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In a perfect world the only people who went to universities would go there to get a universal education, i.e. a general education in business, science, arts, literature, history, philosophy, etc. They could obviously have a focus, but they would also be expected to get a well-rounded education so that they would be not only good in whatever profession they chose, but would be good citizens as well.

If someone wanted to focus on a particular field and not give a damn about all that high-falutin' schoolin' then they would go to a specialized college or trade school.

Tenured teachers in such a university setting would be a good thing. They would be encouraged to explore the limits of their various fields. I would expect them to carry a decent class load each term and not just spend their time on research. I don't know where the custom of letting the best professors go without doing any teaching got started, but it needs to stop.

In a perfect world there would be a wide variety of professors thought-wise rather than skin-color-wise. The poly sci department would have conservatives, liberals, commies, libertarians, etc. It wouldn't have Caucasians, Hispanics, Asians, Blacks, Men, Women, Straights, Gays, etc. who all happened to be leftists.

Conservatives seem to want their kids to go into practical professions and stay away from commie universities, perverted Hollywood, and the cynical newspaper businesses. All of those professions used to have a greater variety of people. Some of it may be that conservatives who try to go into those fields are blacklisted. But I think a lot of it is also due to conservatives staying away from those professions either because they don't want to rub elbows with those nasty leftists, or because they want a more lucrative career so they can support a better lifestyle for themselves and their families.

I can't sit back and criticize any particular person's choice. However, I can sit back and look at the general lay of the land and see that not encouraging more conservatives to go into education, entertainment, and journalism has not worked out well. The foxes have gotten control of all of the propaganda mills, while we conservative hens fattened ourselves in our safe air-conditioned suburbs.

There are a few conservative schools that teach our homeschooled children, a few conservative celebrities that preach to the choir, and a few conservative journalists that tell us what we want to hear. Oh and a bunch of conservative think tankers that generate studies that prove to us that we were right all along.

Unfortunately there are countless more leftist professors, celebrities, and journalists providing a similar service for the evergrowing liberal mob.

quote “I would expect them to carry a decent class load each term and not just spend their time on research. I don't know where the custom of letting the best professors go without doing any teaching got started, but it needs to stop”

letting them go without doing any teaching?

lol

The colleges FORCE them to focus almost exclusively on research. In fact the biggest factor in receiving tenure is how much your research has been published in peer reviewed journals.

A colleges reputation is largely dependent upon the quality of the research performed by it. Plus the college gets a large portion of all research money a professor gets.

The basic thought is that their best and brightest should be focused on cutting edge research and should leave the actual teaching to associate professors (non-tenured) and graduate students.