The author believes that there has indeed been climate warming over the past few decades and that human action may be one of the causes. While Climategate may bring into greater question some of the work underlying climate warming, it decidedly does not disprove it. Climategate is, in the author's view, the greatest science scandal in his…

What's wrong with the sustainability movement, the author contends, is the uncritical homogenization of humanity. Sustainability advocates inevitably seek to homogenize people's deepest values, because their goal is to save Earth from ecological, economic, and social disaster. Everyone must participate--everyone must share the same key values and…

This essay explores the ubiquity of the sustainability agenda in higher education in the United Kingdom (with some parallel examples from the United States) with a view to pointing out its corrosive influence on educational ambition. In so doing, the author suggests that the prevalence of sustainability within education has only been possible…

The most important concept in current environmental thinking is "sustainability". Environmental policies, economic policies, development, resource use--all of these things, according to the consensus, ought to be sustainable. But what is sustainability? What is its ethical foundation? There is little consensus about how these questions ought to be…

"Paradise Lost" explores the themes of human frailty, failure, and redemption following humanity's "original sin," eating of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. This original sin resulted in human beings being banished from an earthly paradise and compelled to wander eternally a world fraught with danger, despair, desolation, and death.…

The author teaches painting in a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Each fall semester he asks his students why they have come to Pratt and what they want to do when they graduate. The common answer is to develop as artists and find a commercial gallery to show and sell their work. Some want the MFA degree…

In this article, the author examines Louise Rosenblatt's "Literature as Exploration," a popular textbook used since 1938 (in five successive editions) in high school English classrooms across America. He discusses how the one-time college roommate of Margaret Mead managed to transform teaching literature into a form of student therapy that…

To get an inside view of campus life today, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (whose purpose is to foster in college students an appreciation of the values that sustain a free society) was approached and asked to supply a list of their Collegiate Network editors--students who are active on their campuses, interested in the issues facing higher…

The influence of contemporary feminism in the classroom and on campus is widespread, and student clubs, women's centers, and women's studies departments often exclude women who hold traditional views. In this article, the author takes a look at how this influence evolved and describes the very successful actions she took as a student to challenge…

How is the tradition of Western classical music faring on university campuses? Before answering this question, it is necessary to understand what has transpired with classical music in the wider culture, as the relationship between the two is so strong. In this article, the author discusses how classical music has taken a big cultural hit in…

One of the major problems from which students suffer has to do with reading: reading with diligence, understanding, and, ideally, with the pleasure that attends discovery. Many students have long been hermeneutical-readers-of-a-sort. The problem has deep roots in a widely diffused media and technocyber environment that thins down and disperses the…

Universities in the United States are increasingly trading their academic mission for a social mission. They see themselves as responsible for contributing to solutions for the great problems of today. These conscience-troubling problems include racism, the unequal distribution of wealth, and impending environmental catastrophe. To combat these…

Student protests and occupations are not new phenomena. On February 10, 1355, what came to be known as the St. Scholastica Day riot occurred. Oxford students and townspeople clashed after a dispute in a local tavern and almost one hundred people were killed. But while student protests have occurred throughout history, the 1960s introduced a new…

Religious practice dramatically decreases in college and students' positions on hot-button religious/cultural questions move appreciably to the left. There's no doubt that college students are on a quest for meaning. In this article, the author reports on new data that reveals unequivocally the decline of religious practice among college students.…

Academic publishing has already reached a point where too much material of too little substance is being published, and this trend is continuing. The ostensible reason for academic publishing is to communicate useful information to academic peers. But of all papers published in the "top" scientific journals, only 40.6 percent were cited at least…