Posted January 16, 2015, by Mary Grabar: Dispatching from the Alexander Hamilton Institute, the charming building featured on the front cover of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy report, "Renewal in the University:How Academic Centers Restore the Spirit of Inquiry." The Alexander Hamilton Institute is one of these centers that offers a place for intellectual inquiry for Hamilton College students, scholars, and graduate students. Each summer several Hamilton College students live at the Institute as interns; scholars and graduate students enjoy a month of research in the summer as Bakwin Fellows (as yours truly did in 2011); community members and high school teachers enjoy free evening classes, such as the one coming up, "Media and Politics," to be taught by resident fellow David Frisk; and scholars from various fields and political persuasions come together for conferences and colloquiums. Jay Schalin reviews several of these centers, out of a total of about 150, that are located both on and off campuses. Of AHI, he writes, "The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization has shown that in today's world, no amount of opposition can keep valuable ideas off campus if a single faculty member is determined to have them heard." You can read the report here.
"No amount of opposition": This applies to History Professor Robert Paquette, one of organizing forces behind AHI, who in addition to his teaching and AHI duties writes about educational issues related to history. In "Push-Back on APUSH," published at the National Association of Scholars, he describes the College Board's politicized framework for Advanced Placement (AP) History courses as infused with the philosophy of Howard Zinn:
The broad appeal of Howard Zinn’s Marxist baby-talk in AP history classes stems not only from the appeal of the politics of the his best-selling People’s History of the United States to activist teachers, but its service in easing bored and indifferent students through the past by personalizing and simplifying it through trivialization. The current emphasis on “identities” often boils down in the classroom to the instructor’s attempt to get the students to empathize with the personal feelings of a favored group of historical actors extracted from the ranks of the oppressed. While these voices may elicit students’ sympathy, perhaps even guilt, they do little to enhance understanding of the proper yardsticks by which the past must be measured so that it does not become vulgarized.
Speaking of Marxists. . .Angela Davis, "1970s black liberation icon," (Black Panther) will speak at Kennesaw State University on Sunday, January 18, in observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Holiday. The university web page, in addition to describing her as an "icon," notes that she is "Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz." As can be expected from such a title, Davis has done no real scholarship. Cliff Kincaid in his column, "Notorious Red Exploits King Legacy," at Accuracy in Media, points out that to the contrary Davis has been an activist on behalf of repressive regimes and political causes. She has served the interests of the secret police in East Germany and the Soviet Union. Kincaid writes, "This is the same Angela Davis 'who supported the imprisonment of Soviet political dissidents (calling them common criminals), cheered on the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and was awarded the International Lenin Peace Prize (formerly the International Stalin Peace Prize) by communist East Germany,' as noted by another paper, the British Telegraph."
Field Trip: D.A. King, president of the Dustin Inman Society, mischievously adds to the official KSU announcement page of "Who, What, When . . ." with "Who is paying for the event? Georgia taxpayers." To the tune of $20,000, just for Davis's speaking fee. (Who said crime doesn't pay?) D.A. King is organizing a "field trip" to the event. For more information, go to his blog, here. Kennesaw State University, located in suburban and conservative Cobb County, Georgia, has been paying a number of professors to use the the campus as a place of Marxist indoctrination, as I wrote about in "Rallying Around Che at a 'Literary' Conference" for Minding the Campus in 2012.
Not the first time: Angela Davis, sad to say, has been the featured MLK Day speaker on other campuses, such as City University of New York in 2014, University of Michigan in 2013, Wofford College in 2012, usually with little notice or protest and billed as a "human rights activist." Her specialty seems to be the "prison-industrial complex," a term she has popularized. She advocates the release of all black prisoners.
Triple-dipping on speaking fees for MLK: Davis seems to be in high demand for events related to MLK and his holiday. This year must be Davis's southeastern tour, for after Atlanta she's scheduled to speak on the official MLK holiday, Monday, January 19, at UNC-Chapel Hill, and on Tuesday, January 20, at UNC-Wilmington.
Who knew that the prison-industrial complex could be even more financially rewarding than the old military-industrial complex?
