Gosh, Who Knew?
Jack Dunphy ·
April 2, 2012 at 6:29am
From the Los Angeles Times:
The University of California is a hotbed of leftist faculty and politically correct thinking where many students are receiving a weak and unbalanced education, according to a report by a conservative organization of professors and administrators.
Shocking.
Now if we could only see a similar report about the Los Angeles Times.
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Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
I modified your last line:
Feb '12
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
Carbon dated all the way back to the Frankfurt school .. Will they ever learn? Not in that hothouse environment.
Jun '10
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
From: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism
in the University of California (NAS Report)
http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf
Santa Barbara’s Feminist Studies 230 (“Race and Nation”) shuts the door even more firmly on any interpretations other than those already made by the instructor in this almost caricatured description: “experiences of women of color, both within the US and globally, with interlocking systems of racism, classism, sexism, homophobia/transphobia, ableism, and colonialism.”
[...]
For example, UC Santa Cruz’s Politics 72 (“The Politics of the War on Terrorism”) has a bland course description that simply spells out the scope of the course, but the course syllabus soon gets into extreme ideological prejudgment with the question: “How did Bush and Cheney build the fiction that Al Qaeda was a participant in the 9/11 attacks?” Here the instructor has dogmatically assumed a great deal that students will have to swallow to enter into the world of the course and its instructor.
[...]
A similar case on the same campus involved Sociology 108f: “Studying People at First Hand.” [...] The student wanted a basic course in field methods, and so took this one. (Cont. next)
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
Jack, a serious question: LA is such a big, fascinating city, and the LA Times is such an obviously inadequate and biased paper. What do people in your town do for news?
Jun '10
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
From: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism
in the University of California (NAS Report)
(continued)
[...] The instructor showed a series of videotapes. The first was “Women of the Hezbollah.” It showed the hardships suffered by Palestinian revolutionaries fighting for a free Palestine, and their oppression by Israelis. The second showed rebels in El Salvador fighting their oppressive U.S.-backed government.
[...]
But a student who took one of these courses (John Muir College’s DOC3) said that though the course catalog description states that this class is heavily devoted to writing, “very little writing instruction was provided.” Instead there was a great deal of radical politics: the instructor lectured the class “that the United States is nothing beyond a despicable and hypocritical country that continues to oppress minorities and the disadvantaged….. She believed that the Gulf War was a ‘revenge for the loss of Vietnam.’ She said it was just a ploy for ‘more oil.’” She gave no writing advice at all, the student complained. The readings for the course were uniformly radical politics, chosen evidently for their content, and were anything but a model of good writing or effective argumentation.
May '10
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
And right beside the Cal study...
Jun '10
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
Cute, EJ, but obviously fake. The real headline would read: Rain is Wet, Scientists Blame Climate Change.
Feb '12
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
That's nothin' EJ. You want kooky, try Sen Bob Brown leader of the Greens down under for his way out kooky speech.. Fellow Earthians
Jun '10
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
In defense of my alma mater, I studied Computer Science at Berkeley and received an excellent education. There are plenty of fluffy liberal classes if you want to take them, but there are also plenty of engineering, science, math, and philosophy classes that are rigorous and well taught. I even took an Intro to Political Science class that was surprisingly well balanced.
Aug '11
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
Joseph,
There probably are well balanced Intro to Political Science classes. I taught one. But how many years ago did you take that course?
And how do the U.S. college level science, engineering, and math classes measure up now relative to similar classes in other nations?
I think at the graduate level we still have a very strong system, but a largely and larger percentage of the graduate level science and engineering students did their K-12 and undergraduate work abroad.
Dec '11
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
EJ
In the article Science is still baffled that in this post-modernist world that people believe that rain is wet. Clearly this comes from prejudices formed by archaic thinking that there is an absolute idea of wetness. Test have shown that with proper rain wear, rain is no longer wet. The study also shows that those with a college education and high student debt were able not "to come in out of the rain" where the uneducated shown an unnatural aversion to rain. Finally, when it comes to rain most professors are "awet" on the subject.
Edited on April 2, 2012 at 8:42amJun '10
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
cbc: Joseph,
There probably are well balanced Intro to Political Science classes. I taught one. But how many years ago did you take that course?
I graduated in '98.
I skimmed through the report and was bemused to see an account on page 41 of Professor Harvey taking swipes at Bush and Schwarzenegger in intro to Comp Sci. I took two classes with him, and while I don't specifically remember him making such remarks while I was there I'm not shocked either.
But, if you live in the Bay Area, you get used to hearing stuff like that all the time, at school, at work, anywhere you go. You just learn to roll your eyes and ignore it.
My point is, Harvey was a great teacher and I learned a whole lot from him. It's silly and unprofessional to inject political rants into a CS class, but I'm not convinced it has any real impact on the overall quality of the class. And a collection of anecdotes like that doesn't add up to a very persuasive case.
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
Peter: They read the trades. And watch Jon Stewart. (Which helps explain why someone like Antonio Villaraigosa can be twice elected as mayor.)
Oct '10
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
Joseph Stanko
My point is, Harvey was a great teacher and I learned a whole lot from him. It's silly and unprofessional to inject political rants into a CS class, but I'm not convinced it has any real impact on the overall quality of the class. And a collection of anecdotes like that doesn't add up to a very persuasive case. · 6 hours ago
When considering the corrosive influence of leftist bias in academia, I wouldn't doubt that the odd prejudiced remark against conservatism by a seemingly reasonable professor has more of an effect on middle-of-the-road students than an unhinged rant. The assumptions are the taint in the air you breathe at college. Anyone not examining them is liable to vote with the herd, and then we elect an inexperienced but glamorous pol with dangerous motivations.
Jun '10
Re: Gosh, Who Knew?
Severely Ltd.
When considering the corrosive influence of leftist bias in academia, I wouldn't doubt that the odd prejudiced remark against conservatism by a seemingly reasonable professor has more of an effect on middle-of-the-road students than an unhinged rant. The assumptions are the taint in the air you breathe at college. Anyone not examining them is liable to vote with the herd, and then we elect an inexperienced but glamorous pol with dangerous motivations.
I don't doubt that the liberal bias rubs off on many students, and that's a serious political problem for us as conservatives. All I'm questioning is the assertion that this has a large impact on the quality of education.
Conservatives overstate the case when they allege that professors have replaced teaching with indoctrination, and that students no longer learn anything in college. I'm saying you can go to Cal and get a world-class education in computer science. You may well go in a moderate and come out a liberal, but you'll also emerge very well trained to enter the high-tech workforce. Where, incidentally, your new liberal views will fit right in.