Professors and Politics

U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, March 7 — Almost half of the students recently surveyed for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni at the nation’s top 50 universities say their professors, most of them left-leaning, comment often on politics in their classrooms, even if the course they are teaching has nothing to do with politics.

In a feature on “The New Radicals: How Liberal Campuses Harass Conservatives,” the weekly magazine quoted Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University: “On campuses, conservative opinion doesn’t qualify as respectable inquiry.”

He said some subjects — affirmative action, abortion — are just not open to debate. This intellectual cliquishness, says Bauerlein, a political conservative, has blinded many faculty members to differing views.

Manly Clergy

LIFESITENEWS.COM, March 1 — Instead of discriminating against homosexuals, good seminaries foster “a healthy, intelligent and manly clergy,” said Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, according to the Canadian pro-life website.

The cardinal said that the Church does not automatically close the door to homosexuals who, more than ever, can be helped to “correct and manage” the disorder.

The cardinal also emphasized, above all, the need to form “serious men with all of the attributes that God has given them so that they may exercise their ministry with dignity.”

Fickle Polls

ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 2 — While a referendum in favor of adopting a hiring policy against “discriminating” on the basis of sexual orientation was approved by a majority of Boston College students, “that isn’t swaying the school’s administration,” reported the wire service.

While religious institutions are exempt from discrimination laws, “other Jesuit schools, including the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, already have added sexual orientation” to their policies, reported AP.

“As a Catholic university in a state with a history of anti-Catholic bias, we choose not to forfeit the protections afforded us,” said college spokesman Jack Dunn.

Scholarships Denied

CHRONICLE.COM, Feb. 28 — The Catholic University of America will cut $80,000 in scholarship money that it had previously allocated to students involved with the student newspaper, student government and yearbook.

The editor of the newspaper said he thought the change stemmed from the university’s annoyance with articles he had published, reported the website of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

College officials denied that and said the money would be used to support needs-based scholarships.

Now a For-Profit

CHRONICLE.COM, March 3 — Bridgepoint Education, a California company that offers online college courses, has purchased 87-year-old Franciscan University of the Prairies in Iowa from the Sisters of Saint Francis and will change its name to Ashford University.

Bridgepoint’s Andrew Clark said the university will become a for-profit institution and lose its religious identity. “They were aware from the very beginning that that would be going away,” he said.

However, Michael Kaelke, Franciscan’s lay president, said the sale will “assure our heritage,” and that the university would continue to require the current six credits of religious studies and maintain many of its religious traditions.