Higher Education

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Higher Education Theatre of the Absurd

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/higher_education_theatre_of_the_absurd.html

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“Almost everything about the modern university is a paradox.”

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/a-most-peculiar-institution/?print=1

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“Welcome to the modern Academy, the seat of opinion-based ‘education’.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/m-opinion_rex.html#.UtFd9Y9JZjU.email

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“The intellectual climate in the typical university today is an odd mix of skepticism and dogmatism, moral permissiveness and moral indignation… Truth is seen as relative [and subjectively constructed]. In the university, professors employ what they call a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion‘ to cast doubt and infer a sinister power motive in whatever they are studying. In the classroom, part of their task is to liberate their students from the stifling and oppressive belief systems imposed upon them by their parents. Education becomes ‘deconstructing‘ these harmful cultural constructions and then ‘constructing‘ alternatives that ‘empower‘ the individual or the oppressed group to which he belongs. A whole scholarly industry has grown up around these claims. For example, an ‘Afro-centric‘ approach to history arose, maintaining that Western civilization did not originate with the Greeks, as has traditionally been thought. Rather, Africa is the actual cradle of civilization. Alexandria in Egypt, with its great library and academies, is the true origin of learning, not Athens, which simply plundered the ideas of the African sages. Then a classical — and classicist — historian pointed out that Alexandria was founded by the Greco-Macedonian Alexander the Great. Alexander was tutored by Aristotle. Plato and Aristotle could not have stolen their ideas from Alexandria, since it didn’t exist until Alexander built it. You are missing the point, the classical historian was told, in effect. You are quibbling over mere facts. Afro-centric history exists to empower African-Americans. In denying their right to their own construction of history, you are being racist and continuing the pattern of Western scholarship exercising imperialism over marginalized groups. Another example can be seen in the rise of feminist history, which teaches that European tribes lived peacefully in a matriarchal society, ruled by women and inspired by worship of the goddess. Then came the patriarchal invaders, with their warfare, hierarchies, and male gods. Ever since then, Western civilization has been plagued by the evils of patriarchy. Women, though, can be empowered by rebelling against this system and recovering the goddess within. Again, classicist scholars have shown that there is no evidence of any such invasion and that matriarchal societies with goddesses often treat women worse than anyone (since they often value women solely for their fertility). Not surprisingly, this is said to miss the point, which is not actual history but empowering women today… All truth is not really a construction, but those who believe that it is are certainly guilty of constructing truths that, despite their ‘plausibility,’ collapse when anyone looks at them closely. Everything cannot be reduced to the imposition of oppressive power, but those who believe it tend to impose their oppressive power on others. This [anti-intellectualism obviously] poisons the [supposedly] academic climate [of the universities]… Relativism [therefore] represents the death of the intellect and the destruction of education.”
— Gene Edward Veith, Provost and Professor of Literature (emeritus), Patrick Henry College

https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2010/11/relativism/

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“…skyrocketing tuitions and student-loan debt, as well as poor student learning and administrative bloat, signal a deep, systemic crisis in higher education…”

www.texaspolicy.com/sites/default/files/documents/2013-12-PP34-12MythsHigherEducation-CHE-TomLindsay.pdf

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3 Reasons Higher Education Is Broken — and How To Fix It

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/05/15/3-reasons-higher-education-is-broken-and-how-to-fix-it/?print=1

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The university has become a rogue institution in need of root-and-branch reform.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/367689/print

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Politics:

SURVEY: Capitalism Often Maligned, Ignored at Many Colleges

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/14465/

and…

“… only 4 percent of public doctoral institution presidents support Republicans, and not a single private doctoral university president sides currently with Republican policy.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/taking_back_the_academy.html

and…

“… the political narrative that most of our colleges [proffer is]: America is an unjust nation that has an endless amount of atoning ahead for the ways it has exploited the weak, the poor, and minorities.”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/08/19/the-compromised-life-of-common-reading-programs/

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“Unfortunately, too many campuses fail to measure up to these ideals.”

http://www.realclearpolicy.com/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2014/01/09/a_new_year_for_student_rights_791.html

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Student Anti-Intellectualism and the Dumbing Down of the University

http://mtprof.msun.edu/spr1997/TROUT-ST.html

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13 of the Most Outrageously Dumb Campus Moments of 2013

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/15729/

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Study suggests online courses as good as classroom

