JAN 8, 2023 Martin Center Staff The university system in the United States has accomplished a great deal of good, but it has strayed from its chief goals of scholarly inquiry and responsible teaching, especially in the past 20 years. All too often, universities allow teaching to become shallow and trendy, failing to challenge students intellectually and disparaging traditional principles of justice, ethics, and liberal education. Students know little about the history of their country or the institutions that led to this nation’s freedom and prosperity. Students can get by without taking rigorous courses; non-academic activities overshadow scholarship. As a … Continue reading →
In the summer of 2022, Dr. Earl Tilford taught an eight-part course on the history of American Higher Education since 1960. After a lecture on higher education in America from the 17th century to 1960, the second lecture focused on the June 1962 meeting of University of Michigan students in their Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) club led by graduate student Tom Hayden at Port Huron, Michigan. The “Port Huron Statement,” a compendium of essays resulted basically outlining how SDS would first take over higher education beginning with capturing faculty and then the administration. From there, it would spread … Continue reading →
As our country goes through trying times, the author put together the best of his op-ed columns, published in his local newspaper, The Tuscaloosa News, which deals with the issues facing our nation today. Clayton ranges all the way from the issues very close to home and family, such as what is being taught in our schools, colleges, and universities, to issues straddling the incredibly complex and often rancorous events in public life, from the presidency of the nation all the way down to local school boards. He not only identifies and analyzes issues we are all, more or less, … Continue reading →
By David Jones University of Alabama alumni, indeed most Alabamians, delight in the high caliber of Crimson Tide athletics. Coach Nick Saban consistently sets an inspirationally high standard for excellence. The university should apply that same inspirational standard to the academic side of campus. Despite progress over the past two decades, data indicate the Capstone is clearly more committed to excelling on the football field than in its classrooms. There are positives to acknowledge before revealing the two major negatives that have led to the decline in UA’s academic reputation over the last ten years. No other university in Alabama … Continue reading →
By Lawrence A. Clayton When I was teaching, and for a few years chairing the Dept. of History, I had no idea, nor did I particularly care, about what was going at the top levels of administration that ran the University. No one stuck their political finger in my job, how we hired faculty, how we managed our affairs, etc. etc. Now hiring practices at UA resemble check lists for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) rules or orders. I retired in 2013 when we were doing our thing, quite well thank you. Then it all went downhill. I did a … Continue reading →
By Earl H. Tilford The 1960s Every journey starts somewhere. In American higher education the trip to today’s diverse, equitable and inclusive “woke” universities that embrace an expansion model for enrollment began in the autumn of 1960. Notably, that was the first year there were more college students in the United States than there were farmers.[1] During the 1950s, visionary college and university presidents anticipated the looming wave of students born after the Second World war soon to be dubbed the “Baby Boom” generation. Some of those presidents built new dormitories and classroom buildings and mobilized alumni to elicit financial … Continue reading →
By Lawrence A. Clayton Published as A Fix For the Country’s Woes: Alpha College in Sunday October 25, 2015, The Tuscaloosa News. In last week’s column I lamented the state of knowledge in the country. I promised to propose a fix. This is it. We need to reexamine closely the values and ethics which gave this country its distinctive character. And then, before the collective memory of those attributes fades away into some corner of our memory, a footnote—like the fall of the Roman Empire—to appear occasionally on history tests, then we need to recapture that spirit and bring it alive into the … Continue reading →
By John Covington That phrase was coined by a 25-year-old black man who was the youngest member of a “unity” small group through the Church of the Highlands in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The group was started in February of 2021 to study/discuss racism using my most recent book, “Don’t Do Anything Stupid – A White Man’s Guide to Racial Harmony.” The group agreed that racism is a sin and you do not attack sin with a secular mindset. The group rapidly grew from five to 20 men, about half black and half white. Included in the group is the District Attorney … Continue reading →
