<p>The c/l distinction is so slippery it is hard to get much traction on it without carefully defining what you mean first. To me, it’s an odd set of criteria that would lump Chicago and Brigham Young together at one end of the spectrum, then identify Middlebury College as a strong example of the opposite end (as cited by #11). </p>
<p>You can count the peeling Obama stickers in the parking lots to get one answer. Or count the distribution of nose rings and popped collars in the student population. These indicators may signal the presence of your political or cultural tribe on a campus, but are not very helpful in distinguishing fundamental differences in educational approach. They signal differences of *attitude<a href=“or%20taste”>/i</a>, which are coincidental to different approaches to the university mission of spreading knowledge.</p>
<p>To make the distinction in a different way, try asking, What defines what students need to learn in school? The interests of the individual learner? Professional licensing requirements? Some collection of important ideas (or books) that have “stood the test of time”? Scripture? </p>
<p>If you frame the distinction around this question, I’d put Brown and most other Open Curriculum schools on the moderate left, Columbia and Chicago somewhere in the middle (or center-right), and St. John’s College on the right. These are not political labels because none of these schools have an essentially political mission. Schools on the more radical left or radical right would differ from this mainstream by defining objectives in the sphere of action, subordinating pedagogy to political or social goals. There seem to be far more colleges on the radical right than on the radical left; it appears the radical left has been more easily absorbed into the knowledge exploration process at mainstream schools. Conservatives misinterpret this to mean that American colleges tend to have a left-wing agenda, when in fact they have at most a left-leaning orientation in particular classes. These schools generally remain about as mission-focused as they ever were on professional training or knowledge discovery (as the case may be), with a nod here and there to civic obligations.</p>