Institutions

  • Ireland and Quebec

    Ireland and Quebec

    Brian Dijkema

    November 24, 2011

    Clerical corruption and disastrous episcopal leadership have collided with rank political expediency and a rabidly anticlerical media to produce a perfect storm of ecclesiastical meltdown. The country whose constitution begins "In the name of the Most Holy Trinity . . ." is now thoroughly post-Christian.

    George Weigel has a fascinating article "On the Square" at First Things yesterday which surveys the the situation of the Catholic church in Ireland. In short, ...

    Read more...

  • Educating Without Families

    Educating Without Families

    Ray Pennings

    November 23, 2011

    The Star report claims Ontario is embracing "the overwhelming social, economic, and scientific evidence favouring investments in early-childhood education." Says the report,

    A report released yesterday celebrated the fact that more than half of Canadian preschoolers are in regulated child care centers or pre-school programs. Federal and prov...

    Read more...

  • How Institutions are Born (sort of)

    How Institutions are Born (sort of)

    Milton Friesen

    November 4, 2011

    But where do these odd creatures come from? I fell to pondering this while watching this TED talk about an approach to hyper-local education in India called Barefoot College. It's a well-known case, but what I'm interested in are the design elements that were involved in founding it, the conditions of its birth. Institutions represent densities of people, resources, ideas, buildings, pipes, wires, paper, and so on. The founders of Barefoot College decided to orchestrate these densities by utilizing local resources: grow the institution from the resources that are right around it. They've been running since 1972.

    Our landscape, literal and figurative, is full of institutions. Mostly, we accept their existence without a second thought. From time to time they may try and impress us (see Maclean's new Canadian university rankings) or unwittingly enrage us (try g...

    Read more...

  • Unlikely Disciples and Damned Lies

    Unlikely Disciples and Damned Lies

    Robert Joustra

    November 3, 2011

    Old news, since the book was published in 2009 and rides that parallel wave of the demolition of the religious right, and outpouring of memoirs and essays of burned activists, smoking for revenge. But Barbara Kay gets it wrong when she says there is a problem with Christ on campus—not just because it's an old news fight, but because she extends the logic of Liberty to all evangelicals, everywhere.

    The Unlikely Discipline: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University, a study of Liberty University in Virginia, has sat on my night stand for about three months, and I have made only the most half-hearted attempts to read through it. The few...

    Read more...

  • Some corrections from last week

    Some corrections from last week

    Robert Joustra

    October 21, 2011

    First, there was the smug elitist tone of the thing. It had that early morning pre-caffeinated quality of rant that is out of place in a written format. It was smug and rude, but I deny its elitism. Elitism gatekeeps; I begged for joiners, if not on the Hill at least at the polls.

    It seems a bit narcisstic to offer correction and commentary on something I've written, but a surprising number of people would probably find it cathartic to know I've given further corrective thought to ...

    Read more...