Today we sent an invitation to our friends at Townhall to join us at the NAS General Conference in Washington this January. We thought our visitors might be interested to know what we’ve been up to recently, so here we offer a one-stop catalog of highlights from our fall semester. Enjoy!
September
Protecting the Prickly: La Raza Studies
09/04/08 By Ashley Thorne
NAS takes a look at La Raza studies, a public school program in Tucson, where the cactuses are plentiful and so is the bitterness.
What You Learn Depends on What (and Whom) You Ask
09/11/08 By Steve Balch
Does diversity in the medical classroom enhance students' ability to care for minority patients? A new study supposedly provides evidence to that effect. But the survey omits some essential elements and thus fails to take an accurate pulse.
Activists Only: Reading Between the Lines of an Academic Job Ad
09/11/08 By Peter Wood
U Mass Amherst is looking for a new linguistic anthropologist who fits with the university's politically correct policies and its commitment to a "racialized" outlook. Where does such a job description leave qualified non-minority applicants? Where does it leave anthropology students?
09/12/08 By Ashley Thorne
NAS hails with appreciation the announcement of the National Endowment for the Humanities' new "Enduring Questions" program.
College Credit for Campaign Volunteers
09/22/08 By Peter Wood
The History Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst offered a two-credit "Independent Study" for students who agreed to canvass or otherwise volunteer in a presidential campaign through Election Day.
09/23/08 By Peter Wood
Here's what really happenned when U Mass tried to cover its tracks after getting caught offering students academic credit for volunteering in the Obama campaign.
America’s Financial Crisis and Higher Education
09/25/08 By Peter Wood
Student loans going the way of home mortgages could have serious consequences for the university. A call to academe to pay attention to what's going on in American finance.
What Does a Chief Diversity Officer Actually Do?
09/26/08 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne
Comments on Williams and Wade-Golden's prescriptions for the role of the "diversity messiah"
Losing Altitude: Leftist Ideologies on the Decline
09/29/08 By Peter Wood
People are less and less interested in topics like Marxism and deconstruction, but which new ideological trends are replacing the old?
October
10/02/08 By Peter Wood
It's October - time to pay attention to recent and upcoming trends in higher education, like the student loan crisis, the rise of distance learning, the therapeutic campus, and sustainability.
10/07/08 By Peter Wood
Should bias in higher education be reported?
LSU Retreats to its “Safe Space”
10/10/08 By Ashley Thorne
What's with the purple stickers on faculty members' office doors?
10/15/08 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne
A professor at Carroll University is disappointed when she tries to teach students to be activists.
10/16/08 By Ashley Thorne
This week, while haunted houses thrilled some, dark tunnels of oppression channeled others through “the dirtiest, ugliest, bloodiest issues.”
10/17/08
The National Association of Scholars is proud to announce the inception of a new affiliate for the state of Arkansas.
10/22/08 By Peter Wood and Glenn Ricketts
Have you ever wondered whether science fiction is literature? Or whether Russia is part of 'the West'? Now is your chance to ask a scholar!
Question 1: Lots of experts say that an event as disruptive as our precipitous financial crisis has never before unfolded in the middle of an American presidential election. Is this true? Are there any relevant historical parallels?
10/30/08 By Peter Wood
Reading instruction has come a long way (or is it far gone?) since We Come and Go.
Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun
10/31/08 By Ashley Thorne
The college-driven trend to divulge says something about higher education's vision of itself as therapeutic.
November
Election 2008: The University’s Long Shadow
11/05/08 By Peter Wood
This election underscores that the ideas and attitudes fostered by the academy have consequences for the larger culture.
11/06/08 By Ashley Thorne
Last month, I took an online course on how to lead diversity education workshops. Guess what I learned?
Undowments: Higher Education Goes for Broke
11/10/08 By Peter Wood
Is college really an “investment”? The growing tendency of colleges to spend substantial amounts on therapeutic-minded student affairs programs; the sunk investment that many colleges have made in high-end dorms and recreational facilities at a time when families are forced to retrench on their own domestic budgets; and the ever-more-apparent politicization of the curriculum are the sort of things that eat away at a family’s willingness to trust that “no price is too high” for their children’s future.
Stop the Hate and Celebrate: The University of Arizona Purges
11/11/08 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne
After a controversial comic was published in the student newspaper, the campus will "regroup."
Ask a Scholar: Seatbelts on School Buses
11/13/08 By Glenn Ricketts
A reader asked: “Are there some studies that demonstrate there is no need for seat belts on school buses? Why else would so few buses have them?” Let’s go to the experts!
Feminizing Science: The Alchemy of Title IX
11/17/08 By Patricia Hausman
Will gender balancing come to dominate science. A preview article from the forthcoming issue of Academic Questions.
You Too Can Write Like Toni Morrison!
11/17/08 By Peter Wood
It's not for nothing that Toni Morrison is the most assigned author in college today. Her revamping of written English gives a new model for fiction. As a service, NAS's executive director has distilled certain rules that we might adopt to emulate Ms. Morrison's colorful style.
11/18/08 By Peter Wood
Is it the division of labor between tenured scholars and "teaching specialists," as championed by the Penn State Economics Department?
