Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy and Its Significance for a Catholic University
In The Australian, July 22-23, 2023, there was an article by John Carroll titled Death of the Humanities. Carroll began by observing that in some American universities,…
Can Liberal Education Be Saved?
Jeremy S. Adams. Hollowed Out: A Warning about America’s Next Generation. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2021. The 1989 classic coming-of-age film Dead Poets Society follows a simple…
Restoring the Idea of a University
Politicizing the classroom corrupts the academic virtues encouraging us to forget what the idea of the university is, what is its animating spirit, what fundamental experience it…
The Public Value of Higher Education
There has been a renewed debate about the crisis of higher education, particularly about American public institutions, although the nature of this crisis and how best to…
I Do Not Sell Education: Reflections of a University Professor
Student Reviews matter a whole lot, one can say, that now more than ever. A student can complain to the highest authority in the University if he…
The Legacy of “The Closing of the American Mind”
There can be no question of the signal importance and influence of The Closing of the American Mind. Any future historian who proposes to explain the “culture…
God, Philosophy, Universities. A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition
God, Philosophy, Universities. A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition. Alasdair MacIntyre. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. God, Philosophy, Universities traces the idea of…
Christian Faith and Friendship in the Academy
I thank the organizers for inviting me to discuss our theme, how Christian faith can inform friendships in the academy. As I begin, I would invite all…
Medieval Dignity, Modern Education
In the conclusion of her review of David Walsh’s book, The Politics of the Person as the Politics of Being, Macon Boczek challenges the author’s assertion that…
Why Students Don’t Suffer
The best American colleges students are perhaps the most prepared, accomplished, and engaged students ever with stellar academic accomplishments and active civic engagement.[1] At the same time,…
Pedagogic encounters: Master and disciple in the American novel after the 1980’s
Pedagogic encounters: Master and disciple in the American novel after the 1980’s. Aristi Trendel. Lexington Books, 2021. Biographies of the legendary broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow…
The College Admissions Scandal of 2019
Higher education has long been the focus of controversy: specifically, the disproportionate opportunities afforded to members of varying socio-economic classes. While one demographic argues for free and…
Academic GIFts: Academia and Populism – Irreconcilable Differences?
Please see Claudia Franziska Bruhwiler's and Katherine Goktepe's animated video based on their forthcoming article. It is available here.
American Academic Cultures: A History of Higher Education
American Academic Cultures: A History of Higher Education. Paul H. Mattingly. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. With higher education in America being scrutinized once again,…
Is Online University Education Possible?
Is there anything better for a teacher than watching one’s students do great things? I have never bought into the rhetoric that some teachers use about “learning…