GroshLink

The university is worth fighting for. No other institution can carry the burden of educating our young people. That's why we must redouble our efforts to restore integrity, civility, and rigorous standards in American higher education--particularly in the area of civic education.

I'll be the first to admit that the situation is dire. I sympathize when critics throw up their hands in despair. I sometimes feel that way myself. Darkness often prevails in places where the light of learning should shine. I often trade horror stories with my friend Hadley Arkes, a distinguished scholar of jurisprudence and political theory at Amherst. On one occasion, I explained that the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton was sponsoring a viciously anti-Catholic art exhibit--one that it would never even permit were some favored faith or cause, such as Islam or gay rights, its target. Every year, some outrage along these lines seems to prove that anti-Catholicism really is the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals, though anyone familiar with academic life today knows that anti-Semitism itself is making a run at being the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals . . .

A friend passed along What Colleges Forget to Teach: Higher education could heal itself by teaching civics -- not race, class, and gender (follow the link for the rest of the piece and a more optimistic conclusion). Such pieces remind me what a different educational path, Theresa and I chose by attending Grove City, a place which in contrast to Princeton reconnected w/its Presbyterian roots. As we approach our 10 year reunion, October 13-15, I am reminded that the Biblical framework, teaching, and community which we received at Grove City (and continue to live in relationship to) has been a vital part of our time with InterVarsity as undergrads and our current work with Graduate and Faculty Ministry.

So today, an alum of one beacon of nuanced Christian higher education speaks into the context many other visions, particularly those found at the secular, industrialist stalwart of Carnegie Mellon University and the former Presbyterian log cabin college of the University of Pittsburgh.

Pray to the Father that His Son might work through us today by the power of the Holy Spirit in order that we might see Students and faculty transformed. Campuses renewed. World changers developed.