Free Republic

Universities that cry poor while entertaining themselves lavishly are finding it harder to keep up their public service facade, even in publications that would normally be sympathetic to them. "When Congress asked dozens of schools to report on their spending in 2016, for instance, Harvard declined to say exactly how much of its $37 billion endowment is paid to the people who manage it.," Neena Satija wrote in The Washington Monthly. "While most colleges did tell Congress what percentage of their annual endowment payout goes to financial aid, they generally didn't elaborate further--such as on the proportion of aid that’s...

Perhaps they should have talked to some people who work with them. "A documentary being screened in cities around the country, and shown here to the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT), purports to show how our public schools — and public schools everywhere — are being forced to close because charter schools are stealing 'their' money," Anthony Williams, David Hardy & Sharif El-Mekki write in Real Clear Education. "The notion that the closure of several Philadelphia schools was caused by greedy charter school operators is ludicrous." "The primary culprit was a long-accumulating budget deficit (totaling $1.35 billion), brought on by...

The enclave in the Alps in which the President went to the World Economic Forum is apparently something like Aspen and draws the same type of people. "Much like the secret infrastructure of money and power that makes the world go round, the Swiss Alps were imposing but nearly invisible as the world's financial, political and intellectual leaders gathered in Davos," Molly Ball reported on the Time magazine website on January 25, 2018. "An epic 6-ft. snowstorm had snarled the Jan. 22 opening of the World Economic Forum." "The bestowing of humanitarian awards on Cate Blanchett and Elton John had...

This is a question being asked on both sides of the Ivy-covered walls. Charismatic TV host Mike Rowe, for example, strongly suggests that making bricks and mortar could be more lucrative than occupying buildings made of it. "People don't want these jobs because they are under a lot of mistaken assumptions about what they pay and whether or not they're good or bad jobs and all this other nonsense," Rowe said recently. "And meanwhile we've got 1½ trillion dollars in student loans." "We're still telling our kids that a four-year degree is still the best path for most people." Tom...

Progressive pedagogues do have high standards…when you attack them. When they’re on offense it's a different playbook. Stanford Professor David Palumbo Liu took to the pages of The Stanford Daily to denounce the editorial staff at the alternative newspaper on campus, The Stanford Review. He claimed the Review's treatment of his group--the Campus Antifascist Network--lumped it together with the more egregious acts of Antifa. For example, he takes issue with this characterization of himself which appeared in the Review: "their organization is undeniably a chapter of a terrorist group, championing the same kinds of violent resistance that have muzzled free...

It turns out that graduates think they can benefit from them too. "I was a racist teacher and I didn't recognize it," Laurie Calvert wrote in The Education Post last year. "At the time that I taught, I would have argued that I was the opposite." "I was a progressive, a Democrat. I campaigned in my progressive town in Western North Carolina for the first Black man to run for the U.S. Senate against a notorious racist from our state, Jesse Helms. I voted for Obama, even volunteered in his office during the 2008 campaign." Calvert had an awakening, of...

The other UN, the University of Nebraska, that is. The Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference (MBLGTACC) will convene at the University of Nebraska Omaha in February 2018 and feature the theme "All Roads Lead To Intersectionality." The conference website states: "The mission of MBLGTACC 2018 All Roads Lead to Intersectionality is to educate queer and trans Midwest college students to empower and celebrate their identities, while enabling them to resist oppression and develop resiliency against personal and societal injustices." This will be the 26th iteration of the event first held in 1993 at Iowa State University—that first...

It's laudable that academics actually have an interest in a political philosophy which is usually either disdained or ignored in academia. Nevertheless, their failure to comprehend the Trump Administration shows that they are still struggling with it. This bewilderment was on display recently at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA), which Colleen Flaherty covered for Inside Higher Ed: ~"How do we think about and engage with conservative Trump voters?" Willamette University Professor Seth Cotlar asked. "What does it mean to empathize with people who advocate white nationalism?" The possibility that he is on the wrong track with...

A college football team staying in a Trump hotel for the Orange Bowl should be easy material for a progressive wit, if you could find a witty progressive. "After learning the University of Wisconsin football team will be staying at Trump National Doral Hotel in Miami, Florida in the days leading up to the Orange bowl, the Student Coalition for Progress issued a press release calling for an explanation from university officials," Sarah Godfrey wrote in The Badger Herald. "The group is 'disappointed' the team, band and alumni are staying in a hotel with the same name as the current...

We have been inundated for years with stories--indeed, books and conferences and seminars--in which we are told that it is impossible to find good jobs without a college degree. If fact, Georgetown has a center dedicated to sounding that very alarm in every way possible. Nevertheless, when you look at their data, you find that, as usual, the current wisdom on that is not necessarily the case. Amber Northern from the Thomas Fordham Institute did just that. "In looking at the national breakdown of good jobs, 55 percent of those workers hold at least a bachelor's degree," she writes. "And...

