We're used to hearing about the absurd lengths to which campus social engineers will go to create all-inclusive, no-hate, no-pain, sensitive campuses. Currently, Wesleyan and Smith are setting new standards for institutionalized tolerance, the one by launching the nation's first "gender-blind" housing (designed to cater to transsexual and transgendered students as well as to students who simply don't want to be ''restricted to traditional limitations of the gender binary"); the other by eliminating the pronoun "she" from its constitution (though Smith is a women's college, it recognizes that transgendered or otherwise alternatively-identified women students may feel excluded by the pronoun). (An irony: while Wesleyan happily opens a dormitory floor to transgendered students to show its tolerance, some students at Smith worry that accomodating transgendered students might open the door to men students; these have been assured that Smith's efforts to celebrate sexual diversity will not result in co-education).

What we are not used to hearing about: the efforts some small, private colleges are making to create an atmosphere of focussed, serious study by stripping away the glib political gamesmanship (of which conservative students are just as guilty as liberal ones), consumerist attitude toward education, and corresponding intellectual shallowness that is endemic on campuses today. New Hampshire's tiny, Catholic Magdalen College is one such institution. With its rigid social rules (including a ban on personal telephones, TV, and radio) and exclusive focus on that oft-deconstructed category, Great Books, Magdalen College isn't for everyone. But in bucking the trends on both Catholic and secular campuses, it stands as a refreshing example of what kinds of educational environments are possible. I'm not a religious person, but the school nonetheless appeals to me as a place where serious study is the point, and where students can be assured that their four years will be spent in the dedicated, undistracted pursuit of knowledge that is ostensibly the point of liberal education. I imagine I'm not alone in that assessment: if more such schools arose, particularly if secular ones arose, they could have real gravitational pull for students and teachers who are fed up with the mainstream alternative.

How many transgendered people go to Smith? And every trannie I know is always called "she". Or is Smith only concerned with girls going the other way?

Wish I could think of something clever to say about these goings on at Wesleyan and Smith, but I can't.

The phrase "spoiled brats" comes to mind, but that's certainly not funny. The only thing I can really think of to say is that this is a manifestation of an egregiously wealthy society featuring loads of people with a lot of time on their hands.

Institutions that engage in this foolishness really aren't colleges. What are they?

I agree, Erin, and I suspect that if just a few secular colleges of this type were to rise to prominence, it would be no time before their waiting lists grew very, very long. My guess is that the only way to put a stop to the incredible nonsense that passes for higher education today is to support those institutions that offer an alternative. When and if the competition get stiff, larger universities are going to have to buckle down and get serious about education again. Competition will do it every single time.

The other side of the "serious study" coin is the example of Hillsdale College in Michigan, whose self-destruction several years ago served as a reminder that ostensible focus on conservative values is not a preventive for financial and sexual scandal. One conclusion by observers was that you can't get along without professional faculty and administrators from the existing pool.

I hate to say this, but denying telephones and TV to students, or rubbing their noses in Homer and Shakespeare, will not effect an education. It will produce seminarian wannabes, or insufferable hypocrites, or indeed serve as an entry path for future misfits who want to abuse religious and/or educational institutions for their own nefarious purposes. You simply will get nowhere denying the outside world. Cf Milton's Areopagetica, one that doesn't make the usual great books, but, along with Newman's The Idea of a University, ought to be used to inculcate greater sense than currently exists in the heads of educational planners.

I would rather see an institution like the fantasy-Dartmouth of Animal House than the one described here, and that institution, and the students depicted, are in fact much closer to Milton's and Newman's visions.

Interesting. Run by the laity rather than clergy. Sounds a bit more like Lutheranism than Catholicism (eg, the article cites someone who believes Vatican II calls on everyone to be a saint: the priesthood of all believers?).

I don't see how this could ever be more than a fringe movement. Most students (and the parents who pay the tuition) are not interested in the dedicated and undistracted pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. They have to be concerned with future career prospects. And the word on the street is that a liberal arts degree is "useless."

Overall, the Catholic schools are more committed to the humanities than is the case with higher ed. institutions in general. A point made by Harold Bloom when he recently donated a huge library to St Michael's College, a small Catholic liberal arts college in Vermont.

Since this is a blog, I am going to throw something out that I haven't been able to research conclusively, but preliminary google searches are raising some questions in my mind.

At the back of my mind was a memory that Magdalen College in New Hampshire is associated with a Catholic movement called Opus Dei, which requires its adherents (all lay people) to undergo strenuous discipline, and its apparent attempts at cult-like brainwashing and mind control have caused it to appear on several web sites discussing cults. The cult sites are aware that the founder of Opus Dei was recently canonized by the Pope and indicate disappointment that the Church has not yet recognized the possibly abusive nature of the Opus Dei organization, as reported by former members.

The Roman Catholic Church has not had a good record in recent years in evaluating the characters of trusted adherents, nor of reporting problems in its programs to the public.

