Members of AU's political student groups have expressed both interest and concern over a new web site that aims to give students more ideas from the political right.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, intellectualtakeout.com hopes to increase conservative students' presence in campus debates.
The idea for the site was created by a former senior member of the Center for the American Experiment, a non-profit group based in Minneapolis that is devoted to conservative and free-market ideas.
"The member noticed that her children in college had nowhere to look for conservative ideas and perspective," said Randy Wanke, director of communication and the Center for the American Experiment.
Over the past two years, the center has helped such students to arrange campus speakers who disagree with liberal viewpoints and to find constructive ways to approach professors whom the students believe have inappropriately injected personal politics into classroom discussions, according to a www.chronicle.com article.
"Intellectual Takeout is a great site that gives the young conservative the weapons they need in order to battle liberals on America's campuses," said John Zevitas, special projects member of the AU College Republicans and a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs. "It provides articles filled with fact rather than just opinion on every hot button issue that our generation faces today."
Ashley Mushnick, president of the AU College Democrats and a junior in SPA believes that the web site contains "misinformation."
"Looking over this resource in more detail, I think the level of misinformation on it is outrageous," Mushnick said. "I think young progressive people should visit it just so they can learn how to better counter the poorly-constructed arguments being provided to students by the right."
After looking at the site, Derek Heiss, director of communications for the College Republicans, was "surprised at how interesting it was."
"I think it's really great especially because the majority of professors on this campus only present half of the political spectrum," Heiss said. "The site is a good place to get better informed."
Both Farrell and Kay Wolsborn, a professor of political science at St. Benedict's College and St. John's University near St. Cloud, Minn., said they welcomed Intellectual Takeout as another source of information for students., according to an article from the Detroit News.
What really matters in a classroom is whether students master the material, not what they believe politically, Wolsborn said.
Matt Kent, vice president of the College Democrats and a sophomore in SPA, thinks that the web site is an interesting idea.
"I'm really glad that those off-the-chain individuals at the Center of the American Experiment and their Foundations for Active Conservative Thinking have found such a dope way to bring college students the Cliff Notes of conservative talking points," Kent said.
