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Higher Education

An Elegy for Bloom

A STAUNCH DEFENDER OF THE WESTERN CANON

Cicero Bruce

July-August 2023

Bloom understands that literary study, in contradistinction to cultural studies, is, and ever will be, an elitist endeavor in the service of aesthetics.

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Christians at the End of the Pax Americana

FROM A WARFARE STATE TO A WELFARE STATE

Robert McTeigue

September 2022

With the welfare/warfare state, one may wonder: which came first? They are both features of empires, especially in the latter stages of an empire’s lifecycle.

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Which Way the Wind Blows

FORBIDDEN WORDS AND ACTIONS

John Lyon

June 2022

Daily we hear of intemperate students demanding this or that “right” drawn from a grab-bag of potential claims on others’ behavior.

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Re-emergence in a Surprising Field

REBIRTH OF AMERICA’S SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY — PART II

Lewis M. Andrews

December 2020

The mental-health professions in recent years have changed their opinion of religion and now regard faith as a reliable predictor of well-being.

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The Practical Application of Christian Ethics According to America’s Early College Presidents

REBIRTH OF AMERICA’S SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY — PART I

Lewis M. Andrews

November 2020

They represented a variety of denominations but expressed a remarkably similar prescription for living spiritually in the wider world.

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Fr. Ted’s Big Trade

Michael V. McIntire

May 2020

Hesburgh departed from the idea of creating a distinctive institution in the Catholic intellectual tradition, settling instead for making it more American and worldly.

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The Ideology at the Root of Our Moral Disorder

MEET SOCIOLOGICAL MAN

Clifford Staples

December 2019

In the sociological imagination, it is man who creates God. Once he frees himself from God, anything is possible, or at least appears to be.

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Remembering John Lukacs

ODE TO AN ACADEMIC OUTSIDER

Will Hoyt

November 2019

Lukacs had rock-solid confidence in the Western idea of truth for which books stand and without which civility cannot exist.

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Post-Truth, Climate Change & the Catholic University

WHY DO PEOPLE REJECT THE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS?

A. James McAdams

October 2019

As the earth was created before man, Pope Francis advises, man is obliged to treat the earth in a manner that is “caring, protecting, overseeing, and preserving.”

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Halving & Having the Truth

NEWMAN ON LIBERALISM & ITS LIBERALLY EDUCATED DISCONTENTS

Joshua Hren

September 2019

Through the joys and perils of liberal learning we must ever recollect that only faith seeking understanding properly disposes the intellect toward conformity to Christ.

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Seeking Knowledge of God through the Experience of Beauty

HARMONIOUS RELATIONSHIP IS THE NUCLEUS OF LIFE

Edmund B. Miller

September 2019

Education must do what the word itself promises: lead out, via a pattern, a road. In other words, simply and finally, education must be the experience of beauty.

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You Can Say That?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

September 2019

China could well be poised to inherit the earth that the U.S. once commanded — especially if our comparative student bodies are any indication.

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The Myth of Meritocracy

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

June 2019

A meritocracy fits America’s sense of itself as free from the class-based social structures that defined the European countries from which our predecessors fled.

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By the Lakes of Babylon

CULTURAL COUNTERPOINT

Jason M. Morgan

March 2019

Fr. Hesburgh proved to be a perfect avatar for the Notre Dame he created: an endorser of some kind of vaguely conceived “natural religion.”

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The Great Awokening: The Puritan Roots of the Social Justice Warrior

Jason M. Morgan

January-February 2019

Social Justice Warriors behave like cult members. They are little Cromwells who demand Robespierre-level ideological purity of every single person.

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I Am Not White

WHAT CONSTITUTES CULTURE ?

Thomas Storck

November 2018

Public discourse remains limited to material concerns, but what really differentiates human beings is culture, which is founded on religion.

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An Extraordinary Educator's Enduring Legacy

Christopher Beiting

September 2018

A review by Christopher Beiting of Francis Bethel, O.S.B's book John Senior and the Restoration of Realism

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Can a Return to Augustine Resolve the Current Educational Crisis?

K.F. Stewart

September 2018

A review by K.F. Stewart of On Education, Formation, Citizenship and the Lost Purpose of Learning

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The New Hate Speech: Catholic Teaching at a Catholic College
May 2018

An affirmation of Church teaching at Providence College is seen by students and administrators as an act of "homophobia" and "transphobia" that warrants intimidation and threats because it's an offense against the PC narrative.

