Posted on 10/12/2001 5:58:42 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
This is a tale of two college campuses and a Rorschach test for Americans to decide where they fit along the nation's cultural divide.
It's corny vs. cool, instinctive patriotism vs. deeply ingrained political correctness.
It's Texas A&M vs. Harvard. Despite my Harvard background, I come down squarely with the Aggies.
My guess is that most Americans will, too, even those who might be embarrassed to admit it, until they think about the two schools and themselves.
Harvard ended funding for, and kicked off campus, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, which provides financial aid to students who receive training and become military officers. It did so in 1995 because the Pentagon prohibits homosexuals from openly serving in the military.
Harvard, whose students can take ROTC at nearby schools, apparently believes that promoting gay rights takes precedence over the national defense.
At A&M, the military is part of a culture that reveres family, football and, in times past, making fun of New Yorkers.
But after the Sept. 11 attack, students at the working-class university devised a uniquely Aggie way to raise more than $150,000 for the victims, most of whom are from New York. Harvard students, with presumably greater financial resources, did nothing comparable.
A&M students sold 70,000-plus T-shirts proclaiming "Standing Up For America," in patriotic colors. The school's triple-decker, 82,000-seat football stadium was color-coded, the top in red, middle in white and the bottom in blue for the next game. It was one patriotic television picture.
Admittedly, these are not exact comparisons, but the anecdotes illustrate the cultural differences between Harvard and A&M, and, to an uncomfortable degree, between Ivy League elites and most of America.
Harvard is, well, Harvard, the nation's most-prestigious university. But it's a snooty place where many, although by no means all, look down on the rest of America as intellectually inferior and unsophisticated.
I spent two semesters there as a Neiman Fellow, taking advantage of a generous university program that allows mid-career journalists to sample its rich academic offerings.
At the time, shortly after Ronald Reagan's election as president, the campus consensus was that he had duped the country. Americans, the Harvard group-think argued, would return to traditional liberalism soon. That view was out of touch then, as now.
Fast-forward to today, when Harvard is among elite colleges where the view that U.S. foreign policy gave Osama bin Laden reason for his terrorism appears to be more than a fringe opinion. The Associated Press reports that "a recent peace rally [on campus] drew several times more students than a patriotism rally."
At A&M, this year rated the nation's 15th best public university by U.S. News & World Report, the T-shirts symbolize an instinctive belief in America and its values. Students and faculty there have the common sense to distinquish between foreign policy and murder.
The reality is that the comparison between Harvard and Texas A&M illustrates the heirarcy of institutional values.
At Harvard -- and I'm being generous to the school's students and faculty -- there is an underlying skepticism about the virtues of the U.S. military and unabashed patriotism. Some argue that hostility is a more accurate term.
Many at Harvard and similar institutions say that most Americans don't understand the complex nature of the issue. But they're wrong. Sometimes things are as simple as they seem.
The Harvard detachment from the military, symbolized by its looney ROTC policy, is one reason that students, faculty and administrators take an academic view of the situation. Many see flag-waving patriotism as wrongly judgmental about the superiority of the American way of life.
And Harvard is not alone. Other elite educational institutions, such as Yale and Cal-Berkeley, display similar attitudes, especially when compared with most of the nation's campuses and communities.
At A&M, as in most of America, the students and faculty believe national defense takes priority over pushing gay rights. And despite, what some of my liberal friends will argue, this view has nothing to do with anti-gay bigotry.
It has to do with common sense. When the nation is attacked, internal squabbles about policy nuances pale in comparison.
Times like these make me wish Harvard played serious football so I could root against them on TV. You can be sure that I will be pulling for the Aggies.
Peter A. Brown can be reached at 407-420-5276 or pbrown@orlandosentinel.com Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel
Harvard's wholesale honor roll © St. Petersburg Times, published October 12, 2001 (Full Text Below)
Harvard apparently has the most above-average students this side of Lake Woebegon. More than 90 percent of last year's senior class graduated with honors, maintaining at least a B average. We're more interested in what happened to the 9 percent who graduated without honors. Had they quit attending class three years earlier? Were they in jail? Or Yale?
Harvard selects its student body from among the top young scholars in the country, but so do many other top universities. At other Ivy League schools, the seniors graduating with honors ranged from 51 percent at Yale to 8 percent at Cornell. Only 20 percent of Stanford's seniors graduated with honors. The rate was 28 percent at Duke and 35 percent at Johns Hopkins. Did Harvard's seniors perform that much better than their peers? Or has grade inflation gotten even more out of hand at Harvard than at other top universities?
The most pernicious effect of grade inflation is the blurring of the lines between truly outstanding academic performance and merely satisfactory work. At many elite universities, failing a class is virtually impossible, and even the gentleman's C's that President Bush claims to have compiled at Yale have become endangered species.
Grades -- and honors -- should mean something. If nothing else, Harvard should consider copying the policy of its neighbor, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which doesn't award graduating honors, on the theory that an MIT diploma is distinction enough.
Bump!
Bump!
My daughter has always been a good student and will probably graduate with honors even though she took a couple of hits on her grades by refusing to read Al Gores book (Silent Spring?) in one of her classes and speaking out against a Professor who was lecturing some crap about the white male culture being responsbile for all the woes in the world.
The values of most of the student body at A&M is distinctly conservative, but not so for many of the Professors who teach there.
Gig 'em Ags!
Aggies have great parents but they need to learn about those LIBERALS lurking in the world. They can cut their teeth on those professors.
Congratulations to your daughther, and to you!
Aggie Mama Class of '93
This is because the elite universities no longer exist to educate students. Instead, it has evolved into a massive patronage scam for the children of elite society, particularly at the undergraduate level. Some of the stupidest people I have ever had to deal with in my life are people that graduated Harvard or Yale in the last 10-15 years. They went there because of who mommy or daddy knows, or bought, and their entire four years was one big party, after which they were handed a meaningless diploma, but a meaningless diploma that said "Harvard" or "Yale" on it, which for some sad reason is enough to impress many people. And it automatically identifies them as An Elite, which grants them carte blanche to the East Coast snob industry, particularly the New York media industry, where they are granted entrance immediately at age 22 and put on the career fast track, without the least regard to actual ability.
It is the world's biggest scam, and the faster the rest of the country figures that out and stops treating these people as gods, the better.
I was much heartened by George ("Bush...Texas...Cheeseburger") Bush's press conference last night. He easily and handily rolled over the hostiles in the audience.
P.S. Given that unmitigated arrogance is a prime and consistent indication of a liberal mind-set, where does that put Bill O'Reilly (FNC)? I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever cheer on Charlie Wrangle! Mercy!
Muster--[Excerpt] Still remembering and honoring the time spent in Aggieland, the tradition of mustering has grown in strength, meaning, and spirit. By 1929, meeting had grown worldwide, and in 1942 Aggie Muster gained international recognition. Twenty-five men, led by General George Moore '08, mustered during the Japanese Siege of the Philippine island of Corregidor. Knowing that Muster might soon be called for them, these Aggies embodied the essence of commitment, dedication, and friendship- the Aggie Spirit. They risked their lives to honor their beliefs and values. That small group of Aggies on an outpost during World War II inspired what has developed into one of our greatest traditions. [End Excerpt]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.