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College Daze
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Topic Started: Jun 2 2012, 08:57 AM (267 Views)
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Quasimodo
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Jun 2 2012, 08:57 AM
Post #1
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http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/good_old_college_school_daze.html
June 2, 2012 Good Old College School Daze By Mary Durbin
When I receive my college alumnae magazine in the mail, I scan it more than actually read it. The professors I knew are long retired; I have lost touch with many of my friends; the only large amounts of money I ever gave were in the form of tuition payments, so I will never see my name highlighted as a major donor. I follow major-league baseball; the articles on the field hockey and soccer teams don't interest me.
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The hypocrisy of the college administration is astonishing. They seem to forget that without the hated "1%," they, like many other college and universities, wouldn't survive. What was even more ridiculous is that the editors of magazine also included an article in the same issue about the business success and philanthropic activities of one of the alumnae. The irony obviously escaped them. I tried reading about the other symposia, but just became more enraged as I came to realize that when the college's president touted that a college education is about "formulating a broad range of ideas," she really meant to say that attending college is about formulating only liberal, progressive ideas.
I wrote a letter to the editor to complain. I do not expect a response. I am not a big donor and obviously not of the correct political persuasion. I am just a former student who feels cheated of her memories of a place where, long ago, ivy-covered walls welcomed us all.
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Quasimodo
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Jun 2 2012, 08:58 AM
Post #2
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Over the years, I have watched my alma mater, once a very prestigious engineering school, transmogrify into a liberal arts college. It's disgusting. When I attended, there were a handful of angry leftist nuts on the arts and science faculty, but now they virtually run the place. Engineering is a small sidelight, it seems. They have uglyifed the campus with many huge, sprawling, expensive buildings, bloated the administration with layers of petty fiefdoms, raised tuition to truly outrageous rip-off levels, built and staffed many balkanized "victim centers" for every imaginable minority (which mostly stand empty), and forced all students to abide by an ever-changing communist "social policy." At one point, they even banned students from flying the American flag on campus, concerned that it might offend foreign students. The almuni magazine recently interviewed Jessie Jackson.
I used to be proud of all the hard work it took to earn a degree from that place, but I really don't appreciate what the school's leftist administration has done to actively destroy its reputation, thus denigrating my hard work. They shall receive no donations from me.
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Quasimodo
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Jun 2 2012, 09:00 AM
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Several years ago, my alma mater had the intellectual lightweight Cornell West come speak on campus. A few months later I received my alumni newsletter describing the event and it quoted a freshman girl, practically in tears, with something like this:
"I... didn't realize... until now.... that we are such a racist country..."
Fine, but how about bringing Thomas Sowell on campus to debate this phony? No, can't have a CONSERVATIVE speak on campus. Notice I didn't say ban Cornell West, but counter his viewpoints. The left only bans. So much for academic freedom, or the marketplace of ideas.
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Quasimodo
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Jun 2 2012, 09:01 AM
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Sorry. Reading the above quickly I naturally thought it was about Duke...
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kbp
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Jun 2 2012, 09:46 AM
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Barry's 'divide and conquer' may backfire.
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Quasimodo
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Jun 2 2012, 10:05 AM
Post #6
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http://www.metronc.com/between_issues/index.aspx
Filter :
Why Tenure Harms Education
By Bernie Reeves
Feb. 22, 2012 As Ohio State University President Gordon Gee realizes in his recent call to study whether or not tenure should be modified or abolished, a guaranteed job for life for academics annoys most people. This negative feeling has been exacerbated in the last 30 years during the rise of the radical scholars in liberal arts departments in most colleges and universities. Once ensconced in their ivy towers, tenured activists are granted a free ride to propagandize students and make public pronouncements behind the skirts of the university. The Ward Churchill scandal at the University of Colorado is a sadly common example of professors politicizing and poisoning the commonweal.
But it is within academe, out of the glare of the media, that radical scholars do the most damage. In case after case, qualified scholars are either refused tenure or never hired because they do not adhere to the leftist party line. At Duke in the mid-90s, an American History professor – who served in the Army in Vietnam – assumed his academic career was unimpeded, until the agit-prop started to deny tenure.
Radical professors set out to destroy him with innuendo, whispering that he was chauvinist, racist, homophobic and imperialistic – the code words that strike fear in university administrators. There was no proof he was any of these labels, but the damage to his reputation was becoming permanent as the drums grew louder. The professor picked up on the slander and decided to accept a position offered from the University of Kentucky to remove himself from the machinations of the Duke apparat.
Undeterred, the radical scholars intensified and transferred their campaign to Kentucky. With anonymous phone calls and unsigned letters, they mobilized their comrades in the Blue Grass state to vilify the professor. The president of the University of Kentucky capitulated and the job offer was withdrawn. The professor finally found a position at West Point.
Running off scholars they don’t like advances the cause of the radical scholars, but even more effective is the campaign to block potential heretics from entering the teaching ranks at all. This happened to a Harvard history genius who earned his PhD at UK’s Cambridge University (where, by the way, there is no tenure), making him imminently qualified with enviable credentials. He applied to Georgetown and the Air Force Academy for an entrance level teaching job, only to be told he “just wouldn’t fit in” - the euphemism adopted by the radical scholars that actually means you are not one of us. He now teaches at Marine University, and two schools lost the services of one of the country’s top military scholars.
Duke has allegedly weeded out some of the most pernicious of the radical scholars that infiltrated the school in the 80s and 90s – including the notorious radical Stanley Fish. But during the Duke Lacrosse incident, a group from the remaining leftist culprits publically attempted to destroy the reputation of the five team members by signing a newspaper ad as part of the now discredited Group of 88 that allegedly represented the views of the Duke academic family. Thus, despite the effort at cleansing, it is clear the school remains stuck with a phalanx of politically correct, socialist professors who hide behind tenure to affect university and public policy.
Professors are realizing the radical scholars are jeopardizing their cozy life sinecures, but it could be too late. The public is outraged at their antics and appalled that graduates from top-tier schools are functionally ignorant of the world around them. Instead, they have been inculcated with warmed-over anti-American and Marxist platitudes due to the intrigues of the radical – and often tenured – scholars who still hold sway in the liberal arts.
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No wonder teacher unions have enormous sway. The mediocre gravitate to solidarity to mask their incompetence. And teacher unions are rarely interested in improving academic performance, instead focusing on legislative lobbying to increase salaries and benefits totally unrelated to educating kids
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