Declan opines:
Imagine the joy of being a university professor, and waking up one morning to find that a big powerful organization run by the Vice President's wife has issued a report practically calling you a traitor.
I'm hardly defending the group's "blacklist," but "big and powerful?" Come, now.
OK. How about "well-funded?" :) I count $1,270,000 in grants to the organization since its creation as the National Alumni Forum. The NAF sold the idea that alumni should contribute to the NAF's "Fund for Academic Renewal" instead of directly to their institutions. The NAF then gave the money to the institutions as targeted donations, removing the institution's discretion over how alumni donations were spent. They went after the $2.9 billion alumni gift market with big ads in Ivy League magazines. Later they changed their name to the more impressive sounding American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and broadened the spectrum of pressure tactics employed to shove patriotism down the throats of universities behind the smokescreen of "promoting intellectual freedom and raising academic standards." In what sense is such an undertaking neither "big" nor "powerful?" -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"