The latest Commentary magazine features Martin Morse Wooster?s argument (not yet posted online) that the MacArthur Fellows Program ? which features the ?genius awards? ? has turned into a flop.
Among other problems, the grants tend to go to establishment academics who?ve already reached the peaks of their careers:
In her 1992 New York Times survey of the MacArtur Fellows Program, Anne Matthews found that ? the typical MacArthur winner ? an older, well-credentialed white male Ivy League professor good at self-promotion and winning grants ? simply took the fellowship, added it to his savings account, and went back to work. ?Oh, 20 years ago I might have gone to Paris to write,? one MacArthur winner told Matthews,? but now I have a cat and a dog and kids in school and a wife who works. The windfall is going for college tuitions and high-return CDs. All right, maybe a patio.
The MacArthur program is one of the ?great philanthropic mistakes? Wooster describes in a recently reissued book. He discussed the topic recently for the John Locke Foundation?s Shaftesbury Society.
