God on the Quad

Religious colleges and universities in the United States are growing at a breakneck pace. By the tens and hundreds of thousands, some of America's brightest and most dedicated teenagers are choosing a different kind of college education, one that promises all the rigor of traditional liberal arts schools but also includes religious instruction from the Good Book and a mandate from above. In this eye-opening report, Naomi Schaefer Riley investigates these schools, interviewing administrators, professors, and students to produce the first comprehensive account of this important trend. With a critical but sympathetic eye, she takes the reader inside the halls of more than a dozen schools that are training grounds for the new missionary generation-Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Mormon, and even Buddhist. What distinguishes these colleges from their secular counterparts? What do its students think about political activism, feminism, academic freedom, dating, race relations, homosexuality, and religious tolerance? The surprising answers in God on the Quad are a key to understanding the forces at work in post-9/11 America.