College campuses should be a place where the free exchange of ideas is encouraged and celebrated. During their college experience, students deserve to be presented with a diversity of ideas. A balanced education-one that teaches the student how to think, not what to think-requires it.
Unfortunately, in far too many college classrooms, professors present students only a very narrow spectrum of liberal ideas. One recent study found that a startling 72 percent of professors identify themselves as being liberal, while only 15 percent identify themselves as being conservative. In a survey of students at 50 top U.S. colleges and universities, 48 percent said "presentations on political issues seem totally one-sided." Taken together, the surveys show that the "totally one-sided" presentations are primarily liberal.
It is clear that a lack of intellectual diversity on our college campuses is an ongoing problem, but the majority of students lack the tools needed to confront this imbalance or are just afraid to stand up and challenge the people who hand out their grades.
That's why IntellectualTakeout.com, a project of Center of the American
Experiment's FACT: Foundations for Active Conservative Thinking program, is designed to help students respond to the ideological imbalance on their campuses.
This groundbreaking website provides students with quick access to a menu of ideas on a number of topics including Cultural Studies, Economics, Education, Environmental Studies, Foundations of Liberty, History, and Political Science. The website also connects students with other like-minded students and alumni, and can even assist them in job searches.
IntellectualTakeout.com is not about trying to indoctrinate students to the conservative point of view. It is about exposing students to thoughts and ideas that are not readily available in college classrooms and about spurring honest and open debate on campus.
Website Features
Idea Menu: To help students access important ideas in their field of study, the Idea Menu collects articles from both the popular media and scholarly journals in seven subject areas, including Cultural Studies, Economics, Education, Environmental Studies, Foundations of Liberty, History, and Political Science. We will eventually expand the into other subject area and continuously be updating the website with new information.
Career Services: A good college job or internship can teach students powerful lessons they can't learn in a classroom and so we include a Career Services section to help link students to job opportunities with conservative organizations across the country.
Campus Network: The Campus Network helps students find out what is happening on their campus and other campuses. We collect the latest campus news and events and provide links to conservative campus organizations and newspapers.
Ask the Professor: Our Ask the Professor feature on the website allows students to submit questions directly to policy experts on a wide variety of issues and topics.
Ideas to Go: The Ideas to Go section of the website provides quick one-page issue summaries that students can take to class or use as a quick reference for other school work.
What the media is saying about IntellectualTakeout.com
“Worried that conservative points of view are not being adequately presented in college classrooms, officials at a Minnesota think tank unveiled a Web site on Tuesday that aims to expose students to more ideas from the political right and to bolster their presence in campus debates.
“The Center of the American Experiment, a nonprofit Minneapolis-based group devoted to conservative and free-market ideas, started the site, Intellectual Takeout, as part of a broader campaign to help conservative college students in Minnesota.”
Chronicle of Higher Education, September 14, 2005
“Intellectual Takeout is a tremendous resource for students desiring to hear the other side of the party line usually promulgated in high school and college classrooms on subjects related to politics, from economics to the environment to the family and beyond.”
Power Line Blog, September 16
“Nolan Soltvedt, a University of Minnesota senior, welcomed the site's debut. While he said he hasn't seen overt bias in most of his classes, he's been uncomfortable with some professorial asides and political discussions that were unrelated to class subjects. He said conservative students can feel intimidated. ‘For me, this will be an excellent resource,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it's tough to get both sides.’"
Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 14, 2005
“The site aims to bolster conservative points of view in campus debates, and includes point-by-point comparisons and links to articles on topics ranging from global warming to affirmative action. Annette Meeks, the center's chief executive officer, said the student-oriented Internet portal is the organization's biggest project in its 15-year history.”
The Associated Press, September 13, 2005
“The Center of the American Experiment has launched a new website designed to counter what it views as liberal bias on college campuses. The conservative Minnesota think tank says a recent study found that nearly three-quarters of teachers at American colleges and universities identified themselves as liberal. The group's CEO, Annette Meeks, says the website, called ‘Intellectual Takeout,’ aims to promote open and free discussion on college campuses.”
Minnesota Public Radio, September 13, 2005
"When classes resume at Minnesota colleges in September, the Center of the American Experiment, Minnesota's newly recharged 15-year-old conservative think tank, will roll out an ambitious project called Foundations for Active Conservative Thinking (FACT), an assault against the perceived leftist domination inside the ivy walls. The primary weapon will be a website called Intellectual Takeout, an arsenal of policy arguments designed to help conservative students challenge the alleged liberal orthodoxy in academia on issues ranging from global warming to globalization to the global war on terror."
Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 10, 2005
Contact FACT and Center of the American Experiment
Please note the posting of an article on IntellectualTakeout.com does not constitute American Experiment’s endorsement of the ideas contained within that article. The purpose of the website is to simply expose students to views not readily available in the classroom, thus allowing them the opportunity to be more adequately informed as they decide which ideas to support or reject.
