To request a copy of the VERITAS Fund for Higher Education Reform Prospectus please email at jkiely@manhattan-institute.org.

About the Center for the American University
While universities pledge to respect diversity in its many forms-ethnic, cultural, religious-they all too often stifle diversity of thought. On far too many campuses, professors and administrators promote an ideological orthodoxy that leaves little room for critical inquiry or for different points of view. Many Americans by now have read or heard the stories: controversial speakers heckled, silenced, or disinvited; student newspapers expressing provocative views stolen or destroyed; professors and administrators who dissent from orthodox viewpoints harassed or even dismissed; and students pressured into ideological conformity in the classroom.

The Manhattan Institute's Center for the American University (CAU) is dedicated to restoring the original conception of the university. We want to foster a university based on neither conservative nor liberal doctrines, but rather on the search for knowledge and truth. Discovering truth, however, is impossible without a commitment to freedom of inquiry and the broadest possible range of viewpoints-what we call intellectual pluralism.

Our goal is not to topple what CAU senior fellow and former Olin Foundation director Jim Piereson has aptly coined the "Left University" and replace it with a "Right University." Rather, we want to encourage universities to embrace a broader range of thought on the issues that are shaping our nation and the world. Many universities are devout champions of diversity when it comes to the racial and gender makeup of their student bodies-but without diversity of thought, such efforts are hollow. Through books, conferences, and panel discussions, the Center for the American University works to strengthen the role of the university in a free society.

The CAU provides a forum where scholars, philanthropists, journalists, and academic and business leaders can meet to exchange views on the future of the American university. The Center also encourages research and writing on the contemporary academy, and is forming partnerships with scholars and writers who have similar concerns.

Minding the Campus
The CAU has established a web magazine, Minding the Campus, which includes daily commentaries, original essays, and a blog. Minding the Campus draws upon the best from established magazines and publications, as well as from professional journals, blogs, and student publications. It provides transcripts and videos of CAU events; podcasts and book reviews; and "must reads"—an archive of key documents, research, books, and articles on campus issues.

Minding the Campus actively fosters a free exchange of views—one of fair and balanced discussions instead of polemical monologues. The magazine is edited by John Leo, former U.S. News and World Report columnist and current CAU senior fellow. Leo's popular column, "On Society," ran in U.S. News & World Report for 17 years, and was syndicated in 140 newspapers.

The Capitalism Project
Today's students are rarely exposed to the thoughtful literature on capitalism that has been developed over the past few centuries. Most universities are failing to teach their students about capitalism's broader institutional, political, and moral themes; its links to limited government, progress and invention; and the sources of anti-capitalist criticisms.

In short, a rounded portrait of capitalism is not present on campus partly because the subject crosses disciplines, partly because academic disciplines have become increasingly focused on quantitative modeling, and also because no one is rewarded for it. Given the recent financial crisis and economic recession, this weakness in the curriculum is even less likely to be rectified now than perhaps it might have been a few years ago—despite the fact that a deeper understanding of capitalism is more badly needed than ever. Those who would defend capitalism often find that they are not equipped to do so due to a systemic misunderstanding—or worse, a systemic ignorance—of the principles that lay behind it.

In order to address this problem, the Manhattan Institute's Center for the American University (CAU) is partnering with the Marilyn G. Fedak Capitalism Project. Our goal is to encourage students, professors, alumni, and business people to discuss both the principles surrounding capitalism and the ways they might expose students to these principles. Click here to learn more.

The Adam Smith Society
The Capitalism Project and the Center for the American University seek to initiate on-the-ground programs geared toward college and graduate level business students. While thousands of young people continue to flock to MBA programs and go on to become entrepreneurs and talented executives, it remains far from certain that many will be able to defend, let alone comprehend in a meaningful sense, the political-economic system that enables their own success.

To this end, we are launching the Adam Smith Society-- a national organization for business schools akin to what the Federalist Society has been for law schools. The Adam Smith Society is a community of business school students dedicated to exploring the links among the economy, government, and society. The Society believes that business, entrepreneurship, and commerce are wellsprings that keep this country vibrant, creative, prosperous, and free. Through debate and discussion, the Society aims to advance this idea on campus and among business leaders.

This upcoming academic year, the Adam Smith Society is sponsoring a pilot program at Harvard Business School. In the years to come, we hope to also launch chapters at other business schools across the country—forming a national organization.

To become involved, or for more information, contact Alison Smith at asmith@manhattan-institute.org

Events
CAU events bring together a diverse and influential crowd of business leaders; top-level TV, print, and radio journalists; philanthropists; and politicians. We put them in contact with each other and with the best scholars, writers, and thinkers on a wide range of important issues. Journalists from Money magazine, the Wall Street Journal, The New Criterion, and Forbes have attended CAU events. For more information on past and upcoming CAU events, please click here.

The VERITAS Fund for Higher Education Reform at DonorsTrust
In 2007, the Manhattan Institute created the VERITAS Fund for Higher Education at DonorsTrust.

The VERITAS Fund at DonorsTrust is a donor-advised fund that seeks out professors at top-tier universities who are committed to bringing intellectual pluralism to their institutions. Working with these professors, we fund "centers of academic excellence" within universities that help introduce a new generation of students to broader perspectives than are available on most campuses with regard to our three main issue areas: western civilization, the American founding, and political economy. The general objective of these programs is to give students a different view of Western Civilization and American economic and political institutions than the critical approach taken toward these subjects in most college curricula.

The objective of the Fund is, therefore, to reform to higher education by underwriting programs and courses in subjects which until now have been neglected on the campus or have been out of favor within the largely one-sided professoriate. This is a constructive strategy that allows us to work in cooperation with colleges and universities to bring something new and badly needed to their campuses. In this sense, we are not attacking higher education for its flaws but rather working with it to improve and strengthen its offerings.

Success Stories

The VERITAS Fund's lodestar is Professor Robert George's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. The Madison program, which is dedicated to studying American constitutional law and Western political thought, was founded in 2000 and is a powerful example of how relatively modest funding, employed tactically, can drive the development of new institutions on campus.

In its inaugural year, the VERITAS Fund raised and largely committed $2,500,000 to seeding centers on the campuses of Boston College, Brown University, the University of Colorado, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Emory University, Georgetown University, New York University, the University of Texas, and the University of Virginia. Of these programs, five were established programs that used VERITAS funds to help augment their existing efforts—often significantly. The remaining five were created from scratch, made possible only by the promise of three years of VERITAS Fund support. Click here for more information on VERITAS-funded programs.

Select Articles:

For more information about Capitalism Project, please contact Alison Smith at asmith@manhattan-institute.org

RECENT EVENT

Panelists: William N. Butos, Daniel Klein, Jeffrey A. Miron, Ryan Patrick Hanley, Jerry Muller, Sandra Peart

Keynote Address: Robert P. George


EVENT VIDEO
[PART I] [PART II] [PART III]

An article in the New York Times reports on the work of the Manhattan Institute's Veritas Fund for Higher Education Reform.

"Acknowledging that 20 years and millions of dollars spent loudly and bitterly attacking the liberal leanings of American campuses have failed to make much of a dent in the way undergraduates are educated, some conservatives have decided to try a new strategy. They are finding like-minded tenured professors and helping them establish academic beachheads for their ideas... Their goal is to restore what conservative and other critics see as leading casualties of the campus culture wars of the 1980s and '90s: the teaching of Western culture and a triumphal interpretation of American history..."

To read this article, click here. To learn more about the Veritas Fund, click here.

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