Posted on 11/28/2004 2:35:42 AM PST by dennisw
I have never considered these two areas serious academic pursuits.
Thanks to all who corrected me. I'm glad to be mistaken and to learn that one conservative was not plagiarizing another. We'll leave that to the liberals!
IMO the way to beat this rap is to re-define "serious academic pursuits" to fit the original reason people attended University: to become educated for life, not to learn a trade. Now that the adults are regaining control of North America, we need to encourage the same techniques that brought us to this impasse in the beginning: question the 'relevance' of the subject matter to the reason we are at University. Will "womens' studies" improve my relationship to the world, or will a Great Books seminar using the same Great Books list we used to use when women didn't work and book clubs flourished? When book clubs are established, we need to encourage the reading of 'relevant' books that will bring the culture together, not subdivide it. Critical thinking must be brought back to 'relevance', along with spelling, vocabulary, the dictionary, and the fact that words have meanings that can be nailed down. We must point out the many, many occasions on which people say "tow the line" and not "toe the line", "wreckless driving" and not "reckless driving", "poured over the documents" and not "pored over...", "baited breath" and not "bated breath", etc. -- and explain what the phrase means; we must teach people where such phrases come from as "He justs at scars that never felt a wound"; and above all we must work hard to get blasphemy, profanity and obscenity back to the fringes of society. All of these are things we as individual educated people can do. (I do them daily, as my work requires a lot of writing and reading and arguing). Auditing classes is a good idea too. I took a night course in Economics for a CLE credit, in which the majority of the students were working people, and the professor was frequently interrupted by someone pointing out that "that doesn't work in reality" or "I have never seen anything like that in my business". Finally the professor exploded that reality had nothing to do with it -- we were there to learn what was in the book and pass the exam at the end! That opened the eyes of the students who were not involved in daily business and several good after-class dialogues began.
Another thing that needs to be brought back to the university is requiring on-campus living for the first two years. Being forced together with people who don't believe as you believe, and having the tools to argue and debate in 'bull sessions' in an informal atmosphere (and with the aforementioned marginalization of obscenity, blasphemy and 'you are stupid' type rejoinders) would go a long way to opening the doors of closed minds that didn't even know they were closed. My dad, who was born and reared in Wisconsin, said the Army did more for the opening of closed minds than anything else he had ever experienced, forcing people to live togther and get along together who had vastly different ideas of the world. Dorm life did the same for me -- the only Republican in my dorm, as I remember it, but one taught to defend her position and well grounded to back pu her points-- and would help a lot of other young brainwashed high school kids.
But above all the need from parents is to take an active hand in where your children go to school. Like the woman who takes a six figure job and leaves the rearing of her children to an illegal alien from Guatamala, sending your kids to Harvard and ignoring what they are learning there is not doing them any good at all. You gave birth to them; you owe them your full attention until they are capable of standing on their own with the ability to hold their own with the world.
I agree with this but in my case it happened in the late 50's
when a history teacher assigned us to look at a pro-abortion program on TV. My father, a staunchly conservative Roman Catholic, refused and wrote a letter to the guy telling him to stick to history and stop trying to propagandize his dauaghter. The professor then blackballed my entrance into Nat'l Honor Society as a junior and I had to wait for Senior year to be enducted. No wonder I decided to specialize in Math / Physics in college: no propaganda allowed there!
If you care about the mental/emotional health of your children not to mention their faith, get them out of public schools and teach them yourselves. No matter what your skills, you can't possibly do worse than they!
Great article. I have libertarian leanings and have taught a course on civil rights at a university in central New Jersey for the past three years as an adjunct professor (I am a full time lawyer outside the classroom for one of those evil capitalist corporations). This university is one of the worst campuses in terms of radical, off-the-wall leftist faculty members. But I don't feel constrained to "groupthink" like other full-time faculty -- and always tell my students that unlike other professors there, I have a "real job" and don't have to worry about getting tenure; so I can say whatever I want. But I have not received a single complaint in three years -- to the contrary, the course has been extremely well-received by students. I tell the students to THINK FOR THEMSELVES -- and they look at me as if no faculty member has ever said that to them before. I tell them to always question what they read in newspapers, whether liberal or conservative. The class focuses on all the hot issues of the day -- abortion, affirmative action, gay marriage, free speech -- and I can tell you the students out there, despite their mostly progressive leanings, are truly open to entertaining alternative points of view provided they don't think they will be "penalized" for expressing different views. And students seem genuinely relieved that they are not being condescended to in a dogmatic, liberal way. They seem to find it refreshing that they are not being mindlessly spoon-fed by someone with a clear ideological agenda; my only agenda is that I have NO agenda, just think for yourself. So the one thing this discussions is missing is that we don't give college students enough credit for being able to think for themselves if given the opportunity; they just don't have many opportunities because faculty members do everything possible to make clear that dissenting views will not be tolerated. Why risk a lower GPA? Better just shut down intellectually and say what you think the professor wants to hear. But when someone comes in and tells them to think for themselves, they feel empowered and open up. That's what the education process is supposed to be about.
