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Happy Birthday, ACTA
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Founded in 1995 by Lynne Cheney and Senator Joe Lieberman, ACTA has from its inception been dedicated to ensuring that America's colleges and universities are accountable for their actions. ACTA is also the only national organization that approaches the problem of accountability through an administrative pragmatics of resource allocation: ACTA works closely with alumni, trustees, legislators, independent donors, and higher education administrators to inform them about what's happening on campus and to advise them about related matters of giving and governance.
Committed to the goals and ideals of a genuinely liberal education, ACTA has been deeply concerned by certain recent trends: the gutting of the liberal arts curriculum, grade inflation, and the lack of political and intellectual diversity within the professoriate. One of the oldest and most influential campus watchdog organizations, ACTA has worked consistently to educate the public about what really is--and is not--being taught on our campuses. Over the years, ACTA has published detailed and groundbreaking reports on the progressive impoverishment of literary and historical study, for example; it has also created numerous tactical programs and guides for donors, trustees, and legislators.
Most recently, ACTA has studied whether--and how--the documented political uniformity of the professoriate has affected the quality of undergraduate education in this country. In response to the recent barrage of anecdotal charges that academia has become an ideological war zone in which education too often cedes to indoctrination, ACTA commissioned the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis to survey students at U.S. News & World Report's top fifty colleges. In December, the striking results were released: Nearly half of those surveyed said that their professors use the classroom to present their personal political views, and nearly one third felt that they had to parrot those views in order to earn a good grade. Seventy-four per cent of students said professors made positive remarks about liberals; forty-seven per cent reported that their professors made negative comments about conservatives.
Always, ACTA has argued that knowledge is power, that an informed and engaged public is the best steward for America's intellectual future. Conducting necessary research, appearing regularly at conferences, striving always to educate, ACTA has been a leader in the increasingly important fight to guarantee that colleges and universities are accountable to their students, to their graduates, and to the public whose tax dollars and private donations support them.
As part of its continuing commitment to being a standard bearer in higher education, ACTA is commemorating its tenth birthday by launching a weblog. Here you will find regular posts on the defining issues and events of contemporary academe. In keeping with ACTA's belief in free, unfettered inquiry, the tone of the blog will be temperate and searching; its aim will be to offer incisive commentary, to ask thoughtful questions, and to provide useful historical and intellectual contextualization for current academic events. And in keeping with ACTA's parallel emphasis on the crucial importance of robust, vigorous discussion and debate, readers are welcome to contribute their reflections, criticisms, and questions. Readers should respond by email to [insert address]; with their permission, their thoughts and ideas will be posted here.
Posted by acta online at April 1, 2005 11:04 AM