The sad thing is, this might be the only way to get academics interested in the Good Book. "Swarthmore College is offering a course next year that will survey 'queer and trans' readings of biblical texts' by using 'queer and trans' theoretical approaches,' with faculty staying silent on the specifics of the course material," Bethany Torstenson reports in The College Fix. "'Queering the Bible' is set to launch next fall and will be instructed by Gwynn Kessler, an associate professor of religion, according to Swarthmore’s course catalog." "The course, which is being offered through Swarthmore's Religion Department, promises to '[introduce]...

Colleges may not celebrate Christmas, but they have no shortage of snowflakes. "A few years ago, Boston College psychology professor emeritus Peter Gray was invited by the head of counseling services at a major university to a conference on 'the decline in resilience among students,'" Lenore Skenazy and Jonathan Haidt write in the latest issue of Reason magazine. "The organizer said that emergency counseling calls had doubled in the last five years." "What's more, callers were seeking help coping with everyday problems, such as arguments with a roommate. Two students had dialed in because they'd found a mouse in their...

That's where the real assault is. For example: o "Students at the University of California San Diego filed a complaint and triggered an administrative probe after pictures of Kate Steinle were hung on campus," Bradford Richardson reported in The Washington Times on December 20, 2017. "Gregory Lu said he hung up 150 posters picturing Steinle with the caption, 'She had dreams too,' on Dec. 7. Four days later, he said he received an email from the Office for the Prevention of Harassment & Discrimination asking to meet with him." Lu has wisely waited to do so until obtaining legal counsel....

And leaves academics stunned. "A study released Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports found that snowfall on the highest peak in the Alaska Range has more than doubled since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century, which researchers attribute to climate change," Valerie Richardson reported in The Washington Times on December 19, 2017. "We were shocked when we first saw how much snowfall has increased," Erich Osterberg, an assistant professor of earth sciences who led the investigation with researchers from Dartmouth, the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire, stated.

Many are recognizably Catholic in that they have the reputation for being so, largely due to their age. Moreover, they advertise their Catholicism on their websites but when you go to their catalogs, you find material well beyond St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The young staffers at the Young America's Foundation did just that and offer a neat little guide to several of these universities. For example, at Georgetown you can take courses in: • Labor/Sexuality/Globalization; • Athletics and Gender; • Culture/Politics/HIV; • Gender and Sustainability; and • The Bible and Horror. Providence College, meanwhile, has a Women's Studies department...

We've come full circle on school discipline: Now students beat the teacher. "City teachers pleaded with district administrators Monday to help support them as they deal with what they are calling an unprecedented level of misbehavior among children, some of which is resulting in physical violence against teachers," Felix Rodriguez Lima reported on Fox 43 from Harrisburg, Pa. on November 21, 2017. "The Harrisburg Education Association says the behavioral issues have prompted the resignations of at least 45 teachers between July and October, and further resignations have since occurred, according to association president Jody Barksdale." "Some of the worst behavior...

A magazine called Everyday Feminism may have provided one in an article entitled "10 Things Every Intersectional Feminist Should Ask On a First Date" by Lara Witt. The Big Ten Questions are: 1. Do you believe that Black Lives Matter? 2. What are your thoughts on gender and sexual orientation? 3. How do you work to dismantle sexism and misogyny in your life? 4. What are your thoughts on sex work? 5. Are you a supporter of the BDS movement? 6. What is your understanding of settler colonialism and indigenous rights? 7. Do you think capitalism is exploitative? 8. Can...

Several years ago, a friend of ours, filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney, attempted to lampoon the iconic field of women's studies by showing up at random campuses, on camera, and asking where he could find the men's studies department. It turns out that Evan may have been ahead of his time. "A few institutions have established centers of masculinity research and counseling," Peter Monaghan reports in the December 15, 2017 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. "Among them are the Center for the Study of Masculinities and Men's Development at Western Illinois University and the Men and Masculinities Center at...

When academics look for male role models, you never know what they’re going to find. "For one thing, there is not much substantive evidence that male role models are decisive in healthy boys’ development," Michael Kimmel writes in the December 15, 2017 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. "They might be nice to have, but the male role model--the elementary-school teacher, the father, the stern but supportive coach--by himself, as a single variable, doesn’t really have much of an independent effect on a boys development." "And that's why single moms, lesbian moms, female teachers, and female coaches can provide...

A new study from the Pioneer Institute in Boston shows that in Massachusetts, Common Core, like the world, is with us late and soon. Unfortunately, it's got all the world’s drawbacks and none of its benefits. "The previous standard provided a coherent line-up of texts in the parenthetical phrase, four works that form a single national and historical lineage (Declaration, Preamble, Bill of Rights, and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural)," the report reads. "One can identify the curricular focus easily and fill in more material that follows from it: some of the Federalist Papers, various constitutional amendments, Frederick Douglass’s speech on the...