B.A., With a Sex Change on the Side
By Nathan Harden | Once upon a time college was for things like learning and job training — shaping of the mind. Nowadays, you can get so much more — like shaping of the genitals. Gender-reassignment surgery is the latest luxury item to be added to the bloated list of educationally irrelevant services offered by…
Resisting the Tyranny of Productivity
By Michael Sacasas | Some brief thought on the Programmable World (in which ubiquitous wireless sensors make objects and machines “smart”): The envisioned Programmable World, as Bill Wasik has called it, is a tremendously sophisticated time- and labor-saving...
We Have Not Yet Begun to Fight
By John Mark Reynolds | The Wall Street Journal, noting the retirement of Donald Kagan, states the obvious: higher education is broken. Its brokenness begins with the faculty. College is expensive, dominated by faculty unions, and hostile to moral education. Higher education does research well and is vital to our continued economic growth, but it no longer forms leaders fit for Republican values. What does it profit our republic if we gain scientific power, but lose any ability to use it morally? Kagan is right that law and liberty must remain…
Is Yoga Constitutional?
By Mark Movsesian | Last month, I wrote about a controversy surrounding the White House’s inclusion of a yoga garden in its annual Easter Egg Roll. The problem is this: yoga is a Hindu spiritual practice. Arguably, therefore, state-sponsored yoga is a religious endorsement that violates the Establishment Clause under existing Supreme Court case law. It turns out that very issue is being litigated this week in a California court. The Encinitas Union School District has introduced yoga as part of the…
Making a Life, Making a Living, and Making a Difference?
By Joseph Knippenberg | That title is the motto of my university and the basis of a final exam question I asked the sophomores in my “Great Books” core course. The answers were interesting (in a disheartening way). The students “get” making a difference…Making a difference is celebrated in the popular culture, and “kids these days” have a relatively sophisticated understanding of what it means and how they can do it. They also understand quite well making a living, something that is pounded into them on a variety of fronts. But making a life? A few could explain it, but most essentially
Study Shows Conservatives Have Big Biceps
By Daily Mail Reporter | Men who are strong are more likely to take a right-wing stance, while weaker men support the welfare state, researchers claim. Their study discovered a link between a man’s upper-body strength and their political…
What’s Your Major?
By Mark Perry | The college class of 2011 by academic discipline and gender; and the selective concern about gender imbalances. The chart …is based on data from the Department of Education for bachelor’s degrees by academic discipline and the sex of the graduating students for the college class of…
Commencement or Indoctrination Speech?
By Anthony Hadford | A commencement speech is an opportunity for students to reflect on their educational experiences and receive advice and inspiration from notable figures in society….Recently, commencement speeches have turned into the perfect opportunities for school boards to choose their favorite public policy speaker to have a final attempt at indoctrinating as many students, families, and friends as possible. At the University of Wisconsin…
FTU Helps Launch New Business Course
A new online business course, Flourishing Through Business 101, was launched May 22nd to teach and encourage the essentials for success in business and flourishing in the community in a way that colleges and business schools do not. The first of many courses to come, Flourishing Through Business 101 teaches essentials for success in business, and how business relates to human flourishing in…