The Gerst Program in Politics, Economics, and Humanities

[KPT]

<p>I am very interested in Duke’s Gerst Porgram in Politics, Economics and Humanities. The website does not have too much information on it (i.e. the courses) but the general description seems to be something that I would really enjoy. That being said, I did a quick google search on the program and a few articles came up that did not sit well with me. The impression that I got from one was that the Gerst program was the “revival of capitalist ideology on college campuses” and a “counterbalance to the liberal agenda of Duke’s administration.” I, myself, am liberal, and am fine with open discourse, except I am starting to feel like it is a program specifically designed to oppose my own political ideology and replace it with conservative beliefs. It’s not that I fear learning more about conservatism- in fact I am looking forward to being able to broaden my understanding of politics- but I do not want to be put in a situation where a professor is teaching me something with the underlying hope that I will conform to his/her own ideas. If it so happens that my experiences over the next 4 years convince me to change my political alignment, then so be it. I just want it to occur naturally, not due to the ideological ambitions of another. In short, I want to be challenged, not manipulated.</p>

<p>Can anyone in the program/who knows about the program give me some more information on it? Do people actually enjoy the Gerst Program or is it something that students regret later on? And does this impression that I got from the two articles I read have any merit? </p>

<p>The article that I am primarily referring to is [Duke</a> Praised for Educational Innovations | The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy](<a href=“Duke Praised for Educational Innovations — The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal”>Duke Praised for Educational Innovations — The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal). I’ll quote the relevant portions:</p>

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The other important development Nieli discusses in his paper is the Gerst Program in Political, Economic, and Humanistic Studies. This program was the brainchild of a Duke graduate, C. Gary Gerst, who understood that, like most American universities, Duke overwhelmingly showers its students with the leftist mindset. He was disturbed by the virtual exclusion of conservative and free-market thought on university campuses and decided to do something about it at his alma mater. Gerst conceived of an academic program with one key goal – to further the student’s appreciation for the role that freedom and ordered liberty have played in our civilization.</p>

<p>Speaking at a Pope Center luncheon on Tuesday, March 13, Gerst said that he had become extremely disenchanted with American higher education, including Duke, by the early 1990s. He saw widespread faculty bias, speech codes that worked to punish dissent from orthodox opinion in academe, grade inflation, and an intellectual climate that was generally hostile to private property, free enterprise, and capitalism. Furthermore, he saw that undergraduates were often being shortchanged in the classroom as professors put most of their effort into their research activities. Therefore, he started looking for a way to improve matters at Duke.

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<p>The other article I read can be found here: [Don’t</a> Fund College Follies by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Summer 2005](<a href=“http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_3_college_follies.html]Don’t”>http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_3_college_follies.html)</p>

<p>This part is what caught my attention:</p>

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As the price of foregrounding Aristotle, Locke, Hobbes, Kant, and Adam Smith, Gillespie has to add a sprinkling of the conventional left-wing ideologues, such as Marx and Bakunin, anti-colonialist revolutionary Frantz Fanon, and Italian Marxist terrorist Antonio Negri. “I could design the perfect program, but I couldn’t get it through faculty committees,” Gillespie explains. “I told Gerst that the students will read some books that we wouldn’t pick, but at least they’ll be reading serious books.”

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<p>I want to reiterate that I am still very intrigued by the program itself, even if some of these less-appealing aspects are true. I would just like to get as much information about it before I make any decisions, and I appreciate any help anyone has to offer.</p>

[KPT]

<p>bumb10char</p>