I've done several google searches on "Magdalen College" and "Opus Dei" and gotten numerous hits, including links to the Magdalen web site. Unfortunately, while the words "Opus Dei" seem to come up on the site, its indexes won't allow the individual pages where they appear to be displayed, and there's no search facility on the web site. While the existing documentation I've been able to find does not make a conclusive connection, I toss this out to others who may be interested in the spirit of sleuthing what might be available on the web and the blogosphere.

And I would add a warning that, like the case of Hillsdale College, it's dangerous to listen to pitches that may be too good to be true.

Thinking out loud a bit here...it seems like anyone starting a new college has a big problem to overcome because name recognition ("brand identity") plays such a big role in the educational field. There are lots of people who think "Harvard" must be a great college even though they have no knowledge whatsoever about what Harvard actually teaches. It's even more extreme than the insane branding fetishes that many people have about consumer products.

This doesn't imply that the effort to start new and innovative colleges shouldn't be made..just that the problem needs to be recognized and addressed.

John Bruce, It wouldn't surprise me to learn this college was linked to Opus Dei (a creepy movement, in the humble opinion of this lapsed Catholic).

No telephones and no TV would certainly be indicators of attempting mind control, not simply educational focus. The telephones rule of course would block normal access to a student's family. Normal colleges encourage family contact, and that's part of the normal educational growth experience.

I hate to read of students spending their time watching cable, which you can do anywhere, though this is also likely a symptom of unchallenging curricula and other resources. But why shouldn't students at least be able to watch the news and see how world events unfold in the context of their courses? Even Plato or St. Paul would be relevant.

I did find a reference to an Ave Maria University in Florida that is said in some cases to be associated with Opus Dei, and was financed primarily by Pizza Hut magnate Thomas Monaghan, identified in numerous web references as a member of Opus Dei. I haven't been able to find a connection with Monaghan and Magdalen College.

Opus Dei appears to be related in a shadowy way with many conservative Catholic activities. Certainly if I were a parent I would have some sort of funny feeling about this place and want to investigate further whether my child would be placed in a cult-like mind control environment. The mere fact that "great books" are read is not a recommendation.

Ernescliff College, a residential college at the University of Toronto, self-identifies as an Opus Dei institution. Its site does not say so as far as I can see, but a UT discussion of the college says that residents are required to hand over incoming and outgoing mail to the chaplain.

A list of the Opus Dei "corporate activities" in North America includes Ernescliff College and a number of residential programs for the down-and-out (similar to Narconon's association with $cientology) but does not mention Ave Maria University or Magdalen College.

I would be interested to know if no phones and no TVs are the only restrictions at Magdalen, or if there are also incoming-outgoing mail restrictions.

Erin seems to be saying that this college bans "personal" telephones - why would this block communication with one's family?

More generally -- various posters on this thread are right that a serious liberal arts education is of interest to very few parents and students in the United States. It was ever thus. Serious colleges like St. John's in Annapolis are always going to be small and are always going to be perceived by most people as the preserve of misfits.

But the fact that only a few people at any given time will have any idea of what serious education and thought look like, and that most American students want their college to be fun fun fun has little to do with what Erin is talking about here, it seems to me. We should do all we can to support real colleges and the students who are sufficiently curious about the world to attend them.

Well, at least we haven't degenerated to accusations about the Trilateral Commission or the Freemasons. I suppose that's a start. The value, I should think, of a liberal arts education versus a vocational degree is the flexibility afforded the liberal arts graduate. While we certainly need engineers, accountants, et al., we also need people capable of analysis and subsequent synthesis of ideas in comprehensible fashion. If you've ever read anything written by an engineer, you'll know exactly what I mean.

I took my undergraduate degree in PSCI from a land grant university with a good reputation for training engineers. While many of them had an excellent grasp of their discipline, they had no clue about philosophy, or politics, or even sometimes the outside world at all. Everyone will interact with philosophy on a daily basis (how do you know what you know?) whether they choose to acknowledge that fact or not.

That an educational institution sees fit to limit access to television on campus (note that the TV news is not always the best way to get news: I'd argue that it is almost always the worst way to get it.) and to limit access to telephones doesn't significantly worry me at all. If you go to college and end up crying for your mommy, perhaps it is time to try on that McFryCooker's uniform after all? Were a parent to limit a child's access to the telephone and television we might applaud him or her for creating a positive learning environment. When a college makes a policy of it, we call it mind-control. How weak-minded do you think these students are? If the college is open and up-front about its policies and you choose to go there, don't complain about those policies. If you know about and object to those policies, don't send your children there or go there yourself.

Not being a Catholic myself, I have little knowledge of the group Opus Dei (Work of God) and relatively little interest in it either. Conspiratorial conjecture isn't very helpful in any event.

Obvious from my previous post, but: Yay, Paladin!

