Atlas launched its academic initiative, Teach Freedom Initiative, with a conference, “Promoting the Free Society Through University-based Centers: National and International Perspectives,” on March 31st, 2006, at the Sheraton Society Hill Hotel in Philadelphia to showcase how academic centers have been trying to maximize their impact in promoting the principles of the free society. The conference aimed at bringing together academics who are either interested in starting academic centers or are already running one in order to discuss the challenges and administrative problems involved in setting up such centers. It attracted some 60 professors and think tankers.
DETAILED REPORT
The very first conference focusing on issues related to academic centers, this conference ran from 12:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m., starting with lunch, keynoted by Dr. Charles Harper of the Templeton Foundation, and then followed by two panels. The first panel, “Models of University and College Centers,” addressed models of successful academic centers and what start-ups could learn from them. The second panel, “Dealing with University Authorities: Positive and Negative Experiences,” looked into the dynamics shaping the relationship between academic centers and university authorities.
In his keynote presentation, Dr. Harper highlighted the need for academic reforms in many areas, from buying turf (in the tradition of the James Madison Program at Princeton) to generating ideas and creating new fields and innovations; from impacting the flow of donor monies and student choices to impacting top-down governance; from addressing legal constraints to resorting to media embarrassment tactics. Harper noted, however, that what’s lacking in all this is strategic thinking on how to achieve these reforms. And if the philanthropy circuit would donate to this effort, then challenges facing academic centers could be addressed better.
The speakers gave good and insightful presentations; their topics were all instructive, ranging from how to create change in a hostile environment (that is, how to deal with administrative roadblocks and other legal restrictions when setting up academic centers) to fundraising. Most of them tried to offer a tip or two on how to strategize and succeed. The challenges that academic start-ups usually encounter include the following: 1) limited resources; 2) internal opposition from fellow faculty ; 3) ideological differences with the university; 4) administrative and other legal restrictions that impose time constraint on the process of getting approval for the establishment of a center; 5) limited curricular offerings, among others.
Among strategies suggested by speakers on how to go around these problems, the speakers touched on the following: 1) increasing organization’s profile through publications and media interviews; 2) making available to students’ a wide range of curricular offerings, a free-market solution to counter leftist-inspired curricular agenda; 3) finding ways to influence university boards either by working on putting a board member that will be friendly to the center (for instance, the executive director of Ashbrook Center sits on the university board of Ashland University); 4) if efforts of setting up centers are opposed by university administration officials, using donor donations and other donor resources as leverage; and 5) recognizing the importance of working within existing structures such as the university’s development office and its development programs.
Speakers included John Tomasi (Brown University), Manuel Ayau and Giancarlo Irbaguen (Universidad Francisco Marroquin (Guatemala), Oscar Cristi Marfil (Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile) — , Paul Kengor (Center for Vision & Values, Grove City College), John Goodman (National Center for Policy Analysis), Frederic Fransen (Philanthropy Roundtable), Luis Tellez (Witherspoon Institute), and Colleen Sheehan (Matthew Ryan Project, Villanova University).
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