The best-selling author and Christian apologist Dinesh D'Souza has been selected as the new president of the King's College, a small Christian institution located in the Empire State Building.
Mr. D'Souza is the author of books like Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus and What's So Great About Christianity. He was a White House policy analyst in the Reagan administration and is a former fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. In recent years, he has become well known for high-profile debates against atheists like Christopher Hitchens.
In some ways, Mr. D'Souza is a surprising choice. He doesn't have a background in academic administration, and he is a Roman Catholic, while the King's College's has "its
roots in the Protestant evangelical tradition" according to its Web site.
But in an interview Mr. D'Souza said that would not be a problem. He attended a nondenominational church in San Diego and has called himself "a believing Catholic but a poorly practicing one." He said that the college was "very well administered," and his job would be to help tailor its mission—along with bringing in more students and more money.
"I've been kind of a think-tank scholar for most of my career," he said. "In that sense, I've been part of a faculty of scholars, but in some ways I've seen myself as a lone operator, and this is a chance to spearhead an institution with a great history."
Mr. D'Souza said he would like to see the college grow from 450 students to four or five thousand. He said he wanted to take something that is "very young and build it into something." . . .
Me: D'Souza is a fine scholar. It will be interesting to see what kind of dynamic he brings to the college. I find the choice intriguing.