Tag Archives: american enterprise institute

Thomas Edison State College, a results-only approach

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Tamar Lewin:

Arthur C. Brooks, a former economics professor at Syracuse who heads the American Enterprise Institute, earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Thomas Edison in 1994, at age 30, after a decade as a musician. He took correspondence courses, he said, “at the cheapest places I could find.”

Mr. Brooks believes he did the same homework, wrote the same papers and took the same tests as on-campus students at other colleges, without meeting a single professor. To get his degree, he had to prove mastery of economics in a two-hour telephone conversation with a professor at Pace University.

“It was like a field exam,” said Mr. Brooks, now 48. “He asked about Adam Smith, John Keynes, supply and demand, macro and micro — everything an economics major at any university would be expected to know.”

via Thomas Edison State College Pioneers Alternative Paths – NYTimes.com.

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Some takeaways from CCDA 2011

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(photo, right: view from the stage at CCDA 2011)

It’s been a month-plus since the 2011 Christian Community Development Association annual conference. I had a great time there, as did my wife and children. My wife taught a workshop entitled “Theology of Rest” that was well-received. I was a sidekick in Jane Vander Ploeg’s workshop in the Business as Ministry track. I also shared the main stage on opening night with Mary Nelson and focused on the need for CCDA to affirm to its members that business is an outstanding Christian calling.

A month out from the event I think back to these takeaways:

1. It was great to have a Business as Ministry track. This is the first year that CCDA hosted such a track. There has always been an Economic Development track. But the business emphasis has been spotty in the past. Here’s to more “business as ministry to end urban poverty” in the future.

2. The networking was great, as always. There are too many names to mention, but I appreciated the casual way one can run into key contacts. In this way I ran into Scott Truex, Brian Jenkins, and Al Tizon, just to name a few. If you don’t consider yourself a networker, I encourage you to go to a CCDA conference and JUST STAND IN A MAIN THOROUGHFARE. The people will come to you, or within feet of you. Trust me on this.

3. It was great to follow the conference on Twitter via the official event hashtag, #ccda2011. I couldn’t be there for the Arthur Brooks – Jim Wallis morning plenary, but got a taste of it from the tweets. It’s oh so fascinating to observe what people “hear” in any given session. Richard Twiss sure got a lot of interesting tweets, just to name one “twitterable” speaker.

Finally, I’m grateful for the CCDA team providing a child care option every year. I was able to bring my entire family including four children. The three youngest were in child care nearly every session it was offered. (The oldest, 11-year-old Samuel, roamed with us adults a few times.)

Finally, finally… I’m grateful to God that my son could watch his father speak in front of 3,000 people. He was in the audience as I spoke, and he watched me on the two giant video screens with everyone else. Later in life he will have the confidence to address large groups of people, and he probably won’t remember where he gained that confidence. In that way he is privileged. I just pray that someday he recognizes his privilege and uses it as a tool to do the things God “prepared in advance” for him to do. (Eph. 2:10)

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Jim Wallis (Sojourners) & Arthur Brooks (American Enterprise Institute) to debate at Wheaton on Oct. 28

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Hastert Center director Dr. Seth Norton says this debate “is a good chance to compare different visions of capitalism and market economies, and to discuss the role of government in those economies,” he says.

From the press release:

Jim Wallis is president and CEO of Sojourners. The editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, Wallis is a bestselling author, public theologian, speaker, and international commentator on ethics and public life. He has been named to serve on the White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. His latest book is Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street — A Moral Compass for the New Economy. His two previous books, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post–Religious Right America and God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It were both New York Times bestsellers.

Arthur Brooks, who became president of AEI in January 2009, was a professor of business and government policy at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Brooks is the author of eight books, including Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism; and Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for America—and How We Can Get More of It. His most recent book is The Battle: How the Fight between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future.

The debate will be moderated by Michael Gerson. Gerson, a fellow at the Hastert Center, is a columnist for The Washington Post and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush.

Not sure if they are recording this one, but I hope they do.

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