CounterCurrent: Week of 11/25/24
Happy Thanksgiving week, CounterCurrent readers! Grocery store parking lots are packed with last-minute shoppers, while a few early birds are already defrosting turkeys and setting pies to cool. Meanwhile, the true shopaholics are preparing to storm the stores on Friday with such efficiency that military generals might be envious. Amid this hustle, we should take a moment to pause and reflect on all that 2024 has brought us.
For the National Association of Scholars (NAS), 2024 has been a productive year. We've worked hard to highlight the challenges facing higher education and propose meaningful solutions—a task that can test even the most optimistic among us. But your letters, emails, and contributions keep us motivated and moving forward.
Before you dive into your Thanksgiving feast, let’s take a moment to reflect on four things we’re especially grateful for this year:
Since the beginning of 2024, NAS researchers have authored eleven new reports and studies ranging from foreign influence in K-12 and higher education and mapping the associations of Students for Justice in Palestine, to new state science standards and a re-evaluation of institutional neutrality. This year, our affiliate in Maryland also contributed by publishing their own report. Each of these projects is the culmination of months and sometimes years of painstaking research. If you haven’t had the opportunity to read this year’s reports, I encourage you to do so by clicking here!
We first took on Minding the Campus at the end of 2020. Since then, the site has continued to grow its readership and contributors—many of whom are likely reading this! Minding the Campus continues to be a popular form for commentary on American higher education under the tutelage of Jared Gould, its managing editor. This year, the site published 483 articles, which is the largest number yet. We are thankful for all our writers and readers and look forward to bringing you great content in the year to come.
The Civics Alliance opened its doors to the civic-minded in 2021. Since then, we’ve enjoyed working alongside other organizations and individuals dedicated to preserving Western Civilization and providing our children with the best possible education. This year, the Civics Alliance released lesson plans for Constitution Week and model state standards on the history of Communism. The Civics Alliance also continued its work in the states to improve social studies standards and encourage the adoption of American Birthright: Model K-12 Social Studies Standards.
- Science Reform
Science is in great need of reform. From funding to reproducibility, the whole process has been corrupted by politicized interests. Thankfully, much of the public is aware of the problem and is putting the screws to policymakers via the ballot box to make science reproducible again. For our part, NAS has published the fourth report in our Shifting Sands series, Zombie Psychology, finding that much of the science underlying implicit bias theory is faulty. We have also taken on reforming federal science policy through legislation. Our Model Science Policy Code includes ten pieces of model legislation policymakers can use to drastically reform federal science downstream of Congress in agencies and within bills under consideration. At Minding the Campus, we’ve launched a new column, Minding the Sciences. The column offers contributors a space to discuss the problems plaguing modern science and ponder effective solutions. And lastly, we’ve reached out to reform how science is taught in our schools. This way, as students become voting adults, they’ll be able to participate in policy discussions and sniff out bad science long before it becomes ingrained in legislation and regulation.
Of course, none of this would be possible without your support. Our rolodex is only so large, so we rely on our members to make connections, share our research and remedies, and ensure America’s colleges and universities support reasoned scholarship in a free society.
Now, go and be merry! Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the National Association of Scholars.
Until next week.
CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, written by the NAS Staff. To subscribe, update your email preferences here.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez ���� on Unsplash
