Does the American University Deserve to Survive?
With corporate America, academia, and the cultural institutions of this country now captured by the political left, how does conservativism, libertarianism, and classical liberalism forge ahead? How…
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…
“We’ll Manage”?—European Public Universities and the Refugee Crisis
Introduction: Europe’s Refugee Crisis “[Our] great universities simply cannot afford to remain islands of affluence, self-importance and horticultural beauty in seas of squalor, violence and despair.”[1] Thus…
Public Higher Education and the Responsibility to Invite Students to the Political
On November 10, 2016, just following the presidential election of Donald Trump, The Atlantic magazine published one among many articles asking the “how could this happen” question. …
The Character Model for the American University
The collapse of confidence in American higher education highlights two public concerns about its value: the cost no longer outweighs its economic benefits and colleges and universities…
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…
No Place to Teach
Life in the professoriate is commonly defined by one’s publications or, if one climbs the administrative ladder, securing a position as chair or dean. But what is…
Does the American University Deserve to Survive?
With corporate America, academia, and the cultural institutions of this country now captured by the political left, how does conservativism, libertarianism, and classical liberalism forge ahead? How…
“No Guru, No Method, No Teacher”: Socrates and the Love of Wisdom in Education
Getting Back to Socrates[1] Genuine philosophy is not pretty. In fact, its public countenance is as ugly as Socrates’ face. It is most certainly unattractive to those…
One of These Things is Not Like the Other: John Dewey’s Inquiry-Based Learning and the Socratic Method
In the wake of Ernest Boyer’s work in the 1990’s on scholarship in the academy, the scholarship of teaching and learning has grown from a small cottage…
Socratic Method and Recollection in Plato and Kant
Liberal education is struggling to maintain its place in the contemporary university. In some ways, the challenges it faces are as old as liberal education itself. Plato’s…
The Socratic Method Today
There has been a renewed interest in pedagogy, teaching, and student learning in political science, with a focus on topics like flipping the classroom and active learning.[1][2]…
The Music Lecture as Gestalt
Psychologists have long recognized that student learning is facilitated when the details and subdivisions of any topic are understood in relation to larger contexts, connections are made…
The Religious Lecture: Synthesizing Persona and Narrative Immersion
Since the late nineteenth century religious studies has been conflicted by multiple, often mutually agonistic, means of study. The rise of biblical criticism, and historical criticism, has…
Creating a Socratic Lecture Space in Religious Studies
This chapter will make two main points regarding lectures in religious studies (RS) courses at non-confessional universities and colleges. First, it will reimagine the lecture space and…