Goldrick-Rab
Posted on 08/25/2015 11:51:07 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Sara Goldrick-Rab, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, caused a firestorm last month when she publicly compared her governor, Republican Scott Walker, to Adolf Hitler in a tweet.
She poured fuel on the flames by tweeting at incoming freshmen who were Walker supporters, encouraging them not to attend the school because of Walker’s education funding policies. Then, she apologized.
Now she’s promoting a class she’s teaching this fall on “scholar activism.”
The graduate seminar will “explore the biographies and narratives of a diverse array of scholar activists, examine the sociopolitical and economic forces shaping their work, and consider what they have achieved and why,” according to the syllabus.
Students will be required to create a Twitter account if they don’t have one and follow a class-specific hashtag. Goldrick-Rab includes this ominous warning about “commitment”:
You are enrolled for reasons that are both clear and unclear, and you’ll discover more about your own objectives as we move through the semester. All I require of you is honesty and commitment. … If your commitment wavers, we will all feel it and I will ask you about it.
Students will “take turns leading” interactions with guest speakers, write blog posts and interview a scholar activist of their choosing for the class project. Though Goldrick-Rab described the scholars the class will consider as “diverse,” the academics she suggests for the class project all appear to be politically progressive.
And though the guest speaker list includes the celebrated UW-Madison Professor Donald Downs, a champion of academic free speech against politically progressive predations, it has a notable absence: Professor John McAdams of nearby Marquette University.
For more than a decade McAdams has run the conservative blog Marquette Warrior, which aims to expose what he sees as the underlying rot at the Jesuit school. He’s currently fighting for his job after exposing a fellow instructor who told a student he wasn’t allowed to openly disagree with gay marriage – at a Jesuit school – in class.
McAdams is a “scholar activist” by any definition. Professor Downs has even publicly defended McAdams as Marquette tries to revoke his tenure without due process:
>>>Third, the topic addressed in Professor McAdams’ blog commentary addresses an important issue in higher education today: the status of intellectual diversity and free thought on campus. Numerous supporters and practitioners of higher education have expressed serious misgivings about the way in which improperly expansive harassment policies can stifle free discussion of sensitive intellectual and moral topics. Professor McAdams’ critique in this case dealt with this important concern.<<<
Considering that several of Goldrick-Rab’s guest speakers are coming from as far away as San Francisco and New York, getting a prominent conservative scholar less than two hours away would seem eminently doable – and a great opportunity for students to hear a lesser-known perspective.
We’ve reached out to Goldrick-Rab and McAdams to see if an offer was made, or if McAdams would accept an offer to speak to Goldrick-Rab’s class.
UPDATE: Goldrick-Rab told The College Fix that she wasn’t aware of McAdams and his plight at Marquette, and agreed he would be good example of a conservative scholar-activist to address her class. She has personally reached out to him with an invitation to speak.
This is scholarship?
Professorial malpractice anyone?
“This is scholarship?”
This is your tax dollars at work.
Do students realize that 1) they can ask teachers and professors for clarification about their class descriptions before regsitering; and 2) students don't HAVE to take classes that have sketchy or fluid requirements for grading?
My advice to all current and prospective college students...always ask yourself, "why am I taking this class, and how does it help me graduate with my intended field of study?"
And she’s the Brown Shirt drone Hilter so loved.
She’s so “brilliant” she can’t see the obvious...
Abolish government schools.
Navel-gazing, tautological nonsense. Sociology as a "science" seems to have run its course. Just abolish it.
This “professor” is an activist, not a scholar.
This is why Walker has been going after Big Education.
Take a minute and check this out:
Wisconsin Idea -- In Education, Politics, and Media.
"For more than a century, the university system has been guided by the Wisconsin Idea,..." [We're talking ALL university systems!]
"The Wisconsin Idea is the policy developed in the American state of Wisconsin that fosters public universities' contributions to the state: "to the government in the forms of serving in office, offering advice about public policy, providing information and exercising technical skill, and to the citizens in the forms of doing research directed at solving problems that are important to the state and conducting outreach activities".
A second facet of the philosophy is the effort "to ensure well-constructed legislation aimed at benefiting the greatest number of people". During the Progressive Era, proponents of the Wisconsin Idea saw the state as "the laboratory for democracy", resulting in legislation that served as a model for other states and the federal government...."
That's happened at a few colleges and universities. And, in many sociology departments that remain in existence, there is a new generation of faculty who are more conservative than the older, retired (or near retirement-age) generation.
Ah, Walker wants the faculties to actually teach students relevant skills to their being able to do ‘real work’ rather then how to be ‘suckers from the state teat.’
Imagine that.
Goldrick-Rab
I think that it is vitally important that we take back our education system from those who stole it and use the federal dollars for their own political agenda.
We should instill a strong civics awareness in our kids, that sees them loyal to the nation in a reasoned manner.
I’m not talking capitulating indoctrination here. I’m merely suggesting a return to studying the nation’s contribution to the world in a positive manner.
Our warts can be studied in our universities, but they should be taken in context too, so that the nation isn’t in danger of being fallen in on by Leftist who wish to destroy it.
We should see our weaknesses to correct them, but that isn’t what is going on today.
They want to take down Capitalist Free Enterprise and replace it with socialism/communism even islamism.
It needs to stop.
If Walker has a plan to address this, I support it in general before I know the particulars. I might not be as positive, or I might be more positive once I know the particulars.
That sort of blew up in my face!
What is it about her?
I know. It’s like a black widow ready to mate.
Fair enough.
= :^)
: )
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