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"Critical Thinking" in the Postmodern University

GUEST COLUMN

Clifford Staples

September 2017

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The Cult of Diversity at Providence College
January-February 2017

A Catholic college, employing the vague and undefined empty vessel of "diversity," is willingly suppressing its own Catholic culture in favor of an infection with Western sexual obsessions.

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Betraying the Fort

BIDEN & BOEHNER AT NOTRE DAME

John Lyon

September 2016

Notre Dame's president honored Joe Biden for putting "the good of the nation above partisan victory," with "respectful dialogue" and "honorable compromise."

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Why We Need a New Model of Catholic Higher Education

A GERMINATING IN THE WEEDS OF IDEOLOGICAL SECULARISM

Michael B. Ewbank

September 2016

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Permanent Irresolution & the Art of Making a Public Argument

GUEST COLUMN

Robert Barron

July-August 2016

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The Unbearable Whiteness of Being
June 2016

Pushers of political correctness now desire, if not demand, something called "deep diversity" — that is, eliminating all signs of "whiteness" from campuses across the country.

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Fingers on the Triggers
October 2015

The "trigger warning" movement seeks to scrub college campuses clean of words and ideas that might cause discomfort, hurt feelings, or negative thoughts. Almost everything has this potential.

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How Pro-Lifers Are Saving Higher Education

THE HUMANITIES' HOLLOW HUMANITY

Jason M. Morgan

September 2015

The Christian on campus is the only hope for bringing humanity back to the humanities and saving our dying universities.

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The Toxic Effects of "Rape-Culture Feminism"

ONE IN FIVE COLLEGE WOMEN SUBJECT TO ASSAULT?

Jeffrey R. Jackson

June 2015

All students need some measure of discipline, one that deters situations from which rape allegations would arise.

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A Chronicle of Christendom's Decline

Frederick W. Marks

November 2014

Historian Warren Carroll is, first and foremost, an eloquent exponent of Judeo-Christian values who puts character delineation front and center.

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An Autonomous Philosopher & the Mandatum

ACADEMIC FREEDOM BOUND?

Paul Symington

September 2014

Religious convictions are deep and can easily override considerations of beliefs that are contrary to them, even in light of attempts at objectivity.

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Hollow Theology
January-February 2013

While Catholic colleges have stronger core requirements than their secular counterparts, most have abolished requirements for students to take Catholic theology courses.

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Ivy League Culture Wars
May 2012

There are campus activists and groups-- who are not necessarily Catholic or even Christian-- at Ivy League colleges fighting for traditional moral values on marriage and sexuality.

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The Marketplace of Ideas -- Command-Economy Style
September 2010

If you want to continue teaching on college campuses, it's best to hold to the politically correct version of the genesis of homosexual orientation.

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Another Victim of Institutional Coddling
September 2010

On at least one college campus, teaching certain aspects of the Catholic faith -- even in the context of a class on Catholicism -- is considered "hate speech."

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When Heteronomy & Autonomy Collide

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO NOTRE DAME?

L. Scott Smith

December 2009

The University of Notre Dame is positioned to ride the wave of American popular culture, and without a fight will go the way of its sister institutions once run by Protestants.

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Notre Dame, R.I.P.

GUEST COLUMN

Michael V. McIntire

July-August 2009

Notre Dame's honoring of President Obama was the full flowering of the university's rebellion against the Magisterium of the Church.

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Classical Education in Southern California
October 2008

Thomas Aquinas College has been providing a superb classical education to students from all over the country for nearly four decades.

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The Secularizing of Catholic Universities

FROM ORTHODOXY TO HERESY

Michael V. McIntire

September 2008

Catholic academics betrayed the faith with the Land O'Lakes Statement in 1967, which has spread error throughout the Church ever since.

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False Theologians, Then & Now

HENRY VIII & THE DISSENTERS IN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES

Anne Barbeau Gardiner

June 2007

By giving pseudo-legitimacy to the English tyrant, false theologians made possible Henry's theft of Church lands, his dissolution of monasteries, and his wrecking of libraries.

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Is Georgetown Still Catholic?

LAST THINGS

Tom Bethell

May 2006

The great problem besetting not just the Jesuits but the Catholic Church in America and the Western world more generally is wealth.

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Is Providence College All It's Cracked Up to Be?

