Posted on 06/20/2012 6:39:47 AM PDT by DFG
Oregon State University chemistry professor Nicholas Drapela was fired without warning three weeks ago and has still been given no reason for the university’s decision to “not renew his contract.”
Drapela, an outspoken critic of man-made climate change, worked at the university for 10 years.
In the early years of his career, he published a number of textbooks, received a promotion to senior instructor and, in 2004, received a Loyd F. Carter award for outstanding and inspirational teacher.
In 2007, Drapela began giving talks on his own climate change skepticism. He often and openly questioned the science behind man-made global warming.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
They can always claim that he was not renewed because of financial problems.
Correction. Some sessional lecturers may teach for 10 or more years in one place but they do so because they have a spouse who is earning a full salary and they put up with the meager wages (in our institution, 4500.00 a course, at many places 3000.00 or even less, no benefits) because they can’t move to a different place or don’t want the full-time load that a “senior instructor” like this guy would have. Full-time but non-tenured faculty get full salaries (lower than tenured) but usually have much heavier teaching loads, making it hard to get research published which is the ticket on to the tenure-track. Once you spend a half-dozen years either as sessional lecturer or in a FT non-tenure-track position, you usually are stuck there for life. But it is possible to make a living in the latter, because it does carry benefits and a full, if low, salary.
Sessional lecturers can’t live off their pay. They have to have a spouse who’s earning. They can stitch together 4 or 5 courses a semester, usually at more than one school (our school won’t permit them more than 2 courses a semester because beyond that they could sue to get unemployment and health benefits because they’d be sorta full time). But they won’t get any research done and, after 5 years or so, they are finished on the academic job market.
Especially in the sciences, there’s a category of non-tenured full-time, fully-paid, benefited “clinical” or “lab faculty” who teach the huge, drudge-work required courses. That might be what this guy was, but then again, might not.
If only he would have blamed Bush, he would have instantly been tenured.
Meanwhile.....http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/20/nc-teacher-who-berated-student-over-obama-criticism-to-keep-job/?test=latestnews
Polite disagreement here with your statement.
While there are many excellent universities nationwide that are not traditionally liberal -- I am thinking here of most Christian schools, the southern private universities which are secular but might as well be Christian, some of the newer universities like Patrick Henry, Thomas Aquinas, Kings College -- there is another option.
If your child attends a typical liberal U, tell them (1) to be sure and "play the game" when they have an outspokenly liberal prof to ensure that their grades don't suffer; and (2) use their iPhone to make video and audio tapes of the outrageously biased opinions from their prof, and send them to Breitbart, Fox News, or another one of many countless sources.
Frankly, I prefer (2) because it is the only way we can fight back. Exposure will put the lefties up to ridicule and force them to modulate their beliefs. We've seen enough examples of this in recent news to know that it works.
Avoiding the liberal Universities is surrender. Fighting back would be in the American tradition.
I had to deal with some very liberal professors. Some actually respect you b/c you stand up for something and believe in it.
I had one really bad professor. She would make wild claims and I would refute them and she would just say more wild things. Well she would come to me after each paper I did and let me change a few things to raise my grade. I was always polite in talking and debating her, but I always disagreed.
Also had a liberal professor even privately ask me if I really “believe in conservatism”. I answered yes and he said he respects that.
If you are in a liberal college or are dealing with a liberal professor. Be respectful. Don’t dip to their level and resort to yelling and saying wrong facts.
Call it the Law of Conservation of Insecurity. Increasing the security of A, can generally only be done by increasing the insecurity of B.
“Avoiding the liberal Universities is surrender. Fighting back would be in the American tradition.”
In a similar vein, that is why I dropped Progressive Insurance, dropped my local newspaper, dropped AOL, will not shop in certain stores, etc.
If my daughter has a child and cannot pay for a private school, I’ll pay for him/her rather then allow unionized teachers have 13 years to instill Marxist thoughts in the child.
Can you honestly think the USA is better off with institutions like, lets say, a Columbia University?
Once the socialist, communist, Marxist thought is introduced into a university or college, the group think which follows creates an environment where any thought counter to their beloved liberal ideas to be ridiculed, discarded, and for all practical purposes, banned.
No thanks, I do not want to be any part of their income stream.
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