Hip. Suave. Chic.” These are not the words from a car commercial. They are what Princeton student Christian Say wants to pop into people’s heads when they think of the Princeton Anscombe Society. Named after the late British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, the Princeton Anscombe Society was started by Cassandra L. Hough and other Princeton undergrads in 2005 as a reform-minded reaction to the fact that on campus casual sex had become the norm. They chose Anscombe as their inspiration because, while bearing the trappings of an independent modern woman with her cigars and monocle, she defended so well Christian Sexual Ethics to secular audiences through reason alone. Likewise, the PAS sought to provide a rational voice for sexual integrity, conjugal marriage, and the significance of the family. Eventually, Mrs. Hough and others began receiving emails and letters from students across the country asking for advice on how to establish their own chapters. Thus the Love and Fidelity Network (LFN) was created. Continue Reading »
Readers of First Things who are teachers and administrators at secular colleges know what happens in formal and informal discussions of student conduct when someone mentions the word “chastity.” Continue Reading »
In October 2013, 132 Catholic professors signed a letter addressed to America’s Catholic bishops objecting to the adoption of Common Core standards by Catholic schools. The letter stated that the standards lower expectations for high school graduates to a basic-skills, workforce-preparation focus, neglecting “Catholic schools’ rich tradition of helping to form children’s hearts and minds.” Furthermore, Common Core aims to make students “college-ready,” but the standards are “geared to prepare children only for community-college-level studies.” Continue Reading »
When you talk to humanities professors, especially those at elite institutions, it doesn’t take long for the complaints to begin. They say that the administration doesn’t support them, choosing to invest in the sciences and business school, not language, literature, and culture. They witness the number of majors plummet—English used to collect nearly 8 percent of majors; now it’s close to 3 percent—and they feel unappreciated. (At my own institution, the number of majors has dropped by more than 50 percent since I arrived in 1989.) The overall drift toward the “corporate university” reflects values they abhor, and many of them would like to move, but the job market is terrible. Continue Reading »
Recently, an academic administrator informed me that passing judgment on others’ sexual orientation or religious beliefs was grounds for exclusion from partnership with the university office she represents. Continue Reading »
When I was an undergraduate at an evangelical college in the Pacific Northwest, I encountered a unique imperative, “Down with the Pinecone Curtain!” For my classmates who resonated with this battle cry, the towering evergreens on campus were a metaphor for the college’s cultural isolation. While the Pinecone Curtain wasn’t exactly the Berlin Wall, my classmates’ discontent was real nonetheless. They were dissatisfied with the school’s evangelical identity, if not with evangelicalism itself. Continue Reading »
The first-year reading program at Williams College, “turned out to be kind of like a bad blind date,” wrote Michaela Morton, a freshman at the time, in an article in the student newspaper. Continue Reading »
As students head back to college this month, many have yet to choose a major. When they do decide, they should keep a wide divergence in mind. It appeared awhile back in a headline in the Chronicle of Higher Education: “Business and Academic Leaders Disagree on Quality of College Grads.” The disagreement emerged in two polls by Gallup, one for Lumina that asked Americans, including business leaders, about the cost and quality of higher education, the other for Inside Higher Ed that queried academic officers about the academic health of their campuses. Continue Reading »
To protect against discrimination, liberals increasingly seek to discriminate. News broke over the weekend that all twenty-three schools within the California State University system have taken steps to “derecognize” InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), a para-church Christian ministry organization that’s had a longstanding presence within university life religious settings. Continue Reading »
He has authored over a dozen books, written a syndicated newspaper column and countless essays and articles covering a broad range of subjects—sports, politics, mobsters, union thugs, cultural touchstones, booze, and blades of grass—all of it written in a smart, literate voice of the casual sophisticate who takes his subject, but not himself, seriously. Continue Reading »
