Last week, the American Council for Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) released a report titled "Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action."
The report details the group's findings since the American Council on Education and a consortium of 30 higher education groups released a statement acknowledging the importance of "intellectual pluralism and academic freedom."
ACTA finds that the top 25 colleges and universities (according to U.S. News) have not done much to improve intellectual diversity and offers 12 concrete suggestions on what can be done. I commend ACTA for their work, because this issue is not going away. We need more people to step forward and offer specific proposals for specific campuses.
I did this at Ithaca College in New York while I was a student. Our conservative group researched the imbalances found throughout the college in funding, coursework, mission and vision statements, 9/11 response, guest speakers, professor voting registration, and other areas. We then offered specific proposals on what could be done that match several of the ACTA recommendations. The college has already implemented conservative coursework and is looking to host more conservative lectures.
If the intellectual diversity movement is to succeed, which I think it will, we need to continue offering concrete solutions. Making people aware of the problem through writing and criticism is only the first phase of improvement.
