Yep.
Sane Person: What about Lefti...
Progressive edumacator: Nooo LOOK here - Shiney things!
[The Architects of Western Decline: A Study on the Frankfurt School and Cultural Marxism]
Posted on 11/01/2017 12:54:39 PM PDT by 1BadgerStater
American liberal arts colleges used to provide a solid education at fairly low cost. Today, the education is often weak and the cost is astronomical. Professor John Seery of Pomona College offers some reasons why in this piece.
Boy that’s an understatement if ever there was one. I know of daycare centers that teach more nowadays.
How can you write an article about the demise of higher education and not focus on leftism?
Neither is grammar, spelling, math, .....
Being well-rounded is a nebulous concept to me. As an autodidact, I pursued what interested me -— which was wide ranging in itself. Going to a liberal arts school would have been pointless. I believe in using what I learned, not just gargling it. So I went the business/accounting track and seemed to have made a good choice.
Yep.
Sane Person: What about Lefti...
Progressive edumacator: Nooo LOOK here - Shiney things!
[The Architects of Western Decline: A Study on the Frankfurt School and Cultural Marxism]
THAT is where every seed of evil against the United States of America is sown..
Schools are a vehicle for teachers and administration to sit and receive an income that will establish a pension most of us will never see.
Kids?
They're just hitch hikers they pick up while the "teachers" travel to and from from one lefty idea to another.
Do as we say, and you'll be OK.
Right wing Christians need to get on the school boards but like a LOT of things in 2017 .... we'd have to do it en masse in a year or the machine will just plow right along.
They are very wealthy and powerful and the stupid mothers that feel they are too stupid to teach their own children send their kids to the same school that made the stupid mothers stupid.
I remember so many of my professors fondly. Back in the 60s, Dr. Parks had been a professional race car driver, Dr. D’Andrea had been an Army intelligence agent. Dr. Fanny Fern Davis was a sweet old lady who was a retired chemist who taught after her retirement.
I remember Dr. Simon, our physics professor was always smiling and seemed to really like his students.
Fanny Fern Davis was sponsor of the campus Christian club. Dr. D’Andrea was sponsor of the Methodis club. I think they may have been called the Weslyan Club but can’t recall the name for sure.
I also recall a couple of radical leftists but they were in the minority.
My wife teaches at the college level and has for a very long time. She has told me that she has never seen a dumber group of kids as she is seeing enter college today. Most have no reading skills and no grasp of the simplest grammar.
Our education is in shambles and it must be fixed. Many schools in selected areas are producing very smart kids while most intercity schools systems are getting worse by the year. The gap keeps getting wider.
Why I’m glad I was home skooled -
I certainly sympathize with this, as my school certainly fit that small liberal arts label (Hobart and William Smith, class of ‘80). Interestingly enough the school has managed to keep its’ way even through the recent years and I have to give a lot of the credit to the just-retired President of the colleges, Mark Gearan, who was Clinton’s early White House Communications Director and Peace Corps Director.
Yes, I know . . . how can I say this? I went back a few years ago for Reunion and the weekend was a great experience. The kids were welcoming and not the indoctrinated types we see so much. I attended one of those ‘reunion symposia’ they tend to schedule and it was run by Iva Deutchman, a female professor in the new Men’s Studies Major (and a fanatical baseball fan). About a third of us were likely conservatives and she made us feel completely welcome.
This was a pleasant surprise since we are all kind of on our toes thinking what we might encounter in today’s world. When I attended even the liberal professors encouraged us to research and defend the conservative viewpoint on many topics in all the course I took where that philosophy might be found.
I have to give President Gearan a lot of credit but he retired over the summer and now I hope the new President, Greg Vincent (who was class of ‘83), will uphold the same campus atmosphere. Greg’s background is certainly towards the social justice side so I’ll see if he can find the right balance and keep the school where it is. The college has been rocketing up the college rankings and was just named the Best College for Study Abroad by Princeton Review, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
That four years of traditional liberal arts education set me up for life.
Large parts of the University System were utter crap by the early eighties.
Exactly right.
But they have gotten even worse now from what I can see. Even in the 70’s they were starting the decline. I suspect the decline actually started in the 60’s though, and it just kept getting progressively worse, and on top of that outrageously priced. Now they come out grossly under educated, and in lots of debt. Such a sad state of affairs.
I would conjecture that the decline began with the elimination of oral exams. Oral exams test long term memory.
I have actually tried to forget a lot of what went on in those days, as my education outside of those hollow halls was far greater than within. Not saying I didn't have good times, just saying that perhaps there was too much good times. 8>)
The small liberal arts college (SLAC for short) has committed suicide by hiring as presidents people who have shiny credentials in other respects, perhaps - but who have never set foot in a SLAC before heading one up. IOW, they hire presidents who have no history of doing anything that suggests commitment to the SLAC concept. How, exactly, does a SLAC expect someone to sell the virtues of a SLAC when they have no personal commitment to the SLAC concept? And if they aren’t committed to the SLAC model, nothing can be expected other than that such a person will corrupt the institution with non-SLAC priorities.How can you write an article about the demise of higher education and not focus on leftism? - gr8emanAnd thus the “small” LAC becomes just as institutionally bureaucratic and remote as any large institution. Complete with laughably numerous layers of management.
Gross mismanagement and leftism are intimately intertwined. As President Trump pointed out, socialism faithfully executed systematically produces failure.
“She has told me that she has never seen a dumber group of kids as she is seeing enter college today. Most have no reading skills and no grasp of the simplest grammar.”
—
Why were they admitted?
.
No, they ain’t.
In the 70s, tuition at a state univ. was $3/hr. No, that’s not a typo. There are no zeroes missing. $3/hr so $12 per 3/hr course. My $100/sem scholarship covered textbooks with careful shopping for used books in the campus bookstore. It was cheaper for my parents to send me to college than support me at home.
There were no whinies stomping their feet about safe spaces. There were no protesters shutting down every school function. We had a Halloween carnival where no one was judged or criticized for the costumes. Math profs weren’t hired on the basis of their latest social justice publication. Profs weren’t hired on their political leanings or their skin color. Students didn’t fear getting shot on their way to class. No one got expelled for not smiling at a passerby. People actually spoke to and had human contact with each other instead of having their noses in their phones. I miss those days.
And the ability to read cursive writing.
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