Academic Freedom and Excellence Advance in Texas, Missouri, Colorado, and Virginia

We recently received a heartening message from professor Robert C. (Rob) Koons (pictured), a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He advised that UT-Austin had just approved a new Program in Western Civilization & American Institutions. The program, which he directs, will begin offering interdisciplinary seminars in the Great Books in the fall of 2008. It will also offer students the opportunity to complete a “concentration” in the field by taking a coherent and connected sequence of seminars in the great ideas of the Western tradition: liberty, law, reason, virtue, happiness, justice, individual rights and limited government.

Rob called this move a “breakthrough.” And we certainly agree.

And here’s another breakthrough. Sunlight legislation based on ACTA’s report Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action has been introduced in three states — Missouri, Colorado, and Virginia. An accountability bill based on model legislation drafted by ACTA has also been introduced in Indiana.

It’s clear: Leaders across the country see the need for reform in higher education, and they’re making it happen, with ACTA’s help.

ACTA Comes to Baltimore

This year, ACTA will be holding a number of Regional Meetings across the country. At these gatherings, ACTA supporters and their guests have a chance to meet ACTA leadership and also hear from some of the best minds in higher education.

The first of these meetings will take place on March 18 in Baltimore, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Pepperdine University professor Ed Larson (pictured). Professor Larson will provide a fascinating overview of the election of 1800, the topic of his recent book. And ACTA president Anne Neal will offer some brief remarks on what we’re doing to make sure more students are learning about essential topics like American history. If you’d like to join us in Baltimore, simply reply to this e-mail — and bring a friend! And if you’re in another area where you’d like us to visit, let us know that, too. We’re crafting our schedule for the year right now.

Yale Gets the Memo

Yale University recently announced—to much fanfare—that it would increase its spending of endowment funds to subsidize financial aid, research, and construction. In a statement, Yale president Richard Levin called the shift a “prudent policy revision.” ACTA agrees, and we’ve been saying so for years. Most notably, ACTA advisor and Columbia trustee emeritus Edward N. Costikyan (pictured) made the case in a 1998 essay entitled “Spending Endowment Income for Current Use: Why So Little? Mea Culpa.” If you'd like to learn more, reply to this e-mail and we'll send you a copy of Mr. Costikyan’s prescient essay.

Inside Higher Ed: “Fundamental Differences” (Published December 20)

At the first meeting she attended, last June, Neal, no shrinking violet, asked aggressive yet thoughtful questions about the accrediting agencies that appeared before her. This time around, Neal went on the offensive, especially on Tuesday, when — at a time when department officials were hoping to dial down the committee’s rhetoric to discourage Congress from reining the committee in — she asked officials from two regional accrediting groups question after question aimed at showing that the agencies are unwilling to require the colleges they monitor to meet minimal standards for student learning.

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Inside Higher Ed: “Someone Didn’t Get the Memo” (Published December 19)

Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, pressed on. Citing the low scores of American college graduates on the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, she said, “Tell me — how do you know that graduates of the institutions you accredit have achieved the standards of literacy to be informed citizens? Do you have a baseline set of standards you would like them to meet, or do you leave that up to the institutions?”

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