How do messages of feminism, habits of partying, and training in social activism shape the minds and character of the next generation? The summer issue (vol. 23, no. 2) of our quarterly journal Academic Questions, now online and in print, investigates. This issue, centered on the theme “Campus Culture,” takes the pulse of life on campus and considers how the attitudes formed in college affect broader American culture.
NAS members have already received printed copies of this issue in the mail. If you are a member and would like to read journal articles online, email [email protected] with “AQ access” in the subject line. We’ll email you a unique link which you can use to set up your online AQ account. If you are not a member of NAS, please join us! We welcome everyone who agrees with our principles. Membership is renewable annually and includes a one-year subscription to Academic Questions in print and online.
Our special spring issue on “Sustainability” is still available FREE online. Many of the articles from our fall issue are already available online, and the print version is scheduled for publication in September.
Here are the featured articles from the “Campus Culture” issue. The first two are available free at www.nas.org.
Eight student editors who are members of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Collegiate Network and come from a variety of secular and religious, public and private institutions describe their college experiences. Taken together, these essays create a surprising picture of what students enjoy, endorse, and endure on the contemporary American campus.
For Members Only: Feminism on Campus Today
Karin L. Agness, Network of enlightened Women
The influence of contemporary feminism in the classroom and on campus is widespread, and student clubs, women’s centers, and women’s studies departments often exclude women who hold traditional views. Karin L. Agness, a recent law school graduate and founder of the Network of enlightened Women, takes a look at how this influence evolved and describes the very successful actions she took as a student to challenge it.
Diminuendo: Classical Music and the Academy
Postscript: A Brief Modern Classical Music Reading and Listening List
Daniel Asia, University of Arizona
Classical music “is about ideas expressed in sound.” And those sounds have been swallowed up by jazz, pop, rock, and other lesser forms of music on campus, mirroring what has happened in the wider culture. Daniel Asia, one of today’s premier classical music composers and University of Arizona professor of music, examines how the role of Western classical music and musicians in the Academy has been marginalized.
Desperately Seeking Everett: Some Thoughts on Hermeneutic Reading
David Solway
Using his own classroom experience as an example, David Solway, Canada’s decorated poet and essayist, offers some thoughts on teaching students to read books with the perseverance and comprehension that is a prerequisite for reading the world itself—something all young people must eventually learn how to do.
Beating the Apple Tree: How the University Coerces Activism
Ashley Thorne, National Association of Scholars
From tip to root, professors and administrators at American colleges and universities increasingly view themselves as social missionaries rather than educators, and this has dramatically changed curricula, policies, and the spirit on campus. Ashley Thorne, communications director of the NAS, explains how making activism the central purpose of the university leaves students with an upside-down view of the world in which wisdom matters less than current thinking.
Raising Cain: The University Student and the Politics of Protest
John Hundscheid, The King’s College
Student protests are nothing new, but today’s students—under a complicit faculty and administration—put themselves at the center of every grand campus battle waged. John Hundscheid, a junior at The King’s College, examines the narcissistic motives and tactics of student activists on both left and right and concludes that when the pursuit of knowledge and truth has been abandoned, what remains is hollow political success.
Decadence, Scorn, and the Decline of Christian Practice on Campus
David French, Alliance Defense Fund
The numbers are in: college students are on a quest for meaning, but the practice of their religious faith on campus, particularly among Christians, is in serious decline. David French, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, relates how an atmosphere of stigma and dissipation has eroded the habits of traditional believers and reveals how endangered campus groups keep such students from sinking.
