Education & Liberal Learning 87
Contemplation and the Empire of Desire
Philadelphia, PA R. R. Reno of First Things has recently identified the “Empire of Desire” by its odd combination of regulation and libertinism. On the one hand, we cannot ride…
From the Multiversity Cave: Aquinas and Synthesis
Saginaw, MI This post is part of a series that will explore what prominent thinkers can teach us about today’s public multiversity, the modern university with its many colleges, departments,…
Freedom and Four-Year Olds
Holland, MI In public policy, few things are ever entirely right or wrong. Like economics, we are often dealing with trade-offs. Ignoring the trade-offs blinds us to some of the…
From the Multiversity Cave: Augustine and Amare
This post is part of a series that will explore what prominent thinkers can teach us about today’s public multiversity, the modern university with its many colleges, departments, and other…
History as Manifesto
Dillon, MT Having a personal and professional interest in what people think history is for, I read The History Manifesto with great interest. Jo Guldi (Brown) and David Armitage (Harvard)…
From the Multiversity Cave: Aristotle and Phronesis
Saginaw, MI This post is part of a series that will explore what prominent thinkers can teach us about today’s public multiversity, the modern university with its many colleges, departments,…
Higher Education And Civic Engagement
Amid the current discussions of rapidly increasing student loan debt, the unaffordability of higher education, and the gap between our college graduates and the skills necessary for the jobs available,…
The Quest for Moral Adulthood
The path out of childhood often feels like one of the moving walkways you see in airports; there is a single direction you are being pushed in, and you are…
From The Multiversity: Plato
What can Plato teach us about and in the modern multiversity?
The Paganization and Dehumanization of the University
Radnor Township, PA This past Friday, I led a lunch discussion with students at the University of Chicago who had read my First Things article “Majoring in Fear.” They verified that…
Anarchism, Global Citites, and a Confucian Cosmopolitan Education
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] I recently attended a conference in Nanjing, China, hosted by the Hopkins-Nanjing Center and organized our fellow Porcher, Adam Webb. You can read a short…
Monday Morning Brass Spittoon: Roundtable on a Liberal Arts Education
Higher education in America has many challenges, and in many ways has become a rather strange place. The satirical novel, such as Richard Russo’s Straight Man or James Hyne’s The…
Marginalizing Care: What Happens when Healthcare and Education become Industries
Spring Arbor, MI In our age of austerity and cost-cutting, the two industries currently under the microscope are healthcare and education. The gains in productivity that have transformed other parts…
The Loss of a Culture of Personhood and the End of Limited Government
Philadelphia, PA The idea and practice of limited government begins with Christianity. Pagan antiquity could not imagine such a thing, because there was no distinction between religion and governance. …
Are Evangelical Colleges Parochial?
Hillsdale, Michigan. Readers may recall the dustup earlier in the summer when Peter Conn prompted pious gasps for suggesting that institutions like Wheaton College (the evangelical one) should not be…
Accreditation to the Rescue (for real?)
Hillsdale, Michigan. I am a little late to the surge of 1s and 0s in response to Peter Conn's less than tepid essay about faith and higher education. The gist…
Public Schools, Local Schools, Family Schools
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Yesterday was the final day of the school year at Peterson Elementary School, the public school which three of our four daughters have attended. It…
There’s Equality, and There’s Equality
In one of my favorite movies, John Ford's How Green Was My Valley, a family of coal miners is faced with the prospect of lower wages handed out by the…
The Liberal Arts and the Educational Technology of Language
THE PRESIDENT HAS AN ASSIGNMENT FOR YOU: This is what the bold text on the whitehouse.gov website tells us as it proudly heralds a new national “Student Film Contest”. Next…
The Uselessness of Liberal Education: An Apology
It is necessary for the perfection of human society that there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation. --St. Thomas Aquinas The trouble with mere pragmatism is that…
Community among Academics: An Economist’s Retrospective
Two weeks ago I spoke to an orientation program for new faculty at Pepperdine. I shared with them what I had been told at my new faculty orientation nineteen years…
On Killing (Chickens)
Hidden Springs Lane. Last weekend the deed was done. Having acquired 25 chicks in the spring (they were free) it soon became clear that this was, as they say, a…
In Search of the Real Coolidge
Our interest in historical subjects says as much about our society as about the subjects themselves. The growing interest in the life, thought and presidency of Calvin Coolidge issues from…