At Top Ten Liberal Arts Colleges Liberal Arts is Dying, Concludes Special Report from the Independent Women's Forum WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Parents who send their children to the top 10 liberal arts colleges in the country will be surprised to learn that at most of these schools political correctness has killed liberal arts. This is the conclusion of a new report by the Independent Women's Forum (IWF) titled 'Death of the Liberal Arts?' IWF took the top ten liberal arts colleges as ranked by the influential U.S. News & World Report annual college guide, and combed through their freshman offerings in three fields: English, history, and political science. Departments that require or offer a comprehensive introductory course for freshmen were given a passing grade. An English department that did not at least give freshmen the opportunity to study the traditional English and American literary canon, a history department that neglected the evolution of Western Civilization, or a political science department that missed out on teaching the fundamentals of the American republic were, for example, given a failing grade. Failing departments were further scrutinized to see if a freshman, by cobbling together electives, could get a good liberal arts education. The results are far from encouraging for any parent hoping his child would go to college and emerge as part of "the fellowship of educated men and women." Highlighted findings from 'Death of the Liberal Arts?' -- released just prior to hearings to be held in the United States Senate on the lack of intellectual diversity on our campuses -- include: * "A Freshman English course at Williams College entitled 'Green World' deals with the environment and explores 'man's desire to transform chaos into civilization and art,' while 'humanizing, plundering, and destroying the environment.'" * "Swarthmore requires as much study of those authors who have written in the last 173 years as those from the previous 1,730 combined." * "A history course on 'Gender and Nation in Latin America' covers 'patriarchal discourses of state and feminized representations of nation, the idealization of motherhood as a national and Christian value [and] the role of military regimes in promoting masculine ideologies." "We are very pleased that Senator Judd Gregg has scheduled hearings on this important issue before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee this Wednesday, the 29th," commented IWF president Nancy M. Pfotenhauer. The IWF report, which includes its own ranking of these top ten liberal arts colleges, urges parents and prospective students who believe in a foundational education in the liberal arts to study what colleges actually offer before making a final decision. DATASOURCE: Independent Women's Forum CONTACT: Jeff Rosenberg, +1-301-972-0646, for the Independent Women's Forum Web site: http://www.iwf.org/ x

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