Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from an article that was originally published by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on April 18, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. After the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, universities with close ties to Middle Eastern governments have faced heightened scrutiny. In February, Texas A&M University announced it would close its […]
Read More
Near the beginning of Bruce Bawer’s strong new book, The Victims’ Revolution, he talks about the anti-American attitudes that are nearly mandatory on campuses today and how they radiate throughout our culture. Those attitudes, inculcated by so many professors, range from apologetic and guilt-ridden to outright contemptuous and reflexively supportive of our enemies. The incredibly […]
Read More
I just noticed a recent Washington Post feature on study abroad in college. Several of the recollections are certainly worth a look. Of course, study abroad is not-at-all-trivially a money-making racket for U.S. colleges (if you haven’t heard, check out Peter Wood’s piece from last year) but several of the Post pieces offer eloquent testimony […]
Read More
U.S. universities pride themselves on their tolerance – religious, ethnic, gender-based, sexual orientation-based, whatever. But when it comes to lucrative consulting fees for partnering with universities in Mideastern countries where none of the above categories of toleration seems to exist, the campus open-mindedness apparently evaporates, and a strange variety of mulitculturalism takes over. Case in […]
Read More
An op-ed “Aid, Discrimination, and Justice” in Monday’s Columbia Spectator speaks to an increasing conception of universities not as American institutions, but as world institutions, with a responsibility to a global audience, and, in this case, student body. Columbia just announced an overhaul of its financial aid policies, of considerable benefit to poor and middle […]
Read More
What is Global Studies? Nobody seems to have a very clear idea, according to an article on the web site Inside Higher Ed by reporter Elizabeth Redden. Her account of a Washington D.C. academic gathering sponsored by the Association of International Educators Administrators leaves readers pretty much in the dark. The article begins and ends […]
Read More
Several colleges and universities now sponsor a freshman year abroad, sending students who have just landed on their own campus to study for a term or a full year in Europe, Latin America, Asia or Africa. Syracuse University has a “Discovery Florence” program. The University of Mississippi sends some freshmen to The University of Edinburgh […]
Read More
The New York Times has headlined yet another scandal in higher education: colleges and sometimes individual college officials have been receiving generous “incentives” to steer students into particular study abroad programs. The incentives include financial bounties and free trips abroad for the officials. As the Times points out, the self-dealing by college officials in these […]
Read More