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/05/21/findings-give-boost-online-classes/qtokLQeQZvE85EMzSBG6PM/story.html

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Check Out This Taxpayer Funded, Public University’s Art Exhibit

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/14763/print/

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Race:

Racism and the PC Inquisition

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/racism_and_the_pc_inquisition.html

and…

Black Studies and the Totalitarian Mind

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/17/black-studies-and-the-totalitarian-mind/print/

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How the Academic Establishment has Silenced a Major Critic of the Field of “Black Studies”

http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2012/05/08/how-the-academic-establishment-has-silenced-a-major-critic-of-the-field-of-black-studies/?print=1

and…

Black university routinely inflated black students’ grades, say profs

http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/02/black-university-routinely-inflated-black-students-grades-say-profs/?print=1

and…

“… accepted students [into medical schools] with an MCAT of 27 or lower had an overall attrition rate of 2.5% in the first two years of medical school. This is more than double the 1.1% attrition rate for those who scored a 28 or above. Despite these statistics, 42.6% of minority applicants with a score of 21-23 (and a marginal GPA) were accepted.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/even_in_medical_school_affirmative_action_rules.html

and…

“... grade inflation is a negative-sum game that imposes serious costs on society. Therefore, universities need to take steps to bring it under control.”

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2013/12/26/why-college-grade-inflation-is-a-real-problem-and-how-to-fix-it_print.html

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High-Profile Studies Overrate Going to College and Picking the Right Major

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/print/2012/12/high-profile-studies-overrate-going-to-college-and-picking-the-right-major/266330/

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“Gender Identity” Restrooms at U Arizona

http://www.nas.org/articles/Gender_Identity_Restrooms_at_U_Arizona

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Soros Spends $400 Million On ‘Open Society’ Education, ‘Social Action,’ Colleges And Universities

http://cnsnews.com/blog/dan-gainor/soros-spends-400-million-open-society-education-social-action-colleges-and

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Meet the Association of International Education Administrators (AEIA)

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/m-global_citizens_of_the_world_obey.html

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Research Prejudice & Bias:

The perils of politically incorrect academic research

http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/revenge-sociologists_648829.html?page=1

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An Academic Auto-da-Fé

A sociologist whose data find fault with same-sex relationships is savaged by the progressive orthodoxy

http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/133107/

and…

“What’s academia’s response to a whistleblower who exposes fraudulent research and faked credentials on a panel of experts?

Fire the whistleblower, of course.”

http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/ucla-accused-of-firing-prof-for-criticizing-pollution-agenda/print/

and…

“In decisions [involv]ing… paper reviews…, many social and personality psychologists admit that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majority-on-campus-yes-were-biased/

and…

“I offer the abstract partly as a window onto the wonderful, wacky world of modern sociological prose…”

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/11/the-bad-news-is-that-gentlemanly-behavior-makes-people-happy/

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MOOCs:

“The [college education] industry has operated more or less along the same business model and even the same technology for hundreds of years. MOOCS represent a rapidly developing and emerging change…”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012/09/12/college-may-never-be-the-same/57752972/1

and…

“… an average of just 4 percent of MOOC users actually completed the courses.”

http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2014/01/how_to_make_moocs_work.html

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College Women on Dating and Mating Today

“There appears to have been a reduction in male initiative in dating on college campuses. [College men should r]ecognize that the burden of dating and mating should not fall on women alone, and that there is a need for greater male initiative.”

http://www.americanvalues.org/Hooking_Up.pdf

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“Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash… [said] the school would make sure ‘transgendered individuals’ would continue to have access to the women’s locker room…”

http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/aaack-girls-getting-eyeful-in-locker-room/print/

[When that article was written (2012) it was shocking to most thinking people (i.e. conservatives). Several years later, the who world has lost its collective mind, supporting the so-called ” Equality Act ” to impose this kind of mental illness on everyone.]

and…

Medical, psychological, and academic professionals who dare to speak out against engaging in what is essentially turning children into lab rats can face very real professional consequences.

http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/19/cant-meet-health-professionals-object-transing-kids/

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Left-Wing Madness at Butler University

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/left-wing-madness-at-butler-university/print/

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Illegal Immigration:

More Universities Now Admit Undocumented Students

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/14822/print/

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The Academy’s Hypersensitive Hissy Fits

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/m-the_academys_hypersensitive_hissy_fits.html

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