Posted on 01/16/2018 7:50:48 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
“I have had enough bullshit,” wrote Notre Dame sociology professor Christian Smith in a recent piece about the systemic problems of American Higher Education.
“The manure has piled up so deep in the hallways, classrooms, and administration buildings of American higher education that I am not sure how much longer I can wade through it and retain my sanity and integrity.”
This forward, in-your-face commentary on the state of today’s higher education caught the attention of many in the realm of the Ivory bell tower, but should also serve as a wake-up call to those who don’t follow higher ed as closely. Smith is sounding the alarm on the many problems plaguing modern day, American education.
In a phone interview with Red Alert Politics, Smith stated, “I’ve been learning about higher education since I went to graduate school ... there is much good, but also many institutional-level troubles.”
Smith catalogues 22 specific instances of “BS” in higher education, mentioning a “loss of capacity to grapple with life’s Big Questions,” “the relentless pursuit of money and prestige,” “a tenure system that provides guaranteed lifetime employment to faculty who are lousy teachers and inactive scholars,” and “the grossly lopsided political ideology of the faculty of many disciplines ... creating a homogeneity of worldview to which those faculties are themselves oblivious, despite claiming to champion difference, diversity, and tolerance.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Pricey student government loaned bull $hit.
The left should be very worried when they start losing the Sociology professors!
Chinese students study mathematics and science.
American students can’t figure out which bathroom to use.
Eliminate all majors with the word “Studies” in the title.
If somebody wants to pay for it, let them.
The problem comes when they want us to pay for it - either “free education” or forgiveness of student loan debt when they can’t find a job paying over minimum wage with their worthless degree.
Best to avoid sweeping generalities. My daughter is a meteorology major at a top school in her field and has taken Calc 1,2,3 and differential equations, computer coding, chemistry, physics and thermodynamics. She is not Chinese, she is an American. You do also know that the Chinese cheat on college entrance exams don’t you?
that still leaves political science
“You do also know that the Chinese cheat on college entrance exams don’t you?”
Isn’t that a sweeping generality?
Sounds like a sweeping generality. :-)
If he has tenure I think he will keep wading for a while.
Isn’t the SAT bogus compared to 50 yr ago?
Yes, guilty as charged I suppose it is. For clarification, I am not referring to Chinese Americans, often they have a harder time in the competitive college admissions process than caucasians do. Specifically international students from China have their ACT and SAT scores inflated by the Chinese government who report the scores to the US college board. My point ( avoiding generalities) is that not all Asian students are STEM geniuses and not all American students are dunces.
They’ve dumbed down the SAT something fierce, yet, students average only a 960.
So is Public School K-12.
Honestly, here in the midwest the test of choice is the ACT. I am not familiar with the current difficulty of the SAT which is what I took, and while not 50 years ago it has been a very long time. That being said, the ACT is actually a pretty difficult test. The math section has some calculus questions on it, is mostly all word problems and requires a completion time of approximately one minute/problem to finish the section. The English and Science sections are no joke either.
With regard to the ideological conformity of the faculty, no serious effort to address this may be made in absence of a serious consideration of how things became that way, because they weren't always like that. The Long March Through The Institutions isn't just a metaphor, it's a real phenomenon, and such conformity is, I suggest, a consequence of those institutions being considered conquered instead of neutral ground by people who preach intellectual diversity and practice its nullification. The physician may be too sick to heal himself, and if he is, then who will, and how?
Good start.
That would be a good start. I would even take a hard look at the reforms Norman Foerster was advocating in the 1930's and 1940's.
Arguing that colleges in the 1920's and '30's were in a full-scale revolt against tradition and increasingly adopting utilitarian curricula that made them essentially glorified vocational/technical schools, Foerster advocated that the undergraduate curriculum cover "history, philosophy, science, and language and literature,” with an emphasis on the Great Books that have stood the test of time. He also argued that specialization and the pursuit of majors be put off until graduate school. See his book The Humanities and the Common Man (1946).
A Sociology professor wallows in BS all day - he should know......
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