A CLOSER LOOK

Jeffrey R. Jackson

October 2004

Notwithstanding the general perception that Providence College is very Catholic, the occurrence of certain events call into question whether it has experienced a serious decline.

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The Dismal State of Most Catholic Colleges & Universities

ARE THEY JUST ABOUT WORTHLESS?

Anne Hendershott

July/August 2003

For most liberal Catholic scholars, one is apparently not supposed to direct one's "critical thinking" against the reigning libertine bromides.

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Keeping the Light Burning

Philip Blosser

January 2003

It's time to get over the embarrassment of seeking out students, faculty, and administrators from a school's supporting religious tradition.

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Let's Abolish Most Catholic Colleges & Universities

IT'S TIME TO TRY SOMETHING ELSE

Marian E. Crowe

June 2001

Nowadays the old notion that a Catholic college ought to teach Catholicism to undergraduates seems not even to be seriously considered.

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Blitzkrieg on the Western Front

EDITORIAL

Dale Vree

April 2001

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Student-Professor Sex

THE STENCH OF THE ZOO

J. A. Gray

February 2000

The baseline of professional behavior expounded and approved by professors in their trade journal is disturbingly low.

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How Much Freedom Can Our Culture Stand?

GUEST COLUMN

Tom Martin

February 2000

Forgotten is the teaching that by knowing truth, a student is freed — saved from drowning in a sea of unfulfilling “self-fulfillment.”

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Homosexual Memoirs for Catholic Freshmen: Why?

NOWHERE NEAR HEAVEN'S COAST

Katherine Kersten

December 1999

At a Christian university, students and faculty should be committed to a search for the truth about the truly good life for man.

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Can We Revitalize Catholic Higher Education?

"UNCATECHIZED CAME I INTO COLLEGE, UNCATECHIZED GO I FORTH"

Marian E. Crowe

September 1999

Perhaps it is unrealistic to think of supporting scores of Catholic colleges in our secular society. Perhaps 10 to 15 is more realistic.

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Shack-Ups & Shakedowns on Campus
July/August 1999

Just who qualifies as a "partner" in a "partnership"?

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"Catholic Studies": The New Catholic Ghetto

A NEW ELECTIVE AT CATHOLIC COLLEGES: CATHOLICISM!

Nino Langiulli

December 1998

A single program relieves the institution of the responsibility to give the entire curriculum a Catholic character.

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The Rift Between the Finest Minds & The Limp Academics Now in Power

SPOILED AMERICANS, SOFT PROFESSORS & STUNTED STUDENTS

Robert Greer Cohn

September 1998

A “Humanities and Arts Memorial” was held at Stanford in 1995, as top universities worked to destroy Western culture.

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A Voice Crying in the Bewilderedness

J. A. Gray

July/August 1998

Mankind exhibits a passion for knowledge and freedom, and an inveterate tendency to be seduced by counterfeits of knowledge and freedom.

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Should Classes in Catholic Colleges & Universities Begin With Prayer?

IF CRUCIFIXES IN CLASSROOMS, WHY NOT PRAYER?

Gregory R. Beabout

April 1998

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What to Do About Our Largely Secularized Catholic Colleges & Universities?

IT'S TIME FOR THE BISHOPS TO USE THEIR SHEPHERD'S CROOK

Kenneth D. Whitehead

July/August 1997

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To Denigrate "Western Civilization" Is to Disinherit Our Children

NEW WORLD ORDER: HI TECH, NO SOUL

Lawrence D. Hogan

April 1996

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The Nihilism & Atheism of Allan Bloom

HOISTING A STRAUSSIAN CONSERVATIVE WITH HIS OWN PETARD

Philip E. Devine

October 1988

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Shame on You, Harvard!

CHRIST & NEIGHBOR

John C. Cort

September 1988

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Discovering the Church in Harvard Yard

A "POSITIVELY BIZARRE" CONVERSION

John C. Cort

November 1987

My father wrote an angry letter to the Dean of Harvard and told me that if I insisted on being received into the Church he would insist on withdrawing me from Harvard.

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Academic Fundamentalism?

Robert N. Bellah

July-August 1987

Review of The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom

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Small Gestures

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

January-February 1985

Being clever, brilliant, even what gets called “well-educated” is not to be equated, necessarily, with being considerate, kind, tactful, even plain polite or civil.

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