The Washington Monthly
Encyclopedia
The Washington Monthly is a bimonthly nonprofit magazine
of United States
politics
and government
that is based in Washington, D.C.
The magazine's founder is Charles Peters
, who started the magazine in 1969 and continues to write the "Tilting at Windmills" column in each issue. Paul Glastris
, former speechwriter for Bill Clinton
, has been the Monthly's editor-in-chief since 2001. In 2008, the magazine switched from a monthly to a bimontly publication schedule, citing high publication costs.
Diane Straus Tucker is the magazine's current publisher. Past staff editors of the magazine include Taylor Branch
, James Fallows
, Suzannah Lessard
, David Ignatius
, Nicholas Lemann
, Gregg Easterbrook
, Joe Nocera, Mickey Kaus
, Timothy Noah
, Jonathan Alter
, Steven Waldman
, Joshua Green
, and Jon Meacham
.
The politics of the Monthly are left of center
, though somewhat moderate
ly so. Founder Charles Peters refers to himself as a New Deal
Democrat and advocates the effective use of government to address social problems. His columns also frequently emphasize the importance of a vigilant "fourth estate
" in keeping government honest.
The Monthly is one of a growing number of magazines to feature a continuing blog; the popular "Political Animal" was written principally by Kevin Drum
for several years, with frequent guest contributions by the Monthly's current and alumni editors. In 2008, Steve Benen
took over as lead blogger.
In addition to "Political Animal," the magazine's website also hosts "Ten Miles Square," a general blog featuring posts from staff and political scientists, which debuted in 2011, and "College Guide," a blog about higher education, which the magazine began offering in 2009.
(an alternative college guide to the U.S. News and World Report) began as a research report in 2005. It was introduced as an official set of rankings in the September 2006 issue. The rankings are based upon the following criteria:
The Washington Monthly College Rankings focuses on key research outputs, the quality level and total dollar amount of scientific grants awarded, the number of graduates going on to earn Ph.D.s and the number of graduates that later participate in public service.
The top ranked National University for 2009 was the University of California, Berkeley
and the top ranked Liberal Arts College for 2007 was Amherst College
.
The top ranked Liberal Arts College in the 2010 rankings is Morehouse College
followed by Bryn Mawr College
, Swarthmore College
, Berea College
and Amherst College
. The University of California, San Diego
ranked number one among National Universities with the University of California, Berkeley
, UCLA, Stanford University
and the University of Texas at Austin
rounding out the top five in the 2010 rankings.
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
of United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
and government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
that is based in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
The magazine's founder is Charles Peters
Charles Peters
Charles Peters is an American journalist, editor, and author.Founder and former editor-in-chief of The Washington Monthly magazine, he is currently the president of Understanding Government. Peters was born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1926. He attended local public schools, graduating from...
, who started the magazine in 1969 and continues to write the "Tilting at Windmills" column in each issue. Paul Glastris
Paul Glastris
Paul Glastris is an American journalist and political columnist. Glastris is the current editor in chief of The Washington Monthly and was President Bill Clinton's chief speechwriter from September 1998 to the end of his presidency in early 2001. Before 1998, Glastris was a correspondent for U.S....
, former speechwriter for Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, has been the Monthly's editor-in-chief since 2001. In 2008, the magazine switched from a monthly to a bimontly publication schedule, citing high publication costs.
Diane Straus Tucker is the magazine's current publisher. Past staff editors of the magazine include Taylor Branch
Taylor Branch
Taylor Branch is an American author and historian best known for his award-winning trilogy of books chronicling the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and some of the history of the American civil rights movement...
, James Fallows
James Fallows
James Fallows is an American print and radio journalist. He has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly for many years. His work has also appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and The American Prospect, among others. He is a...
, Suzannah Lessard
Suzannah Lessard
Suzannah Lessard is an American writer of literary non-fiction. She has written memoir, reportorial pieces, essays and opinion.-Life:She has taught at Columbia School of the Arts, Wesleyan University, The New School, George Mason University, George Washington University, and Goucher College MFA...
, David Ignatius
David Ignatius
David R. Ignatius , is an American journalist and novelist. He is an associate editor and columnist for The Washington Post. He also co-hosts PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues at Washingtonpost.com, with Newsweek 's Fareed Zakaria...
, Nicholas Lemann
Nicholas Lemann
Nicholas Berthelot Lemann is dean and Henry R. Luce professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.Lemann is from New Orleans and he graduated from Harvard University in 1976, but has never attended a school of journalism. He is a journalist, editor, and author...
