5/04/2005|||111519704459153422||||||

CAMPUS FOLLIES

Austin Bay recommends Roger Kimball's New Criterion essay, "Retaking the university: a battle plan". With the Ward Churchill case uppermost in his mind, Kimball examines “the predictable result of institutions that have gradually abandoned their commitment to education for the sake of radical posturing.” It’s a long read, but the article gets down to specifics towards the end. Here’s one proposal that will definitely cause a stir in the quadrangles. Worth considering in light of the AUT fiasco? Or an example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

It is time to revisit several large issues. The issue of tenure, for example. An arrangement that was intended to protect academic freedom and intellectual diversity has mutated into a means of enforcing conformity and excluding the heterodox. For those few conservatives who have managed to obtain tenure, it doubtless functions to protect them. But for the faculty in general it seems to have become a prescription for political correctness and lassitude.

BTW, Patrick O’Brian fans will also want to read the NC’s piece on the "Master and Commander" novels. I never managed to finish the first in the series. Loved the film, though, so maybe I should try again.

|||Clive|||http://clivedavis.blogspot.com/2005/05/campus-follies-austin-bay-recommends.html|||5/04/2005 09:57:00 am||||||

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