Posted on 05/07/2007 9:17:22 AM PDT by george76
A couple of years back, the University of Colorado forged a nonbinding agreement with legislators, promising to protect and nurture ideological diversity on campus.
In fact, it was only last month that CU president Hank Brown expressed his apprehension to regents about the lack of movement on this front.
Well, if Brown is serious about this endeavor, he should make it a priority to investigate the firing of social conservative CU instructor Phil Mitchell - and not for the reasons you may suspect.
Mitchell, whose plight I first wrote about two years ago, believes that publicity surrounding CU's initial attempt to fire him saved his job.
But now, CU is giving Mitchell the boot after more than 20 years on the job in Boulder. And the university isn't backing down.
Mitchell, a father of nine, is a sharp, pleasant and generous man.
It's hard not to like him.
He's also a devout Christian who alleges that CU's actions are a transparent case of political and religious discrimination against a social conservative.
For a school still in the process of rehabilitating a somewhat rickety image, these charges should be taken seriously.
Sure, if CU featured more political flavors on the faculty, few would have any reason to wonder why administrators fired one of the few right-wing faculty members on campus.
(Excerpt) Read more at denverpost.com ...
Last I heard.
.
Anyone who believes that UC Boulder is more concerned about providing a high-quality education than in teaching left-wing propaganda must also believe that Bill Clinton never inhaled.
Now, as to the facts of this guy, typically the reporter doesn't provide necessary information.
1) Was this a lectureship? If so, ALL lectureships are one-year renewable, and we let people go all the time for all sorts of reasons. Often they are budgetary. Sometimes, they are ok instructors, but flat-out fail to do basic things like turn in grades, meet with students, whatever.
2) Was this a tenure/tenure-track job? If so, like it or not, you are REQUIRED to publish. People here can complain about it, but it is a fact of university life. It's like a welder being required to weld. If he was not doing so, he should have been released. It's been my 25-year experience that you can be a "good" teacher for about 2-3 years without publishing. That is because publishing FORCES you to keep up with the field, to read the books and reviews, to look at the new evidence. Unless you publish, it's my experience that people do NOT keep up with the field, then soon the person is is teaching stuff that is flat out of date, or disproven by newly-uncovered facts.
So there may be more to this case than is being reported. I know at our school, a lecturer who has high evals like this--AND who does the requirements, such as meeting with students, turning grades in, etc.---will always have a job.
I believe that Ward is still getting his pay checks, benefits, etc...
As I remember, CU took away his classes.
Thus Ward is on extended paid vacation ?
I will check further, as I am not sure what is up this week.
20 years and no tenure? Isn’t that unusual?
And, isn’t something similar happening to Mike Adams?
David Harsanyi is a lonely shining star in an ocean of liberal waste matter known as The Denver Post.
Roger that :
David Harsanyi is a lonely shining star in an ocean of liberal waste matter known as The Denver Post.
But if you publish something that is politically incorrect even if it is a serious academic article in a peer reviewed journal, your job could be at risk.
I do not know the details but Ward had no trouble getting tenure.
( Ward did not have a Phd, the years...but Ward knew the ‘pc’ people and said the pc stuff )
Who needs Ipecac when you have people who can write stuff like that?
Who's he? I canceled my Post subscription years ago. I just couldn't stomach facing Spencer or Carman nearly every morning.
Ward published others work as if it was his own.
Ward footnoted himself...
Ward made lots of stuff up that never happened and that he could not footnote.
Thus he met the CU standards for tenure ?
/s
I canceled my subscription to DU Post long ago. They keep on calling me with their offers and do not understand my ‘no.’.
Sometimes I scan their website.
Liberalism on display.
It would be easier to take this seriously if the article provided even one iota of information about what the man specifically claims is why he’s being fired at this time. All I see here is that he’s a “social conservative”. What has he done in the classroom? What is he alleged to have done in the classroom? If his faculty evaluations were poor, in what specific areas were they poor?
But I've published more than 40 articles, 75 book reviews, and 25 books, many with respected university presses, and haven't ever had a problem.
What really happens is this: the nature of much (not all) research in the humanities and social sciences is such that it demands you address "class/race/gender," or at least challenge the existing literature on such a basis. So one way or another they get their little point of view in.
But in the case of major public figures---TR, Andrew Jackson, Nixon---nothing tops having new letters or journals that give new insight. Any press, even Oxford, Harvard, or whoever, HAS to publish such new stuff.
Any local updates on the firing of social conservative CU instructor Phil Mitchell ?
Did you see this ?
This is the latest I could find :
Mitchell, who holds a doctorate in American social history from CU and began teaching history here in 1984, also won the SOAR Award for teacher of the year in 1998.
(But then again, Ward Churchill - who’s still pulling a CU check - was given exceptional student grades, as well.)
“We’ve never contested that Dr. Mitchell was a popular instructor and that he’s (an) immensely likable gentleman. That’s how most people around here would characterize him,” CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard...
No, I didn’t WHY can’t they get rid of this doofus? Thanks for pinging me.
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