"Center for Western Civilization, Thought and Policy"

CU Boulder appoints W.B. Allen, Stephen B. Presser visiting scholars in conservative thought, policy

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 19:07:48 +0000

CU Boulder appoints W.B. Allen, Stephen B. Presser visiting scholars in conservative thought, policy Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 02/19/2018 - 12:07

W.B. Allen and Stephen B. Presser have been named as the 2018-19 Visiting Scholars in Conservative Thought and Policy at the �鶹��Ƶ.

Allen and Presser are scheduled to teach two courses per semester in fall 2018 and spring 2019. They will also be encouraged to foster discussion by hosting public events in the campus community and around the state.

W.B. Allen, left, and Stephen B. Presser.

Allen is emeritus professor of political philosophy at Michigan State University and emeritus dean at MSU’s James Madison College. Presser is the Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History, emeritus, at the Northwestern University School of Law, professor of strategy at the Kellogg School of Management, and member of the history faculty at Northwestern.

Allen, who has been observing the CU Boulder Conservative Thought and Policy Program since its inception in 2013, said he is eager to get started. “I anticipate happily entering a community of scholars—students and faculty—who believe that liberal education offers and expects from their labors increased understanding,” he said.

Allen added that CU Boulder “exemplifies faith in a future for higher education that delivers critical insight into the grounds of citizenship and prepares generations committed to human flourishing in an atmosphere of liberty.”

Allen, a Fulbright senior fellow, has served in many capacities, including director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia; professor of government at Harvey Mudd College, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and member of the National Council on the Humanities.

Allen’s research interests include the “national character,” an idea propounded by George Washington. Such scholarly inquiry, which Allen hopes to continue while at CU Boulder, probes the sources of “fragmentation” among American citizens and strives to “articulate the practices and principles that can reunite them as one people,” he stated.

Presser also praised Conservative Thought and Policy Program, which he termed “unique and offered in a uniquely well-run university.” After four decades in the academy, he concludes that “real diversity of opinion is increasingly rare in higher education,” he said.

“Those in charge in Boulder, whom I met when I interviewed for this position, have understood that bringing through a series of scholars committed to the search for timeless truths, and a deeper understanding of human nature, is a partial antidote to some of the difficulties now confronting our divided society,” Presser said, concluding:

“It is a an honor to follow those distinguished teachers who have held this position in the past, a privilege to be asked to participate in encouraging the conservation of what is best in our culture, and a joy to be invited to spend a year in a wonderful setting implementing Socrates’s adage that the unexamined life is not worth living.”

Presser is a recognized expert in the history of the law and the U.S. Constitution in the 18^th century, when the “founding principles of the United States took shape.” His published works emphasize the grounding of the Constitution and the American legal system in “the timeless principles of justice, philosophy and law, which made up what the authors of the Federalist described as the emerging ‘science of politics,’” Presser stated.

Robert Pasnau, professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Western Civilization, Thought and Policy, which houses the Conservative Thought and Policy Program, praised Presser and Allen as “distinguished teachers and scholars who will make a profound impact on the campus and community over the year ahead.”

Pasnau added: “Thanks to support from many quarters, the center has grown dramatically over the last several years, becoming a vibrant community of scholars representing a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. Next year’s group of fellows promises to be the best ever.”

The visiting scholars were selected with input from an advisory panel that includes members of the faculty and community and is chaired by Pasnau. The committee has sought a “highly visible” scholar who is “deeply engaged in either the analytical scholarship or practice of conservative thinking and policymaking or both.”

The Conservative Thought and Policy Program is supported by private funds.

W.B. Allen and Stephen B. Presser have been named as the 2018-19 Visiting Scholars in Conservative Thought and Policy.

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Visiting scholar in conservative thought, policy feels at home in Boulder

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 20:24:28 +0000

Visiting scholar in conservative thought, policy feels at home in Boulder Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/13/2017 - 13:24

Kyle Houseworth

Robert Kaufman, a veteran of the Conference on World Affairs, says the Trump presidency has fostered robust debate on campus

For Robert Kaufman, a professor at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy and the 2017-18 visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy at the �鶹��Ƶ, the Trump presidency has made the “conservative” program on the “liberal” campus especially relevant.

Robert Kaufman is the fifth visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy at the �鶹��Ƶ. Photo by the �鶹��Ƶ.

Kaufman contends that Trump “shocked people out of complacency,” fostering open debates in his classroom. CU students are publicly protesting Trump’s policies, and in Kaufman’s classroom, students can voice their concerns and consider a conservative’s viewpoint.

