Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Summer Study in South Korea

This Summer, Lindsey Richey (majoring in Political Science and History) travelled to Daegu, South Korea to participate in the Daegu Health College Student Leadership Program.  She participated in the program with students from 9 other countries, whose cultures were largely foreign to her. "It was an opportunity I am so glad to have had," she says. "From visiting sites that have large significance to Korean culture, to meeting others, to lectures, to watching a city largely unknown to the world prepare itself for the coming world championships which will determine the qualifiers for the Olympics, this trip is something I will never forget, and has changed me for the better."  



Spotlight on Alumni: Rebeccah Heinrichs

After graduating from AU in 2004 (Political Science), Rebeccah Heinrichs has pursued her passion for defense policy.  She began as Military Legislative Assistant for House Armed Services Committee Member, Trent Franks (AZ-02), and also managed the House of Representatives Missile Defense Caucus.  More recently, she graduated with Highest Distinction from the College of Naval Command and Staff at the U.S. Naval War College where she received the Director’s Award for academic excellence, and is nearing the end of a Masters program in national security strategic studies at the Naval War College.  Rebeccah is now an adjunct scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.  She writes op-ed columns and appears on television news shows.  Her latest column, explaining why "Defense spending isn’t the place to skimp", can be read here at the Daily Caller.  You can also see her being interviewed on Fox News about defense spending, as well as about developments in Syria.  For more of her work see her page on the FDD website.


Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Excerpts from "The Mindset List"

Welcome back to Ashland University! Here's wishing everyone a happy and productive semester.

Every year Beloit College publishes "The Mindset List," a list of the "cultural touchstones" that have shaped the development of that year's entering freshman class. Here are a few taken from that list.

For those entering college this year (i.e., the Class of 2015):

Ferris Bueller and Sloane Peterson could be their parents.
Their school's "blackboards" have always been getting smarter.
Amazon has never been just a river in South America.
Refer to LBJ, and they might assume you're talking about LeBron James.
O.J. Simpson has always been looking for the killers of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
There has never been an official Communist party in Russia.
Jimmy Carter has always been a smiling elderly man who shows up on TV to promote fair elections and disaster relief.
Music has always been available via free downloads.
Sears has never sold anything out of a Big Book that could also serve as a doorstop.
Russian courts have always had juries.
No state has ever failed to observe Martin Luther King Day.
They've broken up with their significant others via texting, Facebook, or MySpace.
Major League Baseball has never had fewer than three divisions....
Folks in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have always been able to energize with Pepsi Cola.
Andy Warhol is a museum in Pittsburgh.

Monday, August 22, 2011

FORUM: An Undergraduate Book Review - Churchill's Bunker by Richard Holmes. Reviewed by Rebekah Sherman.

Churchill's Bunker: The Cabinet War Rooms and the Culture of Secrecy in Wartime London. By Richard Holmes, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.


Reviewed by Rebekah Sherman
Ashland University
rsherma2@ashland.edu

The Second World War is one of the most documented and researched periods in all of human history. Every facet of the conflict, from the technological marvels developed during the war to the titanic figures of the heads of state, has sparked interest from some quarter. In Churchill’s Bunker: The Cabinet War Rooms and the Culture of Secrecy in Wartime London, Richard Holmes focuses upon the origins and efforts of the British wartime government operating within the New Public Offices at Whitehall. Drawing upon the impressive record left behind by many of the residents of this London building, the author examines how Winston Churchill’s unique premiership was shaped by the necessities of ingenuity and secrecy imposed upon it by the war.

FORUM: An Undergraduate Book Review - The Matter of the Gods, by Clifford Ando. Reviewed by Nicholas Granitz

Ando, Clifford. The Matter of the Gods. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2008. 978-0-520-25986-7

Reviewed by Nicholas Granitz
Ashland University
ngranitz@ashland.edu


Roman religious philosophy has been the object of classical and contemporary scrutiny since its very founding. How did the Romans discover these gods? How can we tell the origin of Roman history if the history starts before Rome itself? These questions are examined from the philosophical point of view in Dr. Clifford Ando’s recent book, The Matter of the Gods. Dr. Ando examines the philosophical underpinnings of the Roman religion through the eyes of both philosophy and historiography. He asks about the basis of the extremely versatile Roman religion, a system that claims Cicero, Varro, Augustus, Julius Caesar, and Romulus as adherents despite their many differences. Dr. Ando’s book seeks to evaluate how the Romans saw themselves in reference to the divine, how they view the divine as such, and how their complex views originated.