by Randall Balmer | Apr 26, 2023 | Feature|Opinion
The question, I confess, caught me off-balance. I was in California recently to give the Castelfranco Lecture at the University of California, Davis. During lunch before the event with a small group of colleagues, I fell into conversation with a graduate student who...
by Randall Balmer | Mar 20, 2023 | Feature|Opinion
I used to tell my graduate students that doing archival research is just about the most fun you can have with your clothes on. I gave up graduate students when I moved from Columbia to Dartmouth more than a decade ago, and it’s a good thing because if I said something...
by Randall Balmer | Feb 21, 2023 | Feature|Opinion
The email arrived on a Friday afternoon, a bolt out of the blue from Trinity International University. Any notice from a university president entitled “Reimagining the Future” can’t be good news. Sure enough, after the treacly God talk – “educating men and women to...
by Randall Balmer | Feb 9, 2023 | Opinion
America enters its high holy days this week: the run-up to Super Bowl Sunday. When thousands of spectators and millions of viewers witness the Super Bowl kickoff on Sunday, they will be participating in a ritual that has become every bit as entrenched in American life...
by Randall Balmer | Dec 14, 2022 | Opinion
A colleague once remarked, “I teach for free. They pay me to grade.” I suspect anyone engaged in pedagogy understands that sentiment, especially those of us who teach in the humanities. In the STEM disciplines, at least it appears to me from afar, you’re more likely...