“I thought my reception (at CU Boulder) would be worse due to the election of President Trump,” Kaufman says. “But that has not been the case at all.”

The visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy is a program set in place by CU Boulder’s Center for Western Civilization, Thought, and Policy. The visiting scholar is a conservative implant whose mission is to promote intellectual diversity on CU’s campus, whose students and faculty tend to be left of center, by teaching classes and holding public lectures and seminars wherein conservative scholarship is the core of the content.

Kaufman, the fifth visiting scholar, believes intellectual freedom is critical to a university education and says the privately funded program provides an opportunity for students to step outside of their comfort zones and view the world through a different lens.

“CU Boulder is a national example” of a commitment to intellectual diversity, Kaufman said.

“I have been received by the students and faculty with the utmost respect,” says Kaufman, and he doesn’t find that surprising. Kaufman has participated in the university’s Conference on World Affairs for more than a decade, noting, “Boulder is not alien to me.”

Additionally, he notes that he’s got a track record of teaching, speaking and studying with different-minded people. Kaufman taught at the University of Vermont for 12 years and participated in more than 120 panel discussions over that same stretch—many of them on liberal campuses such as Middlebury College.

The visiting scholar program seeks “a highly visible individual who is deeply engaged in either the analytical scholarship or practice of conservative thinking and policy making,” and Kaufman is both.

I thought my reception (at CU Boulder) would be worse due to the election of President Trump. But that has not been the case at all."

Kaufman is a political scientist specializing in American foreign policy, international relations, national security, presidential politics and elections. His most recent book is Dangerous Doctrines: How Obama’s Grand Strategy Weakened America.

While at CU Boulder, he is teaching “Special Topics: Prudence and the Art of Statesmanship” and “Modern Warfare: Terrorism, Ideology, and Identity.” Kaufman will also teach two courses in the spring of 2018 and present public lectures and seminars.

“Intellectual diversity is a key part of the overall diversity that CU values,” said CU President Bruce Benson, a vocal supporter of the visiting scholar program, in a recent email. “The (visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy) aims to add diversity of political thought to a place not typically known for it.”

“Our job is to teach students how to think, not what to think, and the program is one of the many ways that we do that at CU,” Benson continued. “It promotes dialogue and the open exchange of ideas.”

For Kaufman, this program is mirroring the “great awakening in American education” happening across the country, and he is both proud of the visiting-scholar title and grateful to the donors who make it possible.

Robert Kaufman, a veteran of the Conference on World Affairs, says the Trump presidency has fostered robust debate on campus.

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Make America WHAT? A panel discussion

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 21:50:14 +0000

Make America WHAT? A panel discussion Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 11/10/2016 - 14:50

Join a panel of politically engaged CU students and faculty from across the political spectrum to discuss the results of the election, the implications of a Trump presidency, and the future of American politics.

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Democratic Party has lost touch with working folks, author says

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 23:22:49 +0000

Democratic Party has lost touch with working folks, author says Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/26/2016 - 17:22

Clint Talbott

Author’s CU Boulder appearance first of two events highlighting diverse perspectives from media professionals and public intellectuals

The Democratic Party, which presents itself as a vanguard of working people, has become an elite meritocracy that has lost touch with its roots, argues Thomas Frank, a journalist and author of the bestselling book What’s the Matter with Kansas?

Frank will give a talk titled “What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?” on Monday, Oct. 3, at 7 p.m. in Math 100 on the �鶹��Ƶ campus.

His appearance is the first of two events hosted by CU this fall that aim to highlight diverse perspectives from media professionals and public intellectuals. The second is an appearance by author, columnist, talk-radio host and Fox News contributor Meghan McCain, who will speak at a town hall on Monday, Nov. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in Math 100.

In Frank’s view, well-educated Democratic leaders have lost touch with working-class people and tend to be unduly sympathetic to comparably learned elites.

“You talk to a certain kind of Democrat about economic problems that we’re having in the country, which are in high relief now, and the conversation automatically for them gravitates to education,” Frank said in a recent interview.

“Everything for them is an education problem.”

One thing we know about the meritocracy is that the people on top respect one another.”

The lives of such Democrats are “defined by education, so they naturally think that education will play a similar role for everybody,” Frank continued.

But that view tends to shift the topic’s focus back onto the individual. “People are falling behind because they didn’t study the right subject, or they didn’t go to college, or their field is obsolete,” Frank argued.

