Icy Memories: A Scrapbook of our Winter Articles

Ashley Thorne

At last it's April. For some of us, it seemed that spring would never come. At NAS, however, we took advantage of the dreary months to bring you a continual supply of new articles and commentary on happenings in higher education. Some of the essays that drew the most attention were "Hookup Ink" (from Academic Questions), "Free to Agree," "Update on UW Fox Dean's Blog," and "Charles Murray and Progressive Education."

Here is a scrapbook of sorts to commemorate some of the highlights of our winter articles. We invite you to browse and enjoy.


Beehive Whacking

11/20/08 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne

A professor who publicized names of plagiarizing students in his course was fired from Texas A&M International University. Many see the incident as a discouragement to faculty to report academic dishonesty.

 

NAS Renews Its Call to Make Accreditation Contingent on Fair Hiring

11/26/08 By NAS Staff

We urge a regional accreditor to ensure that Santa Rosa Junior College abandons racial preferences.

 

Holiday Conquest

12/02/08 By Ashley Thorne

Lessons from the “educational” board game

 

Rocket Science

12/03/08 By Peter Wood

NAS pays homage to an inventor

 

Cold Brine: The College Board Loses Its Senses

12/15/08 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne

The College Board recently unveiled a new goal for America - that by the year 2025, 55% of Americans should have a college degree. But is that achievement the right solution to save America's place in international competition?

 

Social Changelings

12/18/08 By Ashley Thorne

Not even the hard sciences are safe from Leftist ideology.

 

Is the B.A. Degree Meaningless?

12/19/08 By Tom Wood

There's new evidence that B.A. degrees have economic, non-economic, and even educational value.

 

A Tribute to Stephen H. Balch

01/12/09 By Peter Wood

Peter Wood, who became president of the National Association of Scholars at the beginning of this year, presented this speech in honor of Steve Balch, NAS's founder and its president for nearly 22 years. This tribute was given on January 9, 2009, during the NAS national conference in Washington, D.C.

 

Speaking Freely

01/16/09 By Ashley Thorne

Does the AAUP really oppose speech codes?

 

Civilization and the Spirit of Scholarship: On the Continuing Need for the NAS

By Peter Wood

Part I: Genuine Academic Freedom 01/22/09

Part II: A Dissenting Voice 02/11/09

 

Enchanting Sustainability

01/26/09 By Peter Wood

Shock and awe come to the university.

 

Electracy: What a Tangled Web We Weave

01/30/09 By Peter Wood

“Higher education is transitioning from literacy to electracy.”

 

Deferred Maintenance

02/03/09 By Peter Wood

A call for financial accountability in higher education

 

No Maintenance at All

02/05/09 By Ashley Thorne

The Salem campus of SNHU remembers why we go to college in the first place.

 

Update on UW Fox Dean's Blog
02/11/09 By Ashley Thorne
The votes are in! This is a story of a university administrator who wrongly assumed that his political posturing would be met with widespread approbation.
 


Sustainabullies

02/12/09 By Ashley Thorne and Peter Wood

How the sustainability movement self-reproduces

 

Unworldly Diversity

02/13/09 By Russell K. Nieli, Academic Questions

A review of the book The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies.

 

Hookup Ink

02/17/09 By Wendy Shalit, Academic Questions

A review of three books on the campus hookup culture.

 

Bias Isn’t Bias If It’s Ours

02/18/09 By Peter Wood

For instance, according to Barbara Applebaum, it's appropriate to teach for social justice "under conditions of systemic injustice."

 

Canada Gets It Right

02/19/09 By Ashley Thorne

Queen's College terminated its Intergroup Dialogue program when it was found to invite conversation-policing.

 

Berkeley in the Sixties

02/23/09 By Tom Wood

With its excitement and passion in intellectual life, perhaps it was the Golden Age of the American university.

 

Mathematical Deceptions

02/23/09 By Peter Wood

 

More on “Bias Isn’t Bias If It’s Ours”

02/25/09 By Tom Abeles, Jerry Reedy, Peter Wood, Paula Ruddy, and Larry Purdy
Continuing discussion prompted by an NAS article on social justice and education.

 

Academic Freedom is a Public Trust
03/03/09 By Steve Balch
Steve Balch calls for public vigilence against abuses of academic freedom. Here are his remarks on accepting the Jeane Jordon Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award from the American Conservative Union Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

21st Century Ignorance

03/04/09 By Peter Wood
A new dictionary of educational lingo misses the latest fad: "21st century skills."

 

Charles Murray and Progressive Education 
03/09/09 By Tom Wood
On doubting the liberal arts and learning transfer

 

Shopping Spree
03/11/09 By Peter Wood
Higher education needs to spend many unbudgeted billions by the end of this month. Will you help? 

 

Free to Agree

03/17/09 By Peter Wood

Virginia Tech’s dossier of doom

 

Cellular Division

03/19/09 By Glenn Ricketts and Peter Wood

NAS invites scholars to debate President Obama's decision to revoke the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

 

Cracking the Speech Code

03/19/09 By Greg Lukianoff

Remarks by the FIRE president at the January NAS national conference: the state of free speech and civil liberties on campus.

 

Thursday Threnodies

03/19/09 By Peter Wood

Hangry, Scalia at Amherst, medical school match day, Lucy, and critical play

 

Friday Frogs Legs

03/20/09 By Ashley Thorne

DiversityInc ratings, Residence life video, Affirmative action in California, Students "feel empty" and look to Great Books, Peter Wood in Inside Higher Ed, Is the internet stupefying students?, Letter to Obama: lose "achievement" and "rigor," Best surfing colleges

 

New Tradition-Minded Academic Geographers Subgroup

03/24/09 By Jim Norwine

Announcement: proposed new group of academic geographers dedicated to inquiry and "the whole range of human values."

 

Suitable for Framing

03/26/09 By Ashley Thorne

FIRE, student paper, CHE, and John K. Wilson weigh in on Virginia Tech diversity requirements for promotion and tenure.

 

Bucks for Buckeyes

03/26/09 By Peter Wood

OSU’s provost has preferences

 

River Rafting

03/26/09 By Larry Purdy

A response to the Chronicle of Higher Education article “Affirmative-Action Programs for Minority Students: Right in Theory, Wrong in Practice.”

 

Slouching Toward the Therapeutic University

By Tom Wood

Why self-alienation is a good thing in education

Part 1 03/30/09

Part 2 03/31/09

Part 3 04/01/09

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