A $9 million token? By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Originally published 12:05 a.m., May 14, 2008; Updated 09:47 a.m., May 14, 2008
You hate to jump on a university official who truly prizes intellectual diversity, since most would rather deny that a problem exists. So give CU-Boulder Chancellor Bud Peterson credit not only for his willingness to talk about the value of exposing students to a broad spectrum of views, but for actively promoting that goal as well.
Even so, Peterson’s plan to raise $9 million to endow a “visiting chair in conservative thought and policy” takes some getting used to.
Will it really help to mainstream intellectual diversity at Boulder, where conservative faculty are nearly as rare as the jackalope?
Or will it reinforce the idea that academia is the natural monopoly of the political left and that anyone who doesn’t share the dominant point of view must be an outsider who wears an ID tag etched with the word “conservative”?
And “visiting,” for that matter.
To be fair, CU officials hope to lure a high-profile bigwig such as William Kristol - yes, the Fox News analyst has a Ph.D., from Harvard - or even Condoleezza Rice to sign on for a one- or two-year stint. Hence the $9 million endowment; you don’t pay such people with table scraps.
“The idea is not only to add to the debate and intellectual discourse,” CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard told me, but to create the opportunity for “special lectures, public events and team teaching.” The big-name professor would presumably wield the clout to attract visits and lectures from other luminaries, thus enriching the overall university experience. [end]
This illustrates how thoroughly Leftist our universities have become. The idea to lure “big name” Conservatives is simply ludicrous.
