Posted on 10/25/2009 3:36:54 PM PDT by Born Conservative
Edited on 10/25/2009 7:22:01 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
EUGENE, ORE. – When I began examining the political affiliation of faculty at the University of Oregon, the lone conservative professor I spoke with cautioned that I would “make a lot of people unhappy.”
Though I mostly brushed off his warning – assuming that academia would be interested in such discourse – I was careful to frame my research for a column for the school newspaper diplomatically.
[snip]
especially if you’re just “auditing” the course...
I had a Sociology class in college which had a very hard left professor.She adopted a baby from China and told us about how she was going to raise it with Chinese traditions. I asked if that meant that the kid would be a communist too. She asked me to leave for the day!
Good for you!
My mistake. I messaged the Admin to fix it. Thanks.
It’s only a problem if your professors are bringing their political views into class. Otherwise, who cares what their political affiliation is, as long as they’re competent at teaching their respective subjects? In fact, if you had to ask them in order to discover what their voter registration card said, then they’re doing their jobs properly.
I’ve taken over 40 courses at a fairly liberal university. I’ve had maybe 4 professors mention their political views in passing, and they affected the content of only two courses (of a sort where it would be difficult for the content to be unaffected) and I only had one professor try to drag politics into a distinctly non-political course. Incidentally, I failed that course - not directly due to political conflicts, but because I was too sick to go to all my classes and I figured if I had to miss something, I might as well miss the class where I hated the prof... but the other 35+ classes, wouldn’t have a clue what their voter registration card said (if they actually had one to begin with, I think half of them still had green cards).
Had a few conservative profs at university, I tried to take as many courses with them as I could fit on my transcript, and I wrote glowing reviews, etc. If all Conservatives did the same, then there will be more conservative professors.
Eh, I don’t think that would work to actually get more conservative professors, just to get pay raises for the ones that exist. In my experience, conservatives who want to be professors are businessmen and engineers (two subjects that I happily never plan on taking in the future) and they don’t usually hold degrees in ‘soft sciences’. Then again, I’m mostly in the hard sciences, where politics are considered ‘boring’ and people are getting quite fed up with Obama’s ‘all talk, no action’ stance on science.
I’m a history major, and yes I had one professor who was a conservative, and he was wonderful. While I agree the majority are in hard sciences, we need to support conservatives in the arts too.
Of course some disciplines are anathema, sociology, women’s studies, that sort of thing, but there are some which are completely compatible with a conservative that we should not concede. Look at Dr. Mike Adams at UNC, he’s a conservative professor in the arts. We need more just like him.
One of my sons was a history buff from the time he was in elementary school. He loved reading history books. He also has a good memory and was creative so he could tell you parts of history like he was reading a story book. When he was young, I got him older history and civic texts and stories that were written before the Marxists air brushed the founding fathers away. Those books were also written for boys about mostly American men! In junior high he moved on to modern versions of history but nothing radical.
But, he was also excellent in science and in High School some very wicked feminists had taken over the history department and they were not able to shape his knowledge of history to fit their “world view” as he already knew a boatload of facts and context. They would give out inaccurate information and that is when I taught him to overlook the Marxists when you get one for a teacher and just tell them what they want to hear - right or wrong - so you don’t mess up your GPA. He did what I suggested, but was disgusted. He felt he was lying all year.
He decided to make history his hobby and go into science.
“Those books were also written for boys about mostly American men!”
My parents had a bookshelf that I made my way through going up. I remember having all these history textbooks, and reading them on trips, and I was maybe 10-11. I knew them for the most part by heart. I can’t imagine what my parents must have thought at the time, I don’t know anyone else like that around my age.
“He did what I suggested, but was disgusted. He felt he was lying all year.”
I did the same when I was in university. I actually left in my last year because I was disgusted by the whole process. I met my fiancee a few years later and she encouraged me to go back. I realised when I did, that I was for the first time, free. I could write about what I wanted to write and battle the profs, and the worst thing they could do is give me a poor grade. Some did, others respected me, but for me, it was good to respect myself and defend my own beliefs.
It wears on you though. I am glad to be finished. I am hoping to go on and teach so I can give young men and women the opportunity to learn history the way it was supposed to be taught, like your son did.
We talk about how the schools are failing boys, and this is part. Boys would love to tell ‘real stories’ and that is exactly what history is all about, being able to tell the stories of the past.
He decided to make history his hobby and go into science.
I am glad you found what makes your heart sing! Great work teaching history - especially dead white male history! The old civics books - early 1960s - are wonderful for delivering to kids the concepts of what it means to be free and the responsibilities and American-American spirit that comes with it. Woohoo!!!!!!
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