Such Democrats “have real trouble talking about grand, sweeping economic changes, and this makes it easy.”

To buttress his view that the Democratic party has become fixated on well-credentialed elites, Frank compares the Obama administration’s cabinet with that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The Obama administration did not “get tough with Wall Street” after the 2008 crash and “dropped the ball” in several ways, Frank said. President Obama’s cabinet and inner circle of advisers has been packed with Ivy Leaguers and Rhodes Scholars and included “some of the best-credentialed people who’ve ever been in government, taken as a whole.”

“Yet they delivered these shabby results,” Frank said, noting a similar phenomenon in the LBJ administration, which was chronicled in the David Halberstam’s landmark book The Best and the Brightest.

Halberstam highlighted the fact that President’s Johnson’s defense advisers were “the most brilliant people around,” many from Harvard. “And they dreamed up the Vietnam War, this incredible catastrophe,” Frank said.

The Obama and Johnson administration examples might prompt one to wonder if “there’s something wrong with government by expert,” Frank said, before quickly adding, “But that can’t be right.”

The golden age of “government by expert,” by contrast, was FDR’s New Deal. But President Roosevelt’s advisers had broad expertise without the same “concentrated collection of credentials” seen today.

What constituted expertise “wasn’t always answered by the word ‘Harvard,’” Frank said. While Roosevelt himself was a Harvard man, he enlisted the help of people from a broad range of experience.

For instance, Roosevelt appointed Robert Jackson, former chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, as solicitor general and attorney general. But Jackson did not have a degree in law.

The Roosevelt administration “got tough” with the bankers after the crash, Frank said, adding that the Obama administration declined to do so. “One thing we know about the meritocracy is that the people on top respect one another.”

So when the government’s top watchdogs view the titans of the financial sector “they see peers. They see people they are automatically sympathetic with, people whose concerns they understand. They are willing not just to forgive these people but to give them the benefit of the doubt in every imaginable way.”

That mindset makes it difficult for the government elite to grasp that fraud on a massive scale was perpetrated at the top of the financial sector, Frank said, suggesting that the government elite viewed the financial meltdown this way: “If there was an epidemic of fraud, it was committed by people at the bottom, people who are signing the loan documents, people who are borrowing money to buy houses.”

Frank’s articles have appeared in the Financial Times, Harper’s Magazine, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Salon, The American Prospect, The Guardian, The Nation and Wall Street Journal.

He is the author of eight books, including the aforementioned New York Times bestseller What’s the Matter with Kansas? His most recent book—Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?—was published in March.

Frank’s appearance is sponsored by the CU Boulder College of Media, Communication and Informatioon, the Center for Western Civilization, Thought and Policy and BoulderTalks.

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‘You can create your own cognitive cocoon’

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 17:55:00 +0000

‘You can create your own cognitive cocoon’ Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/06/2016 - 11:55

Clint Talbott

Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy is disappointed by the state of political discourse, aims to help to improve it while at CU Boulder

Francis Beckwith, the 2016-17 Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy, is now on campus teaching courses, arranging the appearance of guest speakers on campus. He is the fourth person to hold the one-year visiting-scholar position.

Beckwith earned a PhD in philosophy from Fordham University and a master of juridical studies from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. He is professor of philosophy and church-state studies at Baylor University in Texas.

Beckwith recently won the American Academy of Religion’s 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of Constructive-Reflective Studies. The academy recognized Beckwith’s book Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith, published by Cambridge University Press in 2015.

The American Academy of Religion’s awards for excellence honor new scholarly publications that make “significant contributions to the study of religion,” particularly those of “distinctive originality, intelligence, creativity and importance.” The awards will be formally presented at the academy’s annual meeting in November.

Beckwith fielded five questions about his book, his appointment and the state of political discourse. Following is the exchange:

1. One of your book’s reviewers praised Taking Rites Seriously as clearing away “many of the misunderstandings of religion that have marred discussions of faith and public life and corrupted the constitutional law of church and state.” What is the most common misunderstanding of religion that has corrupted the constitutional law of church and state?

I think the most common misunderstanding is that the views of religious citizens, especially on contested public questions, are never the result of rational reflection. There are numerous U.S. Supreme Court opinions over the past 70 years in which some of the justices treat religiously informed views in this fashion. So instead of thinking of the separation of church and state as a wonderful institutional arrangement that allows for the flourishing of religious diversity and a robust and active religious citizenry, it is presented as if it were a proxy for the separation of faith and reason. That’s not to say, of course, that there may not be religious views that one may think are in fact unreasonable. But, as I argue in the book, there’s no one-size-fits-all way to figure that out.

