I knew it would happen. I guess I need to get a laptop and wireless connection because I'm sure not going to sit in here and do this every night when the warm summer evenings beckon. But I did some reading and came across some interesting items online. Meanwhile, my outdoor reading of choice the last few days was a reread of Rush's The Way Things Ought To Be...interesting to see how things have changed 13 years hence.
The big national news tonight is the Senate confirming Janice Rogers Brown and moving on William Pryor's nomination to the bench. I believe he is the last of the three "sacrificial" nominees the D's caved on in their dirty deal with the Sellout Seven. So, after this, look for the long knives of extreme circumstance to come out. Please, Senator Frist, throw one of the abandoned nominees out. I want to see the carnage.
But I ran across an op-ed by David Horowitz I had some thoughts on. It got me to thinking about school days...not all my own, but flashbacks to my ex-wife's second college career (she graduated from the University of Toledo in 1998 after attending Ohio University in the early 1980's. That stopped when she had my stepdaughter.)
She majored in social work at UT, and was told she was "too conservative to be a good social worker" by faculty there. Now, I remember one thing about a woman I was married to for 11 1/2 years, and that's the fact she's nowhere near as right-wing as I am. I would place her maybe a little left of center, moreso now since she works for a quasi-governmental agency. But after just a few trips into her classroom building, I found out just how loony left her instructors were. Even in the era of Clinton, they thought he was way too right-wing. Mention Bush or Reagan and you were an extremist.
Now, I went to Miami University back in the mid-'80's. It was (and is to an extent) considered one of the more conservative places to get an education. I had a roommate who was a College Republican and ROTC...that was not frowned upon at MU during that time.
But, a lot of my classes (and my home for the first 2 years) were over at the old Western College, where MU has its School of Interdisciplinary Studies. This was the former Western College that was annexed into Miami in the early 1970's. And it was widely acknowleged on campus during this Reagan era that "over there at Western is where all the tree-huggers hang out." Trust me, they were right.
Since then, though, when I get the alumni magazine, I find those tree-huggers have spread throughout campus. "Diversity" seems to be the watchword there. Miami's proud of being the top recycling school in the country. I'm more proud of being defending MAC East champions in football, basketball, AND baseball, plus winning the MAC all-sports trophy for the 23rd time since 1958. It may not be relevant to anyone else, but neither is recycling to me.
What's important to me is that they did a reasonable job educating me, or at least taught me how to learn for myself to an extent. The idea behind a good university is not to teach one about multiculturalism or diversity or whatever the academic fad of the time is - the idea is to teach one to teach himself by enhancing their critical thinking skills.
I will say that MU did all right at that, even with their professors being mostly left-wing. But there were some attempts at showing the right side back then. Now any conservative idea is dismissed as "extremist" on a typical college campus. Ask Ann Coulter about her general reception on college campuses. Same goes for onetime leftist David Horowitz. So much for a diversity of thought.
The part that I dislike most about college c. 2005 is that on the one hand they whine and complain that the government doesn't support them enough (here's one typical example from Michigan) which makes costs continue to skyrocket. What they don't tell you is that a large portion of the student's cost is paid by other government programs that saddle the student with debt for years. So colleges still get their money to pay for large administrative salaries, Taj Mahal-like student centers, and bringing radical lefties to graduations like these speakers from 2004.
On the other hand, many of the students they attract and put deep into debt need to take remedial courses to get to a basic freshman level. While some of this is by state mandate, colleges rarely reject applicants meeting a minimum state standard whether they are ready for college or not. To State U., it's all good because the tuition and fees still spend whether the student was in National Honor Society and a 4.0+ student in school or barely passed the SAT after a 2.5 high school career.
What I would like to see is college become tough again, basically something that is earned through hard work and scholarship. Of course, this may discourage the radical leftists because those who work hard for academic success may already have critical thinking skills and reject the propaganda espoused by academia, or at least give it an honest challenge. If it means college enrollment drops in half, so be it. I think many are better suited for something along the lines of a community college or technical school; not that they are dumb, but perhaps a vocational line of education better suits their career goals.
Then we can eliminate the deadwood in the ivory towers, get a more balanced educational system, and save the taxpayers who pay for all the extra bells and whistles found at most universities.
A controversial view? Yes. Do I come across as elitist for denying some an opportunity I had? Probably. But, it is "higher" education. That implies that a higher standard be the norm. Besides, there's no rule that says a college education equates to success. I mentioned at the beginning reading Rush Limbaugh's book - he was a college dropout who made his fortune through hard work and dedication, not by a diploma on the wall. The hard work is what generally leads to success.
I think if we go back to making a college education meaningful, the academic branch of the left wing will be subdued. Until then, the average college has become no more than an indoctrination camp.