, Gregg Easterbrook
Gregg Easterbrook
Gregg Edmund Easterbrook is an American writer, lecturer, and a senior editor of The New Republic. His articles have appeared in Slate, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Wired, and Beliefnet. In addition, he was a fellow at the...
, Joe Nocera, Mickey Kaus
Mickey Kaus
Robert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...
, Timothy Noah
Timothy Noah
Timothy Robert Noah is an American journalist. He is a senior editor of The New Republic, where he writes the TRB column and a political blog...
, Jonathan Alter
Jonathan Alter
Jonathan Alter is an American journalist and author who was a columnist and senior editor for Newsweek magazine from 1983 until 2011. He is currently a lead columnist for Bloomberg View, a new commentary website. He is also a contributing correspondent to NBC News, where since 1996 he has appeared...
, Steven Waldman
Steven Waldman
Steven Waldman is Senior Advisor to the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, serving out of the Office of Strategic Planning. Previously, Waldman was the Editor-in-Chief, President, and co-founder of Beliefnet, a multi-faith spirituality website....
, Joshua Green
Joshua Green
Joshua Green is an American journalist who writes primarily on United States politics. He is currently senior national correspondent at Bloomberg Businessweek and a weekly columnist for the Boston Globe.-Education:...
, and Jon Meacham
Jon Meacham
Jon Meacham is executive editor and executive vice president at Random House. A former editor of Newsweek and a Pulitzer Prize winning bestselling author and a commentator on politics, history, and religious faith in America, he is a contributing editor to Time magazine and editor-at-large of WNET...
.
The politics of the Monthly are left of center
Modern American liberalism
Modern American liberalism is a form of liberalism developed from progressive ideals such as Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism, Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, John F. Kennedy's New Frontier, and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. It combines social liberalism and...
, though somewhat moderate
Moderate
In politics and religion, a moderate is an individual who is not extreme, partisan or radical. In recent years, political moderates has gained traction as a buzzword....
ly so. Founder Charles Peters refers to himself as a New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
Democrat and advocates the effective use of government to address social problems. His columns also frequently emphasize the importance of a vigilant "fourth estate
Fourth Estate
The concept of the Fourth Estate is a societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized. The Fourth Estate now most commonly refers to the news media; especially print journalism, referred to hereon as "The Press"...
" in keeping government honest.
The Monthly is one of a growing number of magazines to feature a continuing blog; the popular "Political Animal" was written principally by Kevin Drum
Kevin Drum
Kevin Drum is an American political blogger and columnist. He was born in Long Beach, California and now lives in Irvine, California.-Education:...
for several years, with frequent guest contributions by the Monthly's current and alumni editors. In 2008, Steve Benen
Steve Benen
Steve Benen is an American political writer and blogger, and became the lead blogger for the Washington Monthly "Political Animal" blog in August 2008....
took over as lead blogger.
In addition to "Political Animal," the magazine's website also hosts "Ten Miles Square," a general blog featuring posts from staff and political scientists, which debuted in 2011, and "College Guide," a blog about higher education, which the magazine began offering in 2009.
Annual college rankings
The Washington Monthly's annual college and university rankingsCollege and university rankings
College and university rankings are lists of institutions in higher education, ordered by combinations of factors. In addition to entire institutions, specific programs, departments, and schools are ranked...
(an alternative college guide to the U.S. News and World Report) began as a research report in 2005. It was introduced as an official set of rankings in the September 2006 issue. The rankings are based upon the following criteria:
- "how well it performs as an engine of social mobility (ideally helping the poor to get rich rather than the very rich to get very, very rich)"
- "how well it does in fostering scientific and humanistic research"
- "how well it promotes an ethic of service to country".
The Washington Monthly College Rankings focuses on key research outputs, the quality level and total dollar amount of scientific grants awarded, the number of graduates going on to earn Ph.D.s and the number of graduates that later participate in public service.
The top ranked National University for 2009 was the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
and the top ranked Liberal Arts College for 2007 was Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
.
The top ranked Liberal Arts College in the 2010 rankings is Morehouse College
Morehouse College
Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with Hampden-Sydney College and Wabash College, Morehouse is one of three remaining traditional men's colleges in the United States....
followed by Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
, Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
, Berea College
Berea College
Berea College is a liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky , founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students...
and Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
. The University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
ranked number one among National Universities with the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, UCLA, Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
rounding out the top five in the 2010 rankings.