Here at NAS, we’ve made a habit of every season posting a round-up of the some of the best articles from the last few months, in case you missed one or would like to revisit your favorites. For another way to keep up with us, you can subscribe to our RSS feed.
Because our last such post was on April 1, we have quite a few items to highlight. Here we present the top 5-8 articles from each month since then. Enjoy!
April
The Only Work I Can Get Here Involves Diversity Programs
04/07/09 By Margaret Matthews
"There I was, just one person sitting there, but she was seeing a group." An administrator longs to escape the racial labeling that characterizes her department.
B School Postmodernism: A Gambler’s Education
04/07/09 By Peter Wood
How the financial crisis traces its roots to postmodernist "value-creating" and removal from reality.
Proven Commitment to the Climate
04/09/09 By Ashley Thorne
Colleges get ready to use a “climate action litmus test” in hiring new campus leaders.
04/14/09 By Peter Wood
A reprint of the article, originally published March 17, 2009, in which NAS broke the story about Virginia Tech's diversity policy.
Millennium Falcon: The Bias Birds of Prey
04/17/09 By Ashley Thorne
The University of Arizona's Millennial Student Project targets "unconscious bias."
04/23/09 By Ashley Thorne
A letter from President Bob Kerrey to the New School community evades the real problems behind the student protests. This article was linked by Instapundit.
04/27/09 By Douglas Campbell
A "Report from the Academy" published in Academic Questions. This article earned a high volume of reader comments and engendered some controversy (see Reason? Reason? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Reason! Scholarship Today).
American Character, the Remix: How College is Shaping Us Now
04/28/09 By Peter Wood
A nation’s manner of educating shapes the character of its people, so how does American education mold our culture today?
May
Macalester Preps for World Domination
05/04/09 By Peter Wood
What does “global citizenship” really mean?
Snitch Studies at Cal Poly: We Snare Because We Care
05/05/09 By Peter Wood
The university launches a new bias incident reporting system to enforce "respect."
05/12/09 By Glenn Ricketts
Debate over President Obama's Notre Dame commencement address sparks anti-Catholic fervor.
Sustainability Education’s New Morality
05/15/09 By Ashley Thorne
What will happen when the sustainability revolutionaries take over the college curriculum? On eco-ethics, impact points, and “helping dad become a better man.”
Reason? Reason? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Reason! Scholarship Today
05/18/09
A Duke grad student reacted strongly to the AQ article by Douglas Campbell, “The Classroom Without Reason.” In this posting, we reprint his comment and present responses from both Professor Campbell and NAS president Peter Wood.
Where Do We Start? Reforming American Education
05/21/09 By Peter Wood
10 principles for restoring the integrity of our education
June
40 Awkward Questions for College Tours
06/03/09 By Peter Wood, Glenn Ricketts, and Ashley Thorne
Two categories of 20 questions each for parents of high school juniors and seniors: either play the role of an über-progressive or ask the questions colleges never want to hear.
06/08/09 By Peter Wood
On the transformation of the idea of "shame," especially on the college campus, and how the right kind of shame is actually seen as honorable.
06/11/09 By Ashley Thorne and Peter Wood
There are many orphaned college mascots who need a good home. Will you give them the love they need?
06/16/09 By Ashley Thorne
When Elsa Murano, the first Latina president of Texas A&M University, resigned, some lamented the loss of the institution's "symbol" of diversity.
What’s Critical About Critical Globalization Studies?
06/24/09 By Peter Wood
This year a UC Santa Barbara professor sent an email to his class, comparing Israeli actions to those of the Nazis. But where did this professor's academic field, "critical globalization studies" actually come from, and should it exist in the university in the first place?
July
07/06/09 By Russell K. Nieli
This summer NAS was pleased to present a major review essay by Russell K. Nieli, lecturer in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, critiquing three books supporting affirmative action. The essay gained attention from the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and on Phi Beta Cons.
Chastening Churchill: The Justice of Judge Naves’ Opinion
07/08/09 By Peter Wood
Why academic freedom is not a defense for Ward Churchill
“Academic Freedom is Not a License for Bigotry”
07/24/09 By Ashley Thorne
A professor is bullied out of a job because of her controversial views, but NYU upholds academic freedom.
The Sustainability Movement in the American University
07/27/09 By Peter Wood
NAS president Peter Wood presented this scholarly paper synthesizing NAS's work on sustainability at a conference in Switzerland this summer.
UNESCO-Topia: Sustainability’s Big Brother
07/31/09 By Peter Wood
What does gender have to do with climate change? UNESCO’s 8 themes of education for sustainability
August
08/03/09 By Ashley Thorne
Will education for sustainability become Second Nature? NAS investigates an organization which has played an important role in the story of sustainability’s rise to the position of dominant ideology in the American university.
Sunbeams for Indigenes: The New Discipline of Cultural Sustainability
08/05/09 By Peter Wood, Glenn Ricketts, and Ashley Thorne
Goucher College launches a new program to train students to help marginalized communities realize their dreams.
08/12/09 By Ashley Thorne
Should education be free? NAS weighs the merits of “open education”
08/20/09 By Peter Wood
NAS's articles on sustainability; why no one criticizes the sustainability movement; and international visions of sustainatopia.
08/20/09 By Peter Wood
NAS begins a project examine how political theory is conveyed in the American undergraduate curriculum. First we need to know: who are the key authors and what are the key books in the liberal, conservative, libertarian and radical traditions? This post received plentiful responses from readers.
08/24/09 By Peter Wood, Glenn Ricketts, and Ashley Thorne
What you won’t learn in new student orientation about bias police, eco-crazies, diversity, religion, and ideology.
An Opinionated Pragmatist Survives Stanford
08/25/09 By Michele Kerr
An education student's firsthand account of her time in a graduate program where she was expected to walk in lockstep. To see Stanford’s reply to Michele’s piece, click here.
September
09/01/09 By Peter Wood
Most colleges don't seize the opportunity to do something original. We suggest they try a new approach, such as the labyrinth curriculum.
09/03/09 By Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne
10 reasons to oppose the sustainability movement on your campus
College students hear a lot about sustainability these days, but do you know what it really means?
Dem Bones, Dem Barebones Education
09/03/09 By Peter Wood and Glenn Ricketts
Online education gains respectability as the wave of the future. This article received a number of in-depth comments from our readers. We take this as a sign that of this topic’s significance to our readers, and we hope to provide a platform for more discussion of online education.
Paglia’s Scimitar
09/10/09 By Peter Wood
The feminist-lesbian-leftist called higher education out as a "rote regurgitation of hackneyed approved terms."
Tray Chic
09/11/09 By Ashley Thorne
Colleges experiment in trayless dining...and mind manipulation.
The Shape of (Academic) Things to Come
09/17/09 By Peter Wood
It’s 2029. Do you know where your university is?
