Stephen Balch
Stephen H. Balch is an American conservative scholar. He was the founding president of the National Association of Scholars from 1987 to 2009.[1][2][3]
Biography
Early life
Stephen Balch was born in New York City and grew up in Brooklyn.[2] He received a bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College. He received masters and Ph.D.s, the latter in political science, from the University of California, Berkeley, where his dissertation supervisor was Nelson W. Polsby.[1][2][4] It was during the Berkeley riots that he became a conservative.[4] He now identifies as a Republican.[5]
Career
He taught at John Jay College, City University of New York for fourteen years.[1][2][4]
Think tanks
He joined Midge Decter's Committee for the Free World and, by 1982, he founded the Campus Coalition for Democracy.[4] In 1987, he left his academic position and founded the National Association of Scholars, a conservative think tank against political correctness in higher education.[2] He also started the journal Academic Questions.[4] In 1992, he founded the American Academy for Liberal Education, an alternative accreditation body focused on the liberal arts.[4]
He is a founding member and a trustee of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.[3] He has been involved in founding the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, and the Association for the Study of Free Institutions.[1] He was also for a time a Trustee of the Philadelphia Society.[6] He is also a member of the History Association.[3]
In the fall of 2012, he founded the Institute for the Study of Western Civilization at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.[7][8] He is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government Foundation.[9]
Public service
He served as chairman of the New Jersey State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights from 1985 to 1990, and was a member of the Committee from 1990 to 2005.[2] He was also a member of the National Advisory Board of the United States Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education from 2001 to 2004.[2]
He is the recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medals.[1][10] His award cited him "for leadership and advocacy upholding the noblest traditions in higher education" and went on to say that "His work on behalf of reasoned scholarship in a free society has made him a leading champion of excellence and reform at our nation's universities."[11] In 2009 he received the Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award from the American Conservative Union Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.[1]
Publications
He has written for PJ Media, The National Review, Commentary, The Wall Street Journal, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, etc.[3][12][13]
Bibliography
Book chapters
- 'The Route to Academic Pluralism', in The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope and Reforms, AEI Press, 2010, pp. 227–40.
Journal articles
- Balch, Stephen H. (March 2005). "Presentation: A Canticle for Rothman". Academic Questions. 18 (2): 69–70. doi:10.1007/s12129-005-1007-z. Remarks on the occasion of the award by the National Association of Scholars of the Sidney Hook Memorial Award to Stanley Rothman, 22 May 2004.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 The National Association of Scholars: People
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 National Endownment for the Humanities bio of Balch
- 1 2 3 4 The Society for Academic Freedom and Society biography
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Peter Wood, A Tribute to Stephen H. Balch, NAS Article, Jan 12, 2009
- ↑ John Tierney, Republicans Outnumbered in Academia, Studies Find, The New York Times, November 18, 2004
- ↑ The Philadelphia Society Board of Trustees
- ↑ Peter Monaghan, Advocate of Western Civilization Finds a Home for His Ideas at Texas Tech's Honors College, The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 12, 2012
- ↑ NAS Founder Stephen H. Balch Takes New Role in Western Civilization Institute, NAS, Oct 11, 2012
- ↑ The Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government Foundation Board
- ↑ Jason M. Breslow, 6 Academics Receive National Honors in Arts and Humanities, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 16, 2007
- ↑ "Humanities Medals Awarded by President Bush. Recipients honored for outstanding cultural contributions" NEH News Archive
- ↑ PJ Media webpage
- ↑ The National Review