As a conservative Christian at a small liberal arts school, I’m a part of a small minority group in an emphatically liberal student body. Thanks to my views—as well as my willingness to share my opinion—I have had the dubious privilege of becoming, for many, the representative figure of conservative Christianity on my campus. Continue Reading »
One year ago I wrote in these pages about how the InterVarsity ministry at Bowdoin College, with a forty year history of ministering the Christian Gospel, was formally refused access to meet with students on campus facilities. Christian students in the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship were denied . . . . Continue Reading »
The New Republic posted a little forum yesterday under the title “Do Humans Still Need to Study the Humanities?” The editors asked four former presidents of major institutions to answer the question. All of them state their commitment to humanities instruction and their regret that the fields have become marginal in recent years. Continue Reading »
As a diocesan seminarian studying with the Sulpicians in Paris, a young Basil Moreau wrote to the rector at the seminary in Tessé about an unquenchable desireabout, actually, a vocation. Continue Reading »
• Richard J. Mouw has written a wonderful book, Called to the Life of the Mind: Some Advice for Evangelical Scholars (Eerdmans, 2014). A bright young student raised in a tradition of conservative Evangelical pietism, Mouw recalls that his pastors “often viewed the intellectual life against the . . . . Continue Reading »
The Obama administration dropped its call for taxes on 529 college savings plans. These are tax-preferred savings vehicles that allow families to put away money to pay for Junior’s college expenses when the time comes. The outcry against this proposal was not surprising, and it makes no sense to undermine the program. Continue Reading »
We have a strange transformation taking place on campus today. Back in the ‘60s, at Berkeley and elsewhere, students formed Free Speech Movements and struck down one propriety and norm after another. Continue Reading »
I disallow laptops in my classroom. No screens, only books, paper, and pencil. The obvious reason is the distraction factor. Stand in the back of a classroom of fifty-plus students, survey the dozens of screens propped open, and count how many show social media, pictures, text messages . . . Continue Reading »
The Boston Globe’s Christmas gift to Gordon College was a slap in the face. The Globe listed Kim Driscoll, mayor of Salem, in its list of honorable mentions for Bostonian of the Year. In the article she was lauded for voiding a city contract with the college over its Conduct Statement, which does not permit homosexual practice. Continue Reading »