Same goal, two institutions: Hillsdale and ISI educate students
Joy Pavelski
Issue date: 2/14/08 Section: News
They have the same goals, and employ many of the same people to reach them, but Hillsdale College and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute apply different methods.
The college teaches Western civilization and the liberal arts by cycling their students through them in four undergraduate years, while ISI promotes the same through lectures, seminars, publications and campus representatives volunteering throughout the country.
ISI recently launched an online nexus of intellectual conservative thought, including several submissions by Hillsdale professors. The new Web site, First Principles, has begun hosting articles amassed during ISI's 55-year publishing history, and will be updated regularly with new content and several free online courses.
"Often, we get the question, 'Do you offer courses or have curriculum?' and while we don't per se, we have a lot of things that relate," said Doug Schneider, ISI director of institutional advancement. "The idea came to offer short courses to students, faculty, and just the general public to pursue at their own leisure and also provide a forum where new content can be put up daily that hopefully rises above the cacophony of today's political chatter."
Though much of its 16,000-article archives are now online, most of the short courses and many thousands more pages of journal articles wait for posting. The site opened as a "soft launch" in January, and is currently in a testing and feedback stage until the "hard launch" this spring. ISI administrators said they want First Principles to become a "go-to site," a broad resource for conservative discussion and information.
"ISI is not an activist organization - it addresses the deeper questions of culture," Associate Professor of History Richard Gamble said." Any professor or student at Hillsdale interested in those deeper questions is drawn to ISI. The connection is extensive."
Already, the site has published an article by Gamble and will soon post another by Associate Professor of History Dedra Birzer. This is not unusual, as the college and ISI have many friends between them. Gamble, Birzer, Associate Professor of History Brad Birzer, Political Science Lecturer David Bobb, Dean of Faculty Mark Kalthoff and Associate Provost David Whalen all lecture for ISI's many conferences and colloquia. Future, former and current Hillsdale students often attend.
The college teaches Western civilization and the liberal arts by cycling their students through them in four undergraduate years, while ISI promotes the same through lectures, seminars, publications and campus representatives volunteering throughout the country.
ISI recently launched an online nexus of intellectual conservative thought, including several submissions by Hillsdale professors. The new Web site, First Principles, has begun hosting articles amassed during ISI's 55-year publishing history, and will be updated regularly with new content and several free online courses.
"Often, we get the question, 'Do you offer courses or have curriculum?' and while we don't per se, we have a lot of things that relate," said Doug Schneider, ISI director of institutional advancement. "The idea came to offer short courses to students, faculty, and just the general public to pursue at their own leisure and also provide a forum where new content can be put up daily that hopefully rises above the cacophony of today's political chatter."
Though much of its 16,000-article archives are now online, most of the short courses and many thousands more pages of journal articles wait for posting. The site opened as a "soft launch" in January, and is currently in a testing and feedback stage until the "hard launch" this spring. ISI administrators said they want First Principles to become a "go-to site," a broad resource for conservative discussion and information.
"ISI is not an activist organization - it addresses the deeper questions of culture," Associate Professor of History Richard Gamble said." Any professor or student at Hillsdale interested in those deeper questions is drawn to ISI. The connection is extensive."
Already, the site has published an article by Gamble and will soon post another by Associate Professor of History Dedra Birzer. This is not unusual, as the college and ISI have many friends between them. Gamble, Birzer, Associate Professor of History Brad Birzer, Political Science Lecturer David Bobb, Dean of Faculty Mark Kalthoff and Associate Provost David Whalen all lecture for ISI's many conferences and colloquia. Future, former and current Hillsdale students often attend.
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