Amity Shlaes explains in the latest issue of Forbes magazine how a program honoring one of the 20th century’s great presidents should help fight the craziness on American college campuses.
THE THREAT TO FREE SPEECH disturbs observers of the recent controversies at colleges. Leisurely, civil debates scarcely take place on campus nowadays, no matter how Hogwarts-like the green. Students walk past, talk past or shout at one another. Sometimes they actually shove and push; sometimes the scramble is figurative. The trampling of the campus community is a version of the Tragedy of the Commons. After all, debates are what college greens are for.
Such challenges are one reason it’s time to honor a debater President, Calvin Coolidge, by creating a merit scholarship in his name. Like such established scholarships as the Morehead-Cain at the University of North Carolina and the Jefferson at the University of Virginia, the Coolidge will cover four years of tuition, room and board. But unlike those scholarships, the Coolidge is currently small and will award only two winners in this year’s pioneer class. Also unlike its models–the Jefferson, the Morehead-Cain and the Rhodes–the Coolidge can be used at any accredited college. …
… The Coolidge Scholarship is nonpartisan. Our jury, led by former National Endowment for the Humanities chair Bruce Cole, will pick winners who exemplify these Coolidge traits: academic merit and a strong interest in policy, as well as a humble civility. …
… How can competition for two academic scholarships affect a whole country? The first answer is that the Coolidge Scholarship will grow and multiply, as the Jefferson and the Morehead-Cain have. Also, small competitions inspire even those hundreds or thousands of applicants who don’t win. The TV show The Voice has only one winner but manages to bring out the aspiring singer in some 13 million viewers. Universities these days are struggling to restore their communities. Any effort to seed the Commons warrants support.
