Free Republic

Pope: Catholic education part of New Evangelization   2012-05-05 Vatican Radio Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday spoke about the importance of Catholic education when addressing a group of United States bishops in Rome on their ad limina visit. Calling Catholic schools “an essential resource for the new evangelization,” the Holy Father urged that a Catholic education be within the reach of all families, whatever their financial status. Turning his attention to higher education, Pope Benedict said colleges and universities “need to reaffirm their distinctive identity in fidelity to their founding ideals and the Church’s mission in service of the Gospel.”He...

Several recent incidents on campuses show that Jew-hate and double standards are alive and well. In February 2010, a student at the University of California, San Diego, left a noose dangling from a bookcase in the school library. Although the noose was directed at no individual student, the obvious racial overtones of this symbol of the Southern lynch mob provoked predictable outrage. In protest, students occupied the chancellor’s office. A campus teach-in on tolerance was held. Black students publicly expressed their indignation, pain, and fear to a sympathetic campus administration. The chancellor issued an uncompromising statement condemning the incident and...

American universities have become infected with foreign spies posing as humble students and researchers, who are working to steal government secrets and new technologies to take back to their own countries. Untold numbers of foreign agents are hidden among the thousands of legitimate international students who are studying science, technology and engineering in the US. China, Russia and Iran are among the nations who are attempting to exploit the culture of openness and transparency in American higher education. … Several recent arrests and discoveries illustrate the point. Even the high-profile network of Russian sleeper agents that was dismantled in 2010...

BANGOR, Maine — The University of Maine System has given its employees more than $7 million in raises since 2006, during a period of repeated budget cuts and fiscal uncertainty, according to data the system released Tuesday. But the system’s leaders say that same period was a time of great change and shifting roles, with many employees taking on additional work. Most of the pay increases were awarded under the Salaried Employee Compensation and Classification Program, which allows nonfaculty salaried employees in the system to have their positions reviewed to see if their workload warrants a higher pay rate. Other...

20 Catholic (and Christian) Institutions Opposing Obama/HHS Mandate by Thomas Peters10 hours ago (February 9, 2012) My list of bishops who have publicly condemned the Obama/HHS mandate is now at 171 (representing almost 95% of Catholic dioceses). Only 4 bishops have yet to issue statements — and I expect they will shortly!Now I’d like to begin compiling a list of Catholic (and Christian) institutions who have said publicly they will fight or oppose the mandate.A few ground-rules: I’m only going to include institutions that have issued public statements online or a statement to the press which is available online....

Sign The Protest Your immediate action is vital to STOP abortion advocacy groups at 6 Catholic universities - Sign your protest right now If you care about innocent life, please take a brief moment to sign this urgent petition to stop abortion activist groups at 6 Catholic campuses. Petition: Stop Abortion Advocacy at Catholic Universities I think you’ll agree with me that Catholic campuses must not be used as recruiting centers for Planned Parenthood. It’s so obviously wrong. However, the pro-abortion group called “Students for Reproductive Justice” is active at Boston College, DePaul University, Fordham University, Georgetown University, Santa Clara...

With unemployment at record levels, guess what academic economists from coast to coast are devoting their energies to studying? In The Chronicle Review on December 11, 2011, Rachel Shteir, an associate professor at the Theatre School at DePaul University, helpfully separates the scholars from the crackpots in the burgeoning field of sexonomics. “In the law corner is Daniel S. Hamermesh’s Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, which calls people who aren’t beautiful ‘The Ugly’ or ‘Looks-Challenged’ and argues that they merit affirmative action,” Shteir wrote. “In the exploit-the-marketplace corner is Catherine Hakim’s Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction...

Jews are being expelled from academia, just as they were in the 1930's. Is Europe going to let this happen again barely 70 years later? Several days ago the Israeli leftist author Moshe Sakal was booted from an academic conference in Marseilles at the request of Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish. The director of the conference, French-Jewish author Pierre Assouline, succumbed to the Arab pressure and said Sakal’s participation “was not crucial”. A year ago, Marseilles’ university was the site of another anti-Jewish boycott, when the septuagenarian Israeli novelist Esther Orner, who is also a Holocaust survivor, was banned from the...

  In Loco Parentis, or Pimp Students Out? David C. Stolinsky Oct. 16, 2011 UCLA officials announce that they are considering coed dorm rooms.− News item In my day, college dormitories were unisex. People of the opposite sex were not allowed above the first floor. When I took out a girl, which is what we called teenage females then, I checked in at the desk, and they phoned her to come down. In those days, we became legal adults at 21, not 18. We were called adolescents, meaning people who were in the process of becoming adults − just...

Is Vanderbilt University flirting with the suppression of religion? Yes, according to Carol Swain, a professor at Vanderbilt’s Law School. Specifically, Swain is referring to four Christian student groups being placed on "provisional status" after a university review found them to be in non-compliance with the school’s nondiscrimination policy. Vanderbilt says the student organizations cannot require that leaders share the group’s beliefs, goals and values. Carried to its full extent, it means an atheist could lead a Christian group, a man a woman’s group, a Jew a Muslim group or vice versa. If they remain in non-compliance, the student organizations...