Francis Beckwith, this year's Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy, teaches a course in "Philosophy and Religion" this semester. University of Colorado Photo by Patrick Campbell.

2. You were reared Catholic and later became an evangelical leader who rather famously returned to the Catholic Church, thereby generating a good deal of feedback. For those who might not understand the intensity of the reaction from some Protestants, how would you characterize the relationship between Catholicism and Protestantism today?

Although there was indeed intense reaction from some Protestants, many others reacted with a great degree of charity and kindness. But I think both reactions are entirely defensible. If someone thinks it was a horrible mistake for me to revert back to Catholicism, I would be surprised, and disappointed, if they had not reacted intensely. I have too much respect for serious Protestant believers to expect any of them to pretend as if their own beliefs are false. On the other hand, there are many Protestants who, though disagreeing with my reversion, continue to remain my good friends and academic collaborators.

As for the relationship between Catholics and Protestants, it is in general very good, especially in comparison to 40 or 50 years ago. There are, of course, religious divisions in this country, as there have always been. But, ironically, the divisions are probably more pronounced between traditional and progressive factions within specific religious communities rather than between the communities themselves. So what results is the odd phenomenon in which certain factions of American Protestants hope that a Catholic candidate for public office agrees with the Pope on social issues while certain factions of Catholics hope the candidate doesn't. This would have been unimaginable in the 1940s or 1950s.

3. You are this year’s Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy: How did your religious and academic training shape your views on or understanding conservatism?

Probably my most formative influence is the family in which I grew up. My parents were regular mass-attending Catholics who were conventional Democrats. So they had both a sense of historical continuity with tradition as well as an appreciation for the role that government could play in making society more just. My siblings and I were always encouraged by our parents to read, discuss and debate the political and social issues of the day. So this sort of openness made it seem perfectly natural for me to explore conservative ideas as I entered my mid-20s.

4. When you were appointed to this position earlier this year, you made this statement: “With a presidential election upon us, an unexpected Supreme Court vacancy changing the year’s political trajectory, and so many public questions with which to wrestle, I cannot imagine a more exciting time to be the Visiting Scholar of Conservative Thought & Policy at the University of Colorado.” Do you think the political discourse in the United States is adequately wrestling with these issues?

Whether one is a conservative, a liberal or a progressive, you can create your own cognitive cocoon. You can literally edit out of your life web sites, networks, radio shows, newspapers, etc. that may challenge your point of view and/or push you out of your comfort zone."

I don’t think so. And I think the main reason is because it has become much easier to insulate oneself from the more thoughtful versions of contrary points of view. Whether one is a conservative, a liberal or a progressive, you can create your own cognitive cocoon. You can literally edit out of your life web sites, networks, radio shows, newspapers, etc. that may challenge your point of view and/or push you out of your comfort zone. Combine this phenomenon with the fact that virtually all news is presented as if it were a form of entertainment intended to move the emotions rather than the mind, what results is a toxic brew that makes clear thinking and serious debate nearly impossible.

5. Also at the time of your appointment, you praised the university’s leadership for striving to “create an environment in which true intellectual diversity can flourish.” In the short time you’ve been on campus, have you made any observations on the state of its intellectual diversity?

My first couple of weeks on campus have been terrific. I’ve interacted with many members of the campus community in a variety of contexts, including new faculty orientation, teaching my classes, meeting with students, and leading a lunchtime seminar in the philosophy department. Obviously, my experience has been limited, but from what I have seen so far I’m pretty impressed with the campus environment. I have been especially taken by how some faculty members and graduate students have gone out of their way to offer me a warm welcome.

The Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy is housed in the Center for Western Civilization, Thought & Policy at CU Boulder. The program has upcoming events scheduled, and interested people may stay abreast of events by subscribing to the CWCTP newsletter. The program’s next events include the following: George Yancey of the University of North Texas will give a presentation titled "Conservatives in Academia: Is there bias against them?" on Sept. 21; and a panel of experts will discuss "Why are College Professors Liberal?" (a Western Civ Dialogue Series Event) on Sept. 22. Francis Beckwith's next public speaking engagement, titled "The Future of Conservatism" will be held on Oct. 17 at Colorado Christian University.

Francis Beckwith, the 2016-17 Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy, is now on campus teaching courses, arranging the appearance of guest speakers on campus. Beckwith fielded five questions about his book, his appointment and the state of political discourse.

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