<p>So this is basically what I've decided I'm looking for in a college.</p>
<p>I want a school that is in the south, but is in a liberal/artsy town. So far I've gotten UGA and Texas as suggestions. I love the idea of being in a frat and staying near home in FL, and also being in a town with a good vibe with lots of concerts and such.</p>
<p>Unc chapel hill</p>
<p>UNC-Chapel Hill</p>
<p>Hendrix College is in Conway, Arkansas. Conway is not really an artsy town; however, Hendrix is a very liberal, kind of artsy college. The campus is gorgeous, and the academics are pretty stellar for the small college setting. The town is rapidly becoming a city. It’s population is approaching 60,000, and it is just a short drive from Little Rock. I really love Conway…I wish Searcy was a lot more like it 
lol</p>
<p>Rice University is in Houston, which is a pretty liberal/diverse city. Rice’s political spectrum is split though, which is best in my opinion because you get perspectives from both sides of political issues.</p>
<p>BTW, we are ranked #1 in quality of life and #8 for happiest students by the 2010 Princeton Review Guide!</p>
<p>University of Texas at Austin
Tulane University</p>
<p>UVA and W&M would qualify with Charlottesville and Williamsburg.</p>
<p>You can not beat University of Florida for in-state tuition.</p>
<p>Athens, GA would be artsy but hardly liberal.</p>
<p>Most college towns are usually more liberal than their surrounding communities. Most of the professors live there. Most educated people are usually liberal ergo they pervade the towns.</p>
<p>^ “Most educated people are usually liberal ergo they pervade the towns.”</p>
<p>Ah, finally a roadmap for reducing liberal influence in America … get rid of all the educated people! But seriously, swish is right. Where you have a college in a small town there’s going to be a relatively liberal environment. Sometimes that environment is going to be predominant … sometimes it will be in conflict with the surrounding community (sometimes referred to as “town/gown” issues).</p>
<p>The word ‘liberal’ is relative when comparing cities and towns. That said, consider; </p>
<p>Wofford College, SC
U of Alabama-Birmingham
Birmingham Southern College, AL
Millsaps College, MS
U of Missouri-Columbia
Emory University
Georgia Institute of Technology</p>
<p>UNC-Chapel Hill</p>
<p>Rhodes College is in the heart of Memphis, one of the epicenters of the civil rights movement. The neighborhood that Rhodes is in, Midtown Memphis, is very artsy/liberal/diverse.</p>
<p><<most educated=“” people=“” are=“” usually=“” liberal=“”>></most></p>
<p>oh geez…</p>
<p>Anything in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill research trio. Anything in Houston.</p>
<p>Or so I hear.</p>
<p>Durham isn’t really liberal. They are to busy worrying about where their next hit of crack will come from.</p>
<p>Raleigh might be a bit conservative…</p>
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<p>That’s actually a statistical fact (see “How College Affects Students” by Pascarella and Terenzini). P&T did a meta-analysis of three decades of research on college outcomes and found a liberalizing of attitudes to be a consistent product of a higher education.</p>
<p>IMO, the reason is that all of us are raised in a particular setting or settings by certain people in certain cultural milieus who tend to reflect their own particular values. When a student goes to college (according to research), they begin to encounter far greater degrees of difference than they probably had an opportunity to encounter in their home setting(s). The typical response to that difference often begins with condemnation of different values and ideas, then a growing awareness that there may be multiple ways of perceiving that are neither all wrong nor all right, then an emerging respect for different viewpoints that may add greater degrees of insight to one’s own positions. And the willingness to view things from multiple viewpoints and accommodate different interpretations of what’s right or appropriate is a core characteristic of the orientation that we label “liberal” (in fact, that’s why we refer to it as “liberal,” which means “broad” or “unbounded”).</p>
<p>That doesn’t necessarily mean that political liberals are smarter than conservatives. It does however, tend to reflect a higher degree of education as opposed for example, to career training.</p>
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<p>True story. NC State (in Raleigh) is pretty conservative as far as colleges go.</p>
<p>Ga Dad- great point about being educated vs being trained. Many disciplines such as engineering, accounting, medicine, management focus on training and as such attract some rigid left brain people who are very successful at their given tasks but are not educated. To me education means to have some exposure to religions, philosophy, govt/poly sci, history, world lit and be able to communicate effectively what was learned.</p>
<p>The Presidents give us a good example:</p>
<p>Worst Presidents:</p>
<p>Hoover-engineer
W Bush-MBA
Grant-Military
Carter- Military/Engineer</p>
<p>Best Presidents:</p>
<p>Jefferson-Law
Lincoln-Law
Roosevelts T&F-Liberal Arts
Reagan- drama</p>
<p>Points to ponder…</p>