2010 ATHENA Roundtable

Online registration is now open for our annual ATHENA conference, Nov. 4-5 in Philadelphia.

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Events

  • Wednesday, August 11, 2010

    Anne Neal to participate on panel at the Hudson Institute on "Decline and Revival in Higher Education."

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ACTA in the News

Benno Schmidt to Receive
Philip Merrill Award

Benno Schmidt, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York (CUNY), will receive the sixth annual Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education. The prize is the only one in the nation to honor those who have made an extraordinary contribution to the advancement of liberal arts education, core curricula, and the teaching of Western civilization and American history. For over 30 years, Schmidt has been at the forefront of higher education reform and the advancement of a strong liberal arts education as a scholar, administrator and now trustee. He will accept the Merrill Award at a November 5 gala dinner at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, during our ATHENA Roundtable.

Educating for Citizenship

While Jay Leno was busy highlighting some of our compatriots’ rather hazy knowledge of America’s independence, ACTA marked the Fourth of July by publicizing just how many of our colleges and universities allow students to graduate without having taken a single broad class in American history or government. On WhatWillTheyLearn.com, less than 1 in 7 have such a requirement. As we argued in a Fourth of July op-ed, our universities have essentially abdicated “the responsibility to educate the next generation of citizens.” ACTA’s findings were cited in newspapers across the country, including the New York Daily News, The Seattle Times, and the Baton Rouge Advocate.

Latest From ACTA's Blog - ACTA's Must-Reads

For students to aim high, colleges must set the standards

At the first-ever meeting of state education executives from both the K-12 and Higher Education sectors, the decay of the core curriculum was the elephant in the room...

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Put up and shut up?

Speaking at a Council for Advancement and Support of Education's conference this week in New York, outgoing Tufts president Larry Bacow told donors that it's time "to change the conversation from 'what donors want to do' to 'how they can help institutions meet their goals'," as The Chronicle of Higher Education reports...

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