The Colorado Springs Gazette final

Benson Center pushes for diversity of thought

steve Bosley served two six-year terms on the Cu Board of regents (two years as chair). he is also founder of the Bolderboulder.

The Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado Boulder quietly named next year’s visiting scholar and its first sabbatical scholar recently. The news should matter to anyone who cares about fostering diversity of viewpoint in higher education.

I have been closely aligned with the Benson Center as a two-term member of the CU Board of Regents, a volunteer at the center and also as an engaged citizen who regularly attends its events. I was involved in the initial discussions and planning for the center during my time as regent.

Most important, I have a deep belief that higher education plays a crucial role in our society to promote critical thinking. And the Benson Center lives up to that ideal.

The mid-march appointment of historian Alan Kahan as visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy (VSCTP) and philosopher David Mcpherson as the inaugural sabbatical scholar continues a tradition of bringing to Boulder accomplished academics who can provide some much-needed balance to campus academics.

It’s a welcome change from just a few short months ago, when some were calling for the Benson Center to be curtailed because of controversy surrounding VSCTP John Eastman.

A newspaper columnist even called for shutting the center down. The hubbub that swirled around him has the unfortunate effect of obscuring the great work the center has done over the past decade and the important role it plays on the campus and in the community.

The Benson Center is a place for open inquiry and debate, a forum for testing ideas in the crucible of intellectual inquiry, a center where free speech is embraced and advanced. It’s where robust but respectful debate between speakers on opposite sides of an issue; Nigel Farage and Vicente Fox debated Brexit, for example.

The vibrant things happening at the Benson Center seem to be in short supply in our society these days, which is why unfounded criticism of the center over the Eastman issue and calls to shut it down are disappointing, but hardly surprising. We need more dialogue, not less.

To paint the program with a broad Eastman brush is wrong. It ignores its many successes over nearly a decade of existence and the value it brings to a campus that benefits from intellectual diversity. If students get only one view of the world, which is common on college campuses, we do them a disservice.

The center’s namesake, former CU President Bruce Benson, carefully nurtured the center to become an important part of the CU Boulder campus conversation. He always said he wanted CU students to know how to think, not what to think.

It’s no secret that higher education in general and CU Boulder in particular lean left. CU has taken admirable steps to ensure that free speech and viewpoint diversity are part of its guiding principles and policies. But if universities are to live up to their promise as places where disparate ideas are debated, discussed and advanced, different voices and perspectives are essential.

The Benson Center is a place where that is happening.

Its eight previous visiting scholars have been accomplished academics from some of the nation’s leading universities, men and women intent on expanding the conversation at CU Boulder, as well as in Colorado and beyond.

Judge the Benson Center on its track record of thoughtfully, carefully and successfully ensuring that critical thinking lives up to its promise at a great university. And be grateful that high-quality academics such as Kahan and Mcpherson will continue to carry such an important torch.

OP/ED

en-us

2021-05-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-05-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.gazette.com/article/281904481061663

The Gazette, Colorado Springs