I'm in Boulder - where's Ward Churchill?

So, we got to Boulder on the evening of August 3rd. Enza and I came there to meet up with our other colleagues from ISI's Jack Miller Center for the Teaching of America's Founding Principles. It's a very new program that first kicked off last year with one summer institute. The "summer institutes" are 2-week long programs where about 30 young faculty (recent Ph.D.'s and advanced graduate students) are invited to take part in sessions conducted by distinguished faculty.

Distinguished professors like James Caesar of UVA, Harvey Mansfield of Harvard, Peter Lawler of Berry College, Wilfred McClay of U Tennessee-Chattanooga, and a selection of others come and teach these young teachers how to teach America's founding principles in the classroom. They are very focused on literature such as The Federalist Papers and Tocqueville's Democracy in America. On Friday around lunch time, I gave a talk to them all called, "Inspire Your Students to Learn: An Introduction to ISI's resources."

After the talk, I had a little bit of free time, so I decided I'd find Ward Churchill's office. Found it pretty quickly, where the Ethnic Studies office is located. They had some murals on the wall, which were, well... quite disturbing. It was all about how America is trying to recover from its history of slavery, domination, and oppression. They see the history of America as a history of oppression. Ward Churchill wasn't there. I had met him a few months back, but one of his colleagues that was there during this summer month, told me she thought he was in Japan with his wife. Professor Churchill's day at Colorado might be numbered since he is in a bit of a battle for his tenure (which is has been found out was given without qualifications).

What was most striking to me is how politicized the CU Ethnic Studies department is compared to what the ISI professors are teaching. One view exposes why America is so unique and why it is a beacon of hope and freedom, while the other view takes a negative view of America and tries to show why America is oppressive. Just ask most immigrants a generation after they land on America's shores (and even some who are just now landing here). They'll tell you they've come because America is a land of opportunity. But I bet Professor Churchill would simply say, they were a "little Eichman."

Boulder, by the way, is a beautiful city. About a mile from CU is an area of shops in a promenade on "Pearl Street". You can always see the mountains right there and the shops and restaurants open up to the center of the broad walkway, where there are plenty of people performing as if I was in Las Ramblas in Barcelona. The streets and the air were clean and it certainly seemed like such a liveable place. I actually would argue it might be the best college town there is. Although it's summer time, so one never can tell what a place looks like with an extra 30,000 people around. By the end of this trip, I was tired and about ready to return to the east coast.