Not So Liberal

THE WASHINGTON POST, May 13 —The U.S. Education Department-sponsored accreditor of liberal-arts programs has refused to give its stamp of approval to Patrick Henry College, a two-year-old evangelical Protestant college in Purcellville, Va., because it requires faculty members to promise to teach from a creation-ist perspective.

Patrick Henry President Michael Farris complained of “discrimination” and said the college, which has 150 mostly home-schooled students, will appeal the decision by the American Academy of Liberal Education, which has been empowered by the Education Department since 1999 to accredit liberal-arts programs.

Farris told the Post that some of the accreditor's board members hold “views on diversity [that] just simply do not allow them to believe that someone who believes in creationism should be in the big tent of academic freedom.”

Homosexual Recruits

THE BOSTON GLOBE, May 21 —St. Michael's College of Vermont took part in a “gay college fair” in Boston earlier this spring, reports the Boston daily in a story on how “gay students are emerging as an appealing new niche” within the college market, especially for elite institutions.

“We're a Catholic school, but we don't even ask about applicants' religion,” said Jacqueline Murphy, St. Michael's director of admissions. She told the Globe. “You just shy away from doing anything discriminatory.”

Her explanation for being at the fair? To attract students from Massachusetts, where the largest share of St Michael's students come from. The college is staffed by Edmundite Fathers.

Goodbye, Dr. Carroll

CHRISTENDOM COLLEGE, May 21 —Warren Carroll, founding and first president of Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., and chairman of its history department for 25 years, has retired from active teaching. The author of 10 books, Carroll is one of the few teachers who has taught almost every graduate and current student of the college, which is known for its strong Catholic identity.

Money Matters

CHRONICLE.COM, May 24 —The 15 American colleges and universities now conducting a billion-dollar capital campaign includes only one Catholic institution, the Jesuits' Georgetown University, which has raised $791.9 million toward a goal of $1 billion by 2003, reports the Web site for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In a separate item, the Chronicle's May 24 edition reports a $500,000 donation to the capital campaign of the Irish Christian Brothers' Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y. The campaign, which has also drawn gifts of $6 million and $10 million, is working toward a goal of $55 million by 2004.

Black Studies

THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, May 20 —Michael Eric Dyson, a black-studies scholar at Chicago's DePaul University, has been wooed away by the University of Pennsylvania, where he will teach both black studies and religious studies. DePaul is run by the Vincentian Fathers.

Dyson said he took the job because of Penn's “extraordinary commitment to revamping African-American studies.” The Chronicle noted that the move had none of the intrigue of the recent controversy that followed the departure of a black-studies professor at Harvard University for Princeton University.