Number one and two above should be the norm no matter what your viewpoint.
There were 46 replies before, in case people are interested in reading them again. I enjoyed reading the replies here, but I already got my 2 cents in earlier.
Working at a smaller campus, where one can be a generalist, may make it easier to be a conservative, because my research doesn't have to be so specific. Thank goodness.
The liberal leftist hiring biases on college campuses are the most discriminatory hiring practices in America today. I would advocate a neutral board at the head of the university that would have to approve all new faculty hires and in some cases would do the hiring, bypassing the head of a department.
EXAMPLE:Bypass the head of the English and History Departments for a few years until they agree to hire regardless of political view points. Might even get a few serious Christians on the faculty this way.
The liberals always talk about role models, how public schools need black teachers for Black students and Hispanic teachers for Hispanic students. In the Universities they are are not hiring conservative role models for the students
I posted this one again because George Will referred to it yesterday in his column.... that was discussed here.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/10283346.htm?1c
I just learned from my sister that my niece will be attending Boston College. I am severely depressed. The poor girl will be ruined.
The Chronicle of Higher Education is a prestigious journal in this profession, is it not? It's great that this article was in there.
A quote from the George Will article. Yes, it is good to reprint this article here again at FR.
The tone-deaf part of this rings true at my institution. I sent this article to a liberal philosopher, thinking that he might, as a philosopher, see this situation from a new perspective. He just said "This is nothing new." As if he wondered why I sent it to him. Nowhere did he acknowledge the need to change things in the least. This is from someone who was shocked to discover that I was an anti-Marxist. It was just assumed that everyone supported Marxism.
I sometimes wonder if it is wise to inject conservative politics into my humanities classes. I do so only obliquely, when the artwork can be related to modern politics, and only rarely more obviously, as when we are discussing those works created under Communism. But the political discussion board I set up to further discussion has no replies at all. Alas. I am looking forward to seeing what students say in their exams. I do tolerate different viewpoints; I just want ideas supported with specific examples and details. We'll see.
So, what is the answer? Not just with the intellectuals but with the whole movement itself? The environmentalists, the intellectuals, the socialists and the people who just try to emulate them because they think it makes them look and sound smart --they are equally as dangerous to our way of life, IMO.
I think, as I posted somewhere else in this thread, we have to put our money where our mouths and hearts are. Endow conservative chairs at lots of major and minor universities and keep the money flowing for research and teaching fellowships. Just like a national campaign, except for the fact our students are the richer for it not the MSM.
No one is proposing force. I appreciate your comments but I'm afraid your diagnosis of the problem is simplistic; I went to Berkeley despite being a conservative. I had far more important criteria when selecting a university than partisan bias. So more information isn't going to change anything.
We love the free market and assume that it can solve all ills. Choice and competition. It's not always that easy. The kinds of people that forsake the private sector for university professorship at ALL universities have a liberal bent. Living in an ivory tower only reinforces this leaning. Therefore, more creative thinking is necessary in order to eliminate bias on campus.
The points of control in a university are at its source of funding. Alumni giving is a big part of this. Interpose conservatives at this choke point and you have leverage.
These liberal professors should heed the advice of Aaron Tippin.
You get up every morning 'fore the sun comes up
Toss a lunchbox into a pickup truck
A long, hard day sure ain't much fun
But you've gotta get it started if you wanna get it done
You set your mind and roll up your sleeves
You're workin' on a working man's Ph.D.
With your heart in your hands and the sweat on your brow
You build the things that really make the world go around
If it works, if it runs, if it lasts for years
You bet your bottom dollar it was made right here
With pride, honor and dignity
From a man with a working man's Ph.D.
Now there ain't no shame in a job well done
From driving a nail to driving a truck
As a matter of fact I'd like to set things straight
A few more people should be pullin' their weight
If you wanna cram course in reality
You get yourself a working man's Ph.D.
When the quittin' whistle blows and the dust settles down
There ain't no trophies or cheering crowds
You'll face yourself at the end of the day
And be damn proud of whatever you've made
Can't hang it on the wall for the world to see
But you've got yourself a working man's Ph.D.
Now there ain't no shame in a job well done
From driving a nail to driving a truck
As a matter of fact I'd like to set things straight
A few more people should be pullin' their weight
If you wanna cram course in reality
You get yourself a working man's Ph.D.
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