory ideas of social justice" this fall.

How Scholarships Morphed into Financial Aid

This excerpt from Jackson Toby's latest book, The Lowering of Higher Education in America: Why Financial Aid Should Be Based on Student Performance, will appear in the forthcoming fall issue of Academic Questions (vol. 23, no. 3).

Common Reading Controversy at Brooklyn College

Is Brooklyn College using freshman reading for ideological goals?

Question of the Week: How Many Colleges Should You Apply To?

To answer, leave a comment on this article, email us, or respond via Facebook or Twitter (no more than 140 characters).

Atlas Black Shrugs

The first comic book textbook combines management jargon and theories and packages them into a story about a slacker student's attempt to become an entrepreneur.
1 comment - Last on 08/27/2010

Collegiate Press Roundup 8-26-10

Student journalists have a look at the Ground Zero mosque controversy, reducing your carbon footprint and the pitfalls of "sexting."

A Regulatory Assault on For-Profit Higher Education

How the attacks on for-profit higher ed are squashing needed competition.

New Excellent Programs: Tocqueville Program and Center for Statesmanship

Check out our list of excellent programs as we add new ones at Indiana and Richmond.

The Glut of Academic Publishing: A Call for a New Culture

This article will appear in the forthcoming fall issue of Academic Questions (vol. 23, no. 3). A short version of this paper appeared under the title “We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research” in the June 13, 2010 Chronicle of Higher Education.
1 comment - Last on 08/25/2010

Building a 21st Century Syllabus

Professors these days have to cover their backs when writing syllabi, writes David Clemens.
2 comments - Last on 08/20/2010

Question of the Week: Why Did You Choose Your College?

We're starting a new "Question of the Week" series. We'll have a new higher-education-related question every week. To answer, leave a comment on this article, email us, or respond via Facebook or Twitter (no more than 140 characters).
2 comments - Last on 08/20/2010

Dictatorships and Double Standards, Part II

Professor Paquette responds to the controversy generated this summer after Hamilton College sought to censor his NAS article.

Real Ethics Education

Ethics courses should make moral decisions personal, argues Jason Fertig.

Collegiate Press Roundup 8-18-10

Student journalists tackle gay marriage, weird psycholgy studies and state liquor regulations.

5 Consequences of Administrative Bloat

What happens to higher education when universities are dominated by administrators?

Ravitch Repentant

Peter Cohee reviews Diane Ravitch's book, a partial volte-face, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

 

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