Richard McCormick has stood at the helm of higher education in America, serving distinguished posts such as President of Rutgers Univ. and Provost of the Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But through all of his many accomplishments, McCormick has stood apart from the rest by developing a strong academic ethic through his own education, and the will to maintain and utilize it by securing and advancing the education of so many others.
In response to an open letter from Khan Shoieb ’11, in which Shoieb called for college presidents to reclaim their roles as “public intellectuals” and in which he invited President Tony Marx to use the Amherst Political Union (APU) as a forum to address the members of the Amherst community on a topic of his own choosing, Marx spoke at Reflections from a Lame Duck: A Conversation with Tony Marx on Education Reform on Wednesday in the Cole Assembly Room of Converse Hall.
As modern American society becomes ever more secular, it seems as though we might need to re-examine what role religion plays, and as more unorthodox groups such as the Unitarian Universalists (Unitarians) and American Jews gain prominence and official recognition, it seems that we need to re-examine even the fundamentals, like the very definition of the word. Merriam-Webster defines religion as “the service and worship of God or the supernatural.” However, neither Unitarian Universalism (UU) nor American Judaism (AJ) quite fit this mold.
