Faculty: 97 percent for Kerry
 

According to today's Wall Street Journal and a Harvard prof, last spring it was published that Harvard faculty members had given $150,000 to the Kerry campaign, and $8,000 to the Bush efforts.

At other campus, percent of campus donations to Kerry:

Cornell - 93%
Dartmouth - 97%
Yale - 93%
Brown - 89%

The largest single employee group giving:

#1 - Univ. of California system
#2 - Harvard

Does anyone think these liberal faculty members could be "fair and balanced" in their classrooms?

Re: Faculty: 97 percent for Kerry
 

Some yes
Some no

Re: Faculty: 97 percent for Kerry
 

To generalize horribly...

People who teach subject like Math, Science, English etc can probably be "fair and balanced" in terms of political bias mostly because the topics of politics rarely come up.

As for faculty that teach political or societial subjects - I've yet to ever see one that is truly "fair and balanced" - regardless of where on the political spectrum they fall. Part of university is learning to recognize these biases and disregard them when appropriate. To attempt to control anything in the classroom creates large academic freedom issues at the university level.

I was once taught polisci by a man who was a marxist. It was fun because he never would admit to it, but then would talk about the failings of capitalism and the conservative liberalists. I always expected him to start talking about how communism in Russia "could have worked" but he never quite said that.

Re: Faculty: 97 percent for Kerry
 

I don't know, there might be a liberal slant when the professor starts talking about computer science.

Re: Re: Faculty: 97 percent for Kerry
 

Umm actually I can see all those subjects being affected by political bias - although not really math.

-Rudey

Re: Re: Re: Faculty: 97 percent for Kerry
 

Ei, you're right... I guess I should have said "possibly" instead of "probably".

Re: Re: Faculty: 97 percent for Kerry
 

I not really suprised... guessing he was a older or tenured professor. After all the 60s-70s saw the rise of Marxist theory applied to most humanties or social science - or re-interpreting everything as aspects of "class struggle". Luckily these professors are slowing fading out, and a return to a more academically un-biased approach (of course personal beliefs tend to still leach in... such as in my Modern Middle East History course or my Modern Irish History course).

Few of these people have held jobs in the private sector for any length of time. Of course they come to look at government as only benevolent and wise.

While sad, it merely confirms the assertions of those who are on the right. Such a cumulative outlook from one position has a chilling effect on the free movement of ideas, and actually has an effect of depriving students to an exposure to all positions and stances on an issue.

What they used to call a "well-rounded" education.

I don't expect college faculty to be fair and balanced. Once you are in college, you should be able to seperate opinion from fact and use that forum to develop new theories and ideas. High School teachers should be balanced and non-partisan, but college faculty? Not really. Half the fun is seeing what they believe and fidning out the other side of the story.

Re: Faculty: 97 percent for Kerry
 

I agree with "some yes, some no."

Now, according to Broadcasting and Cable Magazine, Bob Wright, President of NBC; Rupert Murdoch, owner of NewsCorp and FOX and David Smith, CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting all are fairly substantial GOP supporters.

Can they be "fair and ballanced" in their businesses?

Some yes, some no.

The faculty at the University of California systems are not fair and balanced at all. I had to change my major from Poli Sci due to the utter partisan politics. I actually had a professor call me an idiot because i supported the war in Iraq.

I sincerely hope you told this person that you were paying for his services - it's called tuition - and that you have every right to judge the quality of the product you are buying. He or she is nothing more than a commodity, and you are the consumer.

When you paid your tuition, you did not sign away your rights to your own opinion.

Unfortunately, most faculty care more about keeping their publication rate up (publications=grants=tenure=$$$) than they do about one or two or 20 students. It's the unfortunately concequence of research based institutions like most large universities.

And... the university administration will rarely come down on faculty for what they say to students for fear they will scare away desirable potential faculty from their institution (less good faculty = less grants = less $$$). They know students want degrees from their organization and thus, if they loose one or two students from such situations who cares? They'll just admit a couple more to make up for them.

Disgusting yes? but that's how it is at many many universities....

eta: wow.... my bitter university student voice came out pretty clear here

[QUOTE]Originally posted by kappaloo
[B]Unfortunately, most faculty care more about keeping their publication rate up (publications=grants=tenure=$$$) than they do about one or two or 20 students. It's the unfortunately concequence of research based institutions like most large universities.

And... the university administration will rarely come down on faculty for what they say to students for fear they will scare away desirable potential faculty from their institution (less good faculty = less grants = less $$$). They know students want degrees from their organization and thus, if they loose one or two students from such situations who cares? They'll just admit a couple more to make up for them.

Disgusting yes? but that's how it is at many many universities....

I actually agree, and it is disgusting. :mad:

devil's advocate
 

Publications are very useful!
Writing and thinking is a huge part of why universities exist. Your tuition not only goes to paying for your education, but to support scholarship in general. If you want a more hands-on education, you can find one. Yes, you need to be taught (and I have run across my fair share of poor teaching in a research university), but faculty are there to have opinions and write about them just as much as you are there to learn. Faculty don't exist to tell students they are right. If a prof disagreed with my point of view, I would expect them to challenge me, and make me defend myself. That's how you learn!