Not everyone's going to agree, but whether associated with cults or not, I would say that a school that treats its students as seminarians has only a fringe appeal and isn't really a solution to the main crisis facing liberal arts institutions.

There are also military academies out there, such as Norwich University, that provide a level of discipline some parents and students may feel is needed -- though I doubt if Norwich restricts TV or phone access during free time. If I felt a child needed focus, I would probably consider Norwich well before Magdalen -- a military academy is a known quantity.

In regard to conspiratorial conjecture, may I suggest that every post I have made is carefully phrased, and I am not trying to rush to hysterical conclusions. However, there are many well-intentioned if naive people who felt that Alger Hiss was an innocent victim, and who no doubt can't imagine that anyone would want to brainwash someone or control their minds via cults. All I can say is it's not a pleasant thing to be disabused of such illusions late in life, and I do not wish it on anyone here.

Just for grins, I sent the following to the "Request Info" department of the Magdalen College web site. The basic facts are true, but some of the wording is weaseled.

"I have a niece approaching college age who has been attending Catholic schools overseas. I'm interested in helping her with her college education, but I want to be sure she associates primarily with the right kind of influences, and would like to find out more about Magdalen College.

"I recently heard that as part of your program, you restrict student access to television, and you do not permit personal telephones. Could you be more explicit about the telephone access? Is it permissible for students to contact their friends via telephone on a regular basis? Some type of restriction of this sort would, I think, be valuable.

"Also, do you restrict other personal communications by students? In particular, must incoming and/or outgoing mail be screened by college personnel?

"Thanks for any additional information you can provide."

We will see what transpires. I would naturally prefer to receive some reply that says, "Mr. Bruce, we understand your concern, but anything you may have heard regarding Magdalen College restricting student access to telephones or TV is completely incorrect. . . . our undestanding of the purpose of a liberal education would not be consistent with such restrictions. . ." etc.

You just can't make this kind of stuff up: University of North Carolina at Wilmington, home of Prof. Mike Adams, has a diversity taskforce.

Quote:

"More specifically, the Task Force should review the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Committee, facilitate an ongoing campus wide consideration of those recommendations, and identify specific strategies for systematically, improving overall campus diversity."

I propose we institute a federally-mandated Barney Taskforce to parade college campuses singing "you love me, I love you, we're diverse & that's so cool!" all day long.

(Apologies if the post seems or even is troll-ish. I attend Berkeley & tend to get rather bitter about things like this.)

Several education-related bloggers have commented on a recent piece by Stanley Fish in the Chronicle of Higher education, to be found at http://chronicle.com/jobs/2003/05/2003051601c.htm

In it, Fish questions whether professors should feel responsible for anything more than teaching a particular set of competencies relating to their courses. In this view, moral development, development of citizenship skills, and so forth, are not the legitimate goals of any particular course -- a point which which I think at this point I agree. Fish, however, proceeds, in my opinion, to fuzz over the distinction between a particular course and an overall educational experience. In John Henry Newman's view, educatino is more than the sum of a set of courses (or the ability to pass a set of exams based on those courses) -- and indeed, the courses are only a small part of the education.

Here is where I disagree with Erin's statement that a college should be a place "where students can be assured that their four years will be spent in the dedicated, undistracted pursuit of knowledge that is ostensibly the point of liberal education." I'm sorry, my college years at the institution that was the model for Animal House had more than their share of distractions, and in retrospect I am grateful for nearly every one, because I frankly feel that that's how I got an education. My courses often served as jumping-off points for fairly serious mistakes, an issue which Fish addresses by saying, entirely correctly, that a professor who discovers this has nothing to feel sorry for.

So I do not believe a reformed institution would resemble in any serious way the model of Magdalen College -- and Norwish University would be the unfortunate destination for kids who couldn't handle the parties at my ideal institution.

John, if that's the case, why bother with classes at all and just schedule mistakes instead?

(I'm joking, sort of.)

Well, I don't see anything wrong with that, except that to turn it into an education you would have to systematize it in some way. So I would definitely say, in hindsight, that one Winter Term I scheduled mistakes relating to intermediate Greek, introductory Geology, and North American Anthropology. Or as William Blake put it, the fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

I also remembered a professor I hated but had to report to as the Chair of English Comp at USC -- he, Stanley Fish, and I were all there together once, though Fish didn't know about me. I recall one of this idiot's favorite sayings, "If you think literature makes good men, just look at the people in the English Department." Oddly enough, Fish said something that echoed this in his latest piece -- saying flat out it is not the job of professors to make good men (but withholding the injunction to circumspice). At this late date, I would agree with both on that particular point. How could anyone take the position that the typical professor of any subject should be a model for morality, culture, urbaneness, or whatever else?

Too true, John.

What,exactly,Erin,is the refreshment that you find?No telephones?I think those are of late Victorian vintage.The RC Church in this country
is dying:the Vatican won't allow won't allow a married and stable priesthood,yet covers for "celibate" pedophiles.Madness.