Here at the Pope Center, we keep track of public lectures and panel discussions at North Carolina colleges and universities, primarily by monitoring the lectures posted on university websites. In this article, I review the highlights of the past semester (from January through May 2011).
On the positive side, we found significant interest in private-sector innovation, especially entrepreneurship, and also lectures on legitimate social ills. On the not-so-positive side, we found many events centered on trendy themes of dubious academic or societal merit. These included government-funded “innovation,” everything “green,” the oppression of ostensibly victimized groups, globalization, sex, and whichever way lecturers could think to mix and match them (see, for example, “The Sexual Politics of Meat,” a lecture given at Davidson College).
If the talk is left-wing enough, and if the speaker cares, students will be swaying back and forty like a python. Note: in case you didn't get it the first time, none of those "dubious" topics is considered "conservative".
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