The fundamental fallacy is that education is treated as a commodity when it is a personal transformation experience. -- John Frederick, provost, University of Texas at San Antonio Just as Texas was gaining momentum in its effort to boost more of its universities to world-class status — an accomplishment that would make them tremendous economic development engines for the state — Gov. Rick Perry, his advisers and his university regents kick off a new debate by pushing for more “efficiency.” The push could aggressively move universities toward smaller faculties that concentrate on the number of graduates produced at the expense...

“Bianca Laureano, a professor at College of Mount Saint Vincent is under fire for contributing to a pro-abortion blog and promoting criticism of the pro-life work of the nation’s Catholic bishops,” Steven Ertelt wrote on LifeNews.com on August 5, 2011. “A conversation about Latinas choosing abortion and what the rates are, as well as a focus on Rosie Jimenez was provided,” Dr. Laureano wrote of a presentation that she gave at her alma mater, the University of Maryland, this year. “It’s not often that I get choked up during presentations, but this time I teared up and my voice cracked...

A federal appeals court ruling this week could significantly diminish public university religious groups' ability to restrict membership and leadership to students who agree with their teachings. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that San Diego State University's nondiscrimination policy for officially recognized campus groups is constitutional. The policy is based on a nondiscrimination policy used at all the schools in the California State University system. Two Christian groups sued SDSU in 2005, alleging the policy violated their free-speech and religious-freedom rights. For the groups to be recognized as official campus groups, they were required to allow all...

When governments want to encourage what they believe is beneficial behavior, they subsidize it. Sounds like good public policy. But there can be problems. Behavior that is beneficial for most people may not be so for everybody. And government subsidies can go too far. Subsidies create incentives for what economists call rent-seeking behavior. Providers of supposedly beneficial goods or services try to sop up as much of the subsidy money as they can by raising prices. After all, their customers pay with money supplied by the government. Bubble money, as it turns out. Sooner or later, bubbles burst. We are...

The Coalition for Higher Excellence in Higher Education – a group that supports higher education reform ideas offered by the state’s university presidents and chancellors and has expressed concerns with some higher education reform ideas offered from outside academia – fired a rhetorical howitzer at Gov. Rick Perry yesterday. Political observers in Texas are left wondering why the organization chose to attack Perry by name and how this will play out. The coalition’s main communications consultants used to work for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and former president George W. Bush, two elected officials whose political interests have not always...

One Catholic college made the U. S. News & World Report lists of “most popular” among applicants and “most loved” by alumni and it is none of the ones the media like to cover—those institutions that could be called Catholic in Name Only (CINO). “For several years, Thomas Aquinas College has ranked near the top of U. S. News & World Report’s annual measure of ‘yield’—the percentage of applicants who, upon being admitted to a college, choose to enroll there,” TAC proudly announced in its Spring 2011 newsletter. “Although heartening, these findings have told only half of the story.” Additionally,...

Colleges and universities are promising graduates “green jobs” at the end of their education, secure in the knowledge that if they fail to materialize, schools won’t be liable for damages under Truth in Advertising laws. Google the phrase “college programs for green jobs” and you get more than four million results. “Green Jobs are a growth industry,” the University of Maryland promises in a recent advertisement. “Today’s fastest growing job opportunities are green.” “Companies need professionals who can improve corporate safety, efficiency and compliance with government regulations. Be ready, with a bachelor’s or master’s degree or a certificate in environmental...

What Students Learn and Don't Learn By Phyllis Schlafly If you are attending college to get teacher certification, you will probably be required to attend classes on "multicultural education." This is supposed to bring diversity to the classroom and prepare teachers to teach pupils of various ethnic or national backgrounds. The textbooks in these courses typically include Teachers as Cultural Workers by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian socialist who preached that society is divided into oppressors and oppressed. Other required readings teach that Americans are an institutionally racist society and are designed to train teachers to create political radicals to...

Shhh. I am about to say is something so radical that it will jangle every politically correct nerve in your body. And yet...it is true. The founding and traditional culture of the United States, its Judeo-Christian heritage and boots-on-the-ground decency is superior to all other cultures this world has produced. And it certainly beats the radical worldview (part Marxist, part Islamic, and all thug) that our political and media elites -- led by the president of the United States -- are imposing upon us. Scream if you must -- but then think. Think about what former Godfathers Pizza CEO Herman...

TAMPA - Westwood College representatives questioned Becky Loring about her hopes for the future. And when she wavered — worried about whether she could afford the $45,000 program — the recruiter used Loring's own words to seal the deal. "If you don't do this," she recalled the representative saying, "you're never going to get what you've always wanted." Loring, 32, now owes the government and private lenders more than $100,000. Working in sales, she is far from the graphic design job she studied for, barely able to make her college loan interest payments. "When I think about it, I just...