Tocqueville Forum Mentioned Prominently in Recent Calls for Civic Renewal in Higher Education
The Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy continues to garner attention for its efforts to ensure that Georgetown students are given the opportunity to explore the principles of the American republic and its roots in the Western philosophical and religious traditions. Recently Peter Woods, Executive Director of the National Association of Scholars, delivered a lecture in which he mentioned "beachheads" of reform in several elite institutions of higher education, including the Tocqueville Forum. According to Woods, these "beachheads of Western Civilization" are "planted on the shores of the alien empires that universities have become. Each is centered on an individual faculty member who has the grit and imagination to buck the system. Patrick Deneen’s Tocqueville Center at Georgetown University; Robert Koonz’s Center for Western Civilization at the University of Texas; Dan Lowenstein’s Center for Liberal Arts and Free Institutions at UCLA; University; and John Tomasi’s Political Theory Project at Brown University are some of the successful ventures of this type."
In a similar vein, Thomas K. Lindsay, who is deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, identified an initiative at Georgetown University - meaning the Tocqueville Forum - as an exemplary program seeking to foster deeper understanding of American principles and citzenship. He lauded " a ferment already under way to establish new college programs providing civic education. Here I refer to the recent growth of faculty initiatives to establish disciplinary and multi-disciplinary programs of civic education ... which sponsor courses on the American Founding, statesmanship, and political philosophy; organize conferences on the foundations of constitutional government; and host a regular forum for undergraduates to discuss the philosophy, history, and institutional structures of democracy. [Such] programs and measures, tailored to institutional missions and faculty strengths, recently have sprung up at Georgetown University ... among others."
The Tocqueville Forum is gratified by the recognition in these calls for renewal of higher education's commitment to an education in the principles of the American republic and its roots in the Western tradition. The Tocqueville Forum will continue to promote a variety of activities to this end in the coming 2008-09 academic year, and is gratified with the success and recognition it has achieved in only two years of existence.
"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."