The Duck of Minerva

So long for now, New England

by Rodger Payne

15 June 2010, 0210 EDT

I didn’t meet many faculty on my recent tour of New England liberal arts colleges (and a few Ivies), but one scholar I dined with provided this great line about foreign language study:

“Optimists study English; pessimists study Arabic; realists study Mandarin.”

After nearly 1400 miles of driving and visits to more than a dozen schools, my daughter and I enjoyed a personal tour of the Naval War College. Then, we walked around Newport and savored the end of the journey and beautiful vistas.

Incidentally, this was a real highlight of the trip. Someone needs to export it to Louisville.

If anyone here wants to weigh in on the college choice discussion, please feel free to do so in comments. We’ll be mulling over the decision for some time yet.

Rodger A. Payne is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville. He serves on the University’s Sustainability Council and was a co-founder of the Peace, Conflict, and Social Justice program. He is the author of dozens of journal articles and book chapters and coauthor, with Nayef Samhat, of Democratizing Global Politics: Discourse Norms, International Regimes, and Political Community (SUNY, 2004). He is currently working on two major projects, one exploring the role of narratives in international politics and the other examining the implications of America First foreign policy.

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