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This editorial continues our look at some of the forces that are acting on the university, both internally and externally. In this issue we look at the impact of lifelong learning. Universities use great expenses to recruit students, but are not retaining them as part of the community once they have graduated. The loss of alumni from the community is a great disadvantage to the institution and actively discourages collaborative learning.

With its preference for small government and fiscal responsibility, the Tea Party movement claims to be conservative. Yet, their tactics and rhetoric belie this claim. The shrill attacks against Blacks, illegal immigrants, and gay rights are all consistent with conservatism, but suggesting that the president is a socialist bent on ruining the country, is beyond politics. This chapter shows that Richard Hofstadter's thesis about the “paranoid style” of American politics helps characterize the Tea Party's pseudo-conservatism. Through a comprehensive analysis of qualitative interviews, content analysis and public opinion data, we find that Tea Party sympathizers are not mainstream conservatives, but rather, they hold a strong sense of out-group anxiety and a concern over the social and demographic changes in America.

This paper reports the results of a 1992 City of Tacoma, Washington study of police values which was designed to test similar research conducted by Milton Rokeach in 1971. Our data support the hypothesis that individual value systems are more important than occupational socialization in understanding police selection and behavior. Value patterns not only were consistent over time, but also reflected a pattern of conservative beliefs. This work suggests that any attempt to reform or improve police community relations must begin with the restructuring of recruiting practices and the re‐socialization of police practitioners.

States that four trends promise to dramatically change the university of the next century: globalization, virtualization, multiculturalism, and politicization, driven by economy and efficiency, technology, values and rights, and power and politics. The article explores the impact of these trends on the future of the university, presents possibilities for structural change, and offers probable scenarios for the future. The conclusions suggest that the Web and globalism may end the monopoly of the traditional university and paradoxically place the transformed university simultaneously at the center of society.

A discussion on the need for integration of distance learning into regular courses to ensure quality of education for all. Face‐to‐face students and distance learners should exist in the same communication environment, and faculty who introduce new technology in this way should be rewarded.

In the 1960s those on the political left flattered themselves that the vast number of publications by socialists, anarchists, feminists, and other groups on that wing of the political spectrum were evidence of the rich intellectual life of the struggle to create a progressive America. Conversely, the lack of publishing by the right was evidence of a general lack of intelligence. But that was then, and this is most certainly now. The right in America has moved from margin to center over the last two decades, vindicating former Attorney General John Mitchell's boast that “the country is going so far to the right that you won't recognize it.”

Scholars increasingly recognize the centrality of legal ideas and language to the political vision that inspires American conservatism. However, relevant studies have been limited to the discursive practices that motivate conservative activism at the grass-root level. Exploration of the legal discourses employed by prominent public officials thus carries significant scholarly potential. For example, this chapter's investigation of President Ronald Reagan reveals that his political vision was suffused with legal discourse. Reagan's legal discourse, moreover, has exerted constitutive effects both on American conservatism and on the form and substance of a great deal of contemporary American public policy.

In Democracy in Chains, Nancy MacLean draws attention to the influence that James M. Buchanan’s work has had on the political economic discourse of the past half century. Buchanan and his collaborators in the Virginia Political Economy tradition have provided intellectual firepower for efforts to delegitimize democratically sanctioned policies aimed at alleviating the dysfunctional consequences of market activity. While MacLean’s account contains some well-documented inaccuracies, her characterization of Buchanan’s agenda is broadly accurate. This chapter assesses Buchanan’s economics in light of the themes raised by MacLean. His work, we shall argue, is a modern manifestation of what Marx termed “vulgar economy,” that is, ruling-class ideology posing as science.

“The issue we confront today is not primarily one concerning a special day for an individual. The issue is in reality whether our nation can summon the will and vision to recognize a great and historic period in its history by designating the birthdate of one who made major contributions to the period a national public holiday.”