Barack Obama showed up at the General Motors factory in Janesville, Wisconsin during the 2008 presidential campaign and proclaimed, "I believe that, if our government is there to support you and give you the assistance you need to retool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another hundred years."
Instead the plant closed, leaving thousands of its workers and those at related businesses unemployed.
Tumult on American college and university campuses has become a routine part of the news. Watching television or reading newspapers, one might wonder whether students are learning anything in college or are merely agitating on issues they little understand.
Blame for this state of affairs is often placed upon the students, the parents who failed to raise them with virtues such as humility and temperance, and the administrators who abdicate governance. Those are all culprits in many cases. But if we want to understand root causes, then we should not overlook the many colleges and universities that are doing their job well, where learning occurs without incident. Comparing successful campuses with unsettled campuses, we see the most important influence upon the identity and activities of a college or university might be the faculty.
