Bradfield Reports on ACTA Conference
On October 4 and 5 the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, headed by AHI board member Anne Neal, held their annual meeting of the celebrated Athena Roundtable to discuss educational reform. More than 100 distinguished citizens, including academics, philanthropists, politicians, and entrepreneurs, participated in the conference. Panelists focused on the woeful state of academic freedom and intellectual diversity on many elite college campuses and offered suggestions to trustees on how to improve governance.
Professor Bradfield spoke to the gathering on the origin of the AHI and its roots in a course, co-taught with Robert Paquette, on the idea and institution of property. Numerous guests asked for a copy of the syllabus. Bradfield delineated the scholarly aspirations of the Institute and expressed serious concern about the politicization of the classroom by providing examples from his own academic experience as a dean and as a teacher. He explained why independence from Hamilton College was essential to the maintenance of the integrity of the AHI’s scholarly mission. Participants received copies of the AHI’s charter and pocket Constitutions.
In appearing on the final panel of the day, Professor Bradfield underscored three points:
1. That successful activities aimed at educational reform would do better located outside the conventional loci of academic power.
2. That attempts to effect reforms on campus may well be met with hostility and bad faith by the administration and trustees.
3. That alumni, once honestly informed and treated with respect, especially with regard to their legitimate interest in accountability, would be a strong source of support for educational reform.
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In case you missed it student groups are already meeting at AHI!
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Reader Comments (19)
I am wondering whether Prof. Bradfield might be willing to share some of those examples with us.
"He explained why independence from Hamilton College was essential to the maintenance of the integrity of the AHI's scholarly mission."
That view seems far removed from the intial exuberant plan to house the AHC at the College.
"That successful activities aimed at educational reform would do better located outside the conventional loci of academic power."
Who is best suited to run a college or university? Someone with a PhD who has taught at the college level.
Who is best suited to provide input into the process of education at the collegiate level? Someone with a PhD who has taught at the college level, and who keeps abreast of pedagogical alternatives.
How does meaningful change take place anywhere? With innovation.
Yet, there is a lot of criticism of Hamilton here because of educational innovations that have been put in place on the Hill. Therefore, what is meant by educational "reform"? Sounds like regression.
Even the Chronicle of Higher Education (oft-cited here) supports my thinking. Have a look at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i12/12a01001.htm.
"But make no mistake, says Roger W. Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors: Ms. Neal is dangerous. "Anne is on a mission from God to remake the academy in the image of conservative values," he says. "She is part of a larger, national campaign to take over higher education and influence its agenda. If you're conservative, you say, 'We've got the White House. We've got the courts. We've got Congress. What we don't have is higher education, and if we want to control the country, that's where we have to implant ourselves.'"
Oh me, Oh my. Get your pitchforks, the conservatives are coming to Hamilton, the conservatives are coming. Be afraid, be very afraid!
"Cary Nelson, a professor of arts and sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign... agrees. 'I don't find students quite so malleable and permeable as ACTA seems to think,' he says. 'They have opinions on just about everything from the get-go.
"Mr. Nelson says he frequently expresses his views in the classroom and expects students to challenge him. 'I think that helps train them to be critical thinkers,' he says.
"Deciding what belongs in the classroom and what doesn't, Mr. Bowen argues, is not as easy as Ms. Neal believes. 'Anne has never taught a class, and she doesn't know the dynamics,' he says. For example, the council has criticized the AAUP this year for failing to come down hard on professors in Wisconsin and New Hampshire who have endorsed September 11 conspiracy theories in the classroom.
"But Mr. Bowen says sometimes such a discussion is relevant. 'What if you're teaching a psychology course? I think you could make the case that conspiracy theories are an interesting aspect of mass psychology. Thus far the evidence for these theories is lacking, but does that make discussion of that out of bounds? I don't think so.'"
Referring to ACTA's report, "How Many Ward Churchills?", "The report, (Nelson) says, reveals the council's desire 'to return to a 19th-century state of knowledge.' The kinds of teaching that the report lambastes — including an anthropology course on Mr. Nelson's campus that examines 'racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and other stereotypical ideologies of 'the Other' — aren't wacky or way-out, he says: 'These are fundamental conclusions of central academic disciplines, positions that have evolved over time.' The Churchill report, he adds, "is sort of a rejection of modern life."
And lastly, with reference to ACTA's (i.e., Anne D. Neal's) purported non-biased perspective, Alan P. Jones, dean of faculty at Pitzer College says in the article,"She presents herself in the context of a legitimate and unbiased organization," says Mr. Jones, who criticized the report in an online essay. "But ACTA has roots in organizations that are very partisan, and their funding is very conservative."
The point of all this, Reporter, is that no one side has a monopoly on the truth, and that it is entirely possible to be highly educated, interested in the direction of higher education, and concerned for the welfare of Hamilton, its alumni and students, to hold opinions which are diametrically opposed to those espoused by HCAGR and Anne Neal.
And believe it or not, it is not even remotely unreasonable to disagree with HCAGR at not only a most basic level, but also a most profound one.
http://www.cary-nelson.org/
If the article was wrong, perhaps Anne Neal should have taken it up with the editors of the Chronicle.
"Bowen and Nelson are typical academic pygmies living in a playpen off the dole." Comments such as this one display not only disdain but the "profound ignorance" that you attribute to me.
Hamilton's trustees are a disgrace.
For a bracing story on the meaning of diversity on the typical campus have a look at this:
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071010/OPINION01/710100351/1035/OPINION&GID=aMdoIOJl5p14J4VxZ9uSyV2lu2dNDkZpY4f9IeJQ6Ac%3D
You wrote, "That view seems far removed from the intial exuberant plan to house the AHC at the College."
While I fully support the AHI, you have a point. I didn't realize the utter folly of trying to promote the study of American history in the midst of rabid revisionists. A lesson learned....and acknowledged by Bradford
Institutions become fat, lazy and more self-protective than innovative. They stop serving the needs of their customers properly. Some within the organization try to fix it. When they are rebuffed, or in this case rebuffed and blued, the innovators move outside the box to fill the need.
Sound familiar?
Given that the college officials have access to counsel, an IP policy, and an obligation to follow that policy, there is another hypothesis: they understand perfectly well.
They thought they would get away with it and saw no reason not to try.
And so it goes without comment, explanation or accountability. You see, it was 'prudent'.
That's the new way.
File the application right next to Tobin's speeches.
Can I copy that?
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjdhZWM1NzFmZWQ4M2RmZWExN2NkOTNmN2FmZTY5MzY=
disclosure
integrity
competence
intellectual diversity
accountability