Re: however, this is a tragic situation

Responses below.

Yocum Daniel GS 21 CES/CEOE wrote:

>I am speaking about Humanities Jim. Go back and re-read my post.
>

Sorry about that, I may have missed that. But the criticism of the
content of the articles is still the same, and I'm not quite sure why
-only- looking at humanities (and, I suppose, social sciences) is so
important.

> I read my
>sources, but why do you look for rationalizations?
>
I'm not looking for rationalizations -- there's nothing to rationalize.
I'm looking at the sources, at some fundamental dishonesty in
representing the data in the sources (which I hope would bother you
too), and what the source data really tells us.

> Jim, you play the
>adversary's advocate well. So, Jim, why doesn't one of these prestigious
>elite big city universities conduct a rigorous study?
>
How do you know they haven't?

> You try to associate
>Big cities with Liberal schools but why should the faculty, presumably
>recruited from across the country reflect the tendencies of the city?
>

Trustees money, donors money, corporate money, student demographics
(parents are paying for a lot of this, after alll), etc.

> If
>diversity mattered then why doesn't these big city universities recruit
>faculty that does not fall into city demographics?
>

I think that's a legitimate question. I think the answer is:

Diversity has been defined ethnically and socially, but not
politically. That may be a real problem, but if you read all those
articles you'd see one that was very critical of defining diversity
politically. This would create an environment in which people were
specifically and institutionally singled out for their political ideas,
which I think is a very dangerous thing in any context.

> You mention community
>colleges and private schools but these institutions with a few exceptions
>are minor players in Academia as a whole.
>

What do you mean by "minor players"? I hope you're not talking about
sheer numbers of students. They're hardly minor players there.

> Many community colleges don't
>hire PHD types
>

That's changing drastically these days as many Ph.D.s can't get tenure
track jobs at large research universities, or even small 4 year liberal
arts colleges.

> nor do research or work directly advancing the field nor do
>many of them offer more than an associate and the few who offer Bachelor's
>do so in limited fields but an appeal to include these with the primary
>research grant receiving schools is a poor attempt at trying to dodge the
>issue.
>

Ok, I see what you mean by "minor players."

You're appear very dishonest, Daniel, because it seems you're trying to
"change the issue" -- and the issue has been, I believe (from reading
your posts and these articles), the type of influence universities are
having on our kids. Many of the articles used somewhat paranoid
language to talk about the way universities were "indoctrinating our
kids" -- and these are articles -you- provided links to, Daniel. You've
never mentioned in any previous posts research grants, Ph.D's, degrees
granted, etc. The focus has been on the biases of people teaching our
kids, and an image of the university as a place of political
indoctrination.

Since community colleges and small private colleges and universities do
teach a substantial number of our kids (including the numbers that wind
up in state U's after transferring from these), if we want to talk about
the national educational situation we need to include these institutions
as well.

> Private schools run the gambit based upon their charter for
>existence but again many have similar faculties to community colleges and
>many are religious and so their bias or commitments are overt and not
>covert.
>
That's more of a point, at least with the private schools.

> also, where the major universities lead the small schools and
>community colleges often follow in a few decades. You mention that many of
>the posts are anecdotal but it is the sum of the anecdotes that start adding
>up to a case.
>

I'm pretty sure I commented on the nature of the statistical data in my
previous post. The sum of anecdotal data? We don't know it. I know the
world described in those articles and the world I've lived in are two
different worlds. Stats are probably all we can really go on here.

> You or John's isolated personal experience could matter if you
>collected them as well. Statistical surveys are often anecdotes added up.
>One worm per bushel does not make an infestation but one worm per apple is
>much closer. You seem to come up with plenty of argumentation against but
>in your middle ground, we are yet to see you argue for, but that depends
>upon where the middle is and the middle depends upon the ends.
>Daniel
>

What I argue for? What the heck are you talking about? Is there
anything here that requires a "stance"? You think I'm somehow
straddling the fence because I identify BS when I see it?

Come on :).

Do you want to know what I stand for? I stand for honesty in reporting,
which usually means against most mass media.

Jim

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Received on Mon Sep 29 17:15:10 2003