Waking up Wednesday morning this week I had to face the disappointment and the noise. The disappointment was clear enough. The turnout in Virginia and New Jersey ensured that the progressive wave some of us last year thought might wash across the country had a strong undertow, or at least...

I was awoken to the sounds of a celebrating crowd one year ago just after midnight at the end of Election Day. The President's House at Wesleyan University sits in the middle of campus, and we suddenly could hear cheering and music coming from the Student Center a hundred yards...

This month marks the one hundredth anniversary of Sigmund Freud's only visit to America. He lectured at Clark University in Worcester, M.A. on the "Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis," accompanied by Carl Jung and Sandor Ferenczi. An enthusiastic invitation from a foreign university was welcome, especially since Freud's views on...

Yesterday, David Brooks opined in the New York Times that President Obama's slide in the polls stemmed from his embrace of the left wing of his party, thus losing the support of the political center supposedly more concerned with federal budget deficits than with the plight of the uninsured. Brooks's...

Late last night the nation lost one of its great public servants. It is difficult to think of another elected official since WWII who supported programs to help the most vulnerable members of our society with the energy and intelligence consistently displayed by Senator Edward Kennedy. His vision of justice...

Reading about the town meetings currently taking place across America, it's difficult to know what the high turnouts and active participation say about the state of democracy in America. The right wing of the Republican Party has embraced community organizing, the activity mocked by their candidates in the last elections....

They want the president to fail. That's the drumbeat we've heard for months now. When Senator Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) recently said that health care would be Obama's "Waterloo," did he remember that he and his commander-in-chief were part of the same country? Did DeMint remember that with Napoleon's defeat...

This is the celebratory season for colleges and universities. President Obama has just collected an honorary degree from Notre Dame, where a small band of protesters received more media attention than the thousands who listened respectfully to his careful, nuanced speech. Michelle Obama graced a freshly installed stage at the...

In the last several days there has been a flurry of articles bemoaning the condition of American higher education. Two stand out. In the New York Times religion professor Mark C. Taylor enjoyed comparing American graduate education to the US automotive industry. Ouch. It was small relief that he...

Although winter is lingering on in New England this year, with icy puddles and sidewalks still a hazard in the second week of April, the signs of spring are increasingly apparent. The branches of the trees on campus now sport promising buds, and the daffodils popped up with glorious color...

This is the time of year when high school seniors across the country (and around the world) are opening their mail hoping for what, back in the day, was the thick envelope from one's top choice school. Many will do the opening electronically, but the feelings of hope, anxiety and...

This is the spring break at my university, and I am using part of the time to travel in Asia visiting with alumni and interviewing finalists for the Freeman Scholarship program. For more than a decade the Freeman Scholarships have brought talented and hard-working students to Wesleyan University from 11...

In President Obama's brilliant, deeply felt Inaugural Address, we find echoes of the great speeches of the past: the acknowledgment of challenge and trepidation from FDR, the call to service of JFK, the assertion of strength within a context of justice of Ronald Reagan. President Obama's rhetoric, as we expected,...

I was delighted to learn that the Huffington Post would be collecting examples of public service to help inspire more commitment across the USA. I am fortunate to be part of a university that has a long tradition of this kind of work, and I am pleased to commit personally...

Charles Murray's op-ed piece in Saturday's New York TImes has a core idea that is unobjectionable: job credentials should be based on what you can do and not where you went to school. This appeals to a core democratic value: success should be based on merit rather than identity...

Over the next few months, in homes across America, seventeen and eighteen-year-olds will be conferring with one another and with their parents about a life changing decision: What college to go to! After months of research, visits, and advice from "experts," these young men and women must now decide: Where...

The day before the election I attended our local Chamber of Commerce's annual Veterans' breakfast. One of our students who has received a new scholarship for vets was kind enough to attend with our Wesleyan University contingent. We heard an inspired speech from retired General Gordon Sullivan about the sacrifices...

In these last days before the election, many thousands of college students across the country are heading off-campus to work for candidates who they think will make a difference in their lives and in the lives of their fellow-citizens. Although universities have often been sites of great political agitation, students...

Since the final McCain-Obama debate last week, we have been flooded with comments about Senator Obama's "coolness," his "unflappability." It was obvious that Senator McCain was doing whatever he could to get a rise out of his opponent, throwing everything from terrorist associations to the specter of class warfare (socialism!)...

I've been thinking a lot about trust recently. When it is abundant everything goes more smoothly: from love to commerce, from sports to politics. When it is lacking, everything else can seem broken or meaningless.

Nowadays we hear the word "trust" used all the time in relation...