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Yes, that is one of the mandates of the college. The funny thing is that many alumni, board members, and faculty, are full of consternation to find that the college has ended up on the "Right" side of the culture wars.......The original conception was one of the "democritization of elite culture", as a common patrimony. Now that elite culture has itself come under attack, what was once viewed by many people as a radical school has become a "conservative school". When Ed Delattre, an associate of John Silber, became president in the '80's, there was much dark talk about the "Republican conspiracy to take over", and the faculty voted to replace him with George McGovern (the board voted it down). Later, when John Agresto became president of the Santa Fe campus, there was another bout of hysteria in some parts, because Agresto had been an executive of the National Endowment for the Humanities under Reagan. My wife was the Director of Alumni Relations, for a time at both campuses, and as it became better known that we were conservatives, that became an issue. Anyway, St. John's does its part, but it is in conflict about its associations...... |
