Posted on 10/05/2005 3:31:34 PM PDT by Land_of_Lincoln_John
As regular visitors to this blog know, renowned aca-demon Ward Churchill will be returning to his native Illinois and speak at Chicago's DePaul University on October 20 and 21.
(The second event, I believe, is not open to the public.)
Information, courtesy of the DePaul University Division of Student Affairs' Cultural Center, is available here on their web site.
Here is the "Psycho" Ward stuff:
October 20, 2005
Lecture: Ward Churchill -Open to DePaul Community
5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Student Center 314-A)
October 21, 2005
Multicultural Human Rights Education Workshop
(2:00 p.m. 4:30 p.m., Student Center 314-B)
-Ward Churchill– For Student Organizations Only
I sent an e-mail to culturalcenter@depaul.edu and asked them to clarify whether student or university funds were being used to pay for Churchill's presumably hefty speaking fees. Also, as for the 2nd function, I inquired whether it was mandatory for student organizations to attend this little-publicized event. I identified myself and informed them of my DePaul blogging. Anyway, they never got back to me.
Back to Ward: Armed with nothing more than a master's degree from the school now known as the University of Illinois-Springfield, Churchill parlayed that into a tenured professorship at the University of Colorado (CU) in Boulder, later becoming chairman of the Ethnic Studies Department at CU.
Now, to become a tenured professor without a Ph.D. is rare, and generally only artists, novelists, or renowned politicians and the like receive that honor. But Ward pulled it off. How? Largely by claiming he was an American Indian, a claim that has been quashed by this article, part of a week long series on Ward Churchill, from the Rocky Mountain News.
So Ward Churchill apparently lied to get his tenured position. Is this a lesson the administration of DePaul wants to pass on to the students there? Misrepresenting yourself gets you ahead in life?
Then there is the issue of Ward's alleged plagiarism. Churchill's "defense" on this charge, according to the Rocky Mountain News, is that he took another writers work, refashioned it as a "re-write man," then published "his" finished product as his own.
What would happen to a DePaul student who pulled a stunt like this?
Oh, then there is the charge that Ward Churchill fabricated sources to support a spurious claim that the US Army purposely spread small pox among North Dakota Indians in the 1830s. Once again, the Rocky Mountain News reported, the facts are not kind to Ward Churchill.
And if a DePaul student made up sources for a paper, what would be the consequences for that student?
There have even been charges that Ward Churchill's artwork is based on that of another artist, as CBS 4 Denver reported.
I hope my point is clear. What kind of university would allow someone like Ward Churchill to speak--at a fee--on its campus? One where I wouldn't want to send my daughter.
Okay, the rascal Churchill does have free speech rights. A Churchill essay, presumably written by Ward himself, contained passages that dramatically ended Ward's days as a relatively anonymous campus Leftist.
From the Rocky Mountain News:
In an essay titled "Some People Push Back - On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," Churchill argued the attacks were retaliation for a 1991 bombing raid on Iraq and U.S. support of economic sanctions against Iraq following the Persian Gulf War.
He referred to the people killed at the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers," referring to Adolf Eichmann, who carried out Adolf Hitler's systematic extermination of the Jews during World War II.
Do a Google or Yahoo! search on the Internet on "Thomas Klocek, DePaul," and see what comes up. DePaul has a lot to answer for in the Klocek case.
DePaul celebrates and pays Churchill. But suspended Klocek.
This article from FrontPage Magazine by Joel Mowbray, puts the Klocek and Ward Churchill stories in perspective.
Ping
How sad. That's my alma mater. I had a class with Klocek also. He called me an "extremist" because I said that Israel should not give one inch to the palistinians.
Ping
America’s favorite professor is taking a disappointing report card back to his tepee.
Ward “I really am an Indian” Churchill, who teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder, received a disturbing message from students concerning his performance during the spring 2005 semester. According to student evaluations made available to the public, Professor Churchill’s most recent grades are anything but great. Churchill received lower marks in each of the three classes he taught last spring compared to the grades he earned for those same classes in previous semesters.
The university asks its students to rate professors in a variety of categories. These evaluations are used by the student body for selecting courses and instructors, by professors so they can improve on their teaching and by deans and department chairs for promotion, tenure, salary and course-assignment decisions.
In Churchill’s "Topical Issues in Native North America" class students were asked to “rate this course compared to all your other university courses.” Churchill received a “C” compared to the “A” he earned for that class during the fall 2004 semester. Students were then asked to “rate this instructor compared to all your other university instructors.” Churchill received another “C” compared to the “A” he got in the fall. When it came to the “fairness of his grading policies,” again Churchill’s grade dropped from an “A” to a “C.” The professor’s most notable grade drop came when students were asked to, “rate the accessibility of the instructor.” Churchill received a “D+” for the spring semester. That’s down from the “B+” he earned during the fall.
The next two categories reveal a less dramatic drop in score, but pose a somewhat ironic situation considering that “Chief Churchill” is still listed as the chairman of Ethnic Studies in the university’s department phone directory.
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=8431
for his students’ sake, Professor Churchill should resign and let another instructor who is less distracted take his position.
University of Colorado officials received repeated complaints about Ward Churchill's demeanor and temper, beginning two years before he was granted a tenured faculty position despite never going through the normal review.
Retired university administrator and journalism professor Joanne Easley Arnold said she received a call from Churchill in 1989 during a controversy over the naming of a dormitory on campus. She was trying to get the dorm named for a former director of student housing. Churchill, not yet a professor, was pushing to have it named for the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes.
"He suggested I should back off my proposal and if I didn't, I would get hurt," Arnold said after she was contacted by The Denver Post. "I was shocked, and that's why my dean heard about it."
Three years after receiving tenure, Churchill was again accused of inappropriate behavior.
In April 1994, two women wrote Charles Middleton, then dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, about a March 28 incident outside the San Francisco Press Club involving Churchill and his wife at the time, Marie Jaimes.
"Carol Standing Elk was leaving the Press Club when Marie Annette Jaimes brutally attacked and injured her," Deborah J. Cruze wrote in a letter to Middleton in Churchill's file. "Then, as Ms. Standing Elk was trying to recover from the attack, she was spit on by Ward Churchill."
"Maybe she needed to be physically attacked," he said. " ... Maybe she needed to be spit on."
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2716087,00.html
Very disappointing, but not surprising. Thomas Klocek affair clearly showed that DePaul is deeply in PC Swamp.
Ward Churchill is going to the right place -:))))
Glad I'm no longer part of this institution. Although I quit DePaul for different reason (couldn't balance work and school), the way they handled the Klocek affair played the role in my decition not to return to this school. I'll get my Masters from somewhere else -:)))
Good luck to you, Sergey!
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