<p>As Xiggi said, UT can do this by increasing the amount of funding for scholarships that target “students in economically disadvantaged and historically underserved Texas communities”. It doesn’t have to set aside scholarships based on race. UT makes that very same case in the reports linked by Xiggi.</p>
<p>The same could have been done with holistic admissions. The University could have targeted “students in economically disadvantaged and historically underserved Texas communities”, without coming out and saying it’s giving points for race. That’s the great advantage (from an Universities stand point) of holistic admissions, flexibility.</p>
<p>But then again, UT’s case was a bit unique, in that it was targeting high SES URM students in the holistic (non top % class) portion of admissions. I think UT used race, because it’s difficult to separate out high SES students…they all live and look the same in a typical holistic review. Same schools, same neighborhoods, and same extracurricular activities…what criteria do you use to select the URM? UT decided on race.</p>
But UT really wants high SES URMs, not more poor ones. </p>
<p>
Has the real educational quality at UCB/UCLA suffered since Prop209?<br>
Has the desirability/prestige of UCB/UCLA suffered since Prop209?
Has the graduation rate at UCB/UCLA suffered since Prop209?</p>
<p>^ “Ms. Washuta is currently an academic counselor and lecturer in American Indian studies at the University of Washington.”</p>
<p>This is the part I don’t like. Somehow, Universities find a way to get blacks into African studies, Indians into Indian studies etc. It shortchanges their full potential by pushing them into majors that are nothing more than a label about their race.</p>
<p>I am glad most Asians don’t give a darn about Asian studies if there is such a thing.</p>
<p>texaspg-- myself and many other students prefer someone of our own ethnicity speaking about our culture. What you learn in academia to be a professor doesn’t replace real life experiences. And we all know that the things taught by waspy textbooks and resources don’t tell our full story. Just like no matter what training he goes through, a male OB/GYN has no experiences (and never will have) with anything his patient has or will be going through, a person will never have the experiences of the culture they’re teaching about if it’s different than their own. I’m not knocking male OB/GYNs or people of other ethnicities teaching classes about ethnicities different than their own. But I don’t want a male OB/GYN to treat me, or a white, Asian, Hispanic, Latino, whatever person teaching me (and more loosely, anyone else) about my culture.</p>
<p>CPU - The question is not that you want to learn about it but the need for so many pursuing the African American studies instead of pursuing whatever they like. I have seen articles where people believe that colleges somehow push people into these areas as the right thing for them to do instead letting people do what they want.</p>
<p>You started out in engineering but if you end up in African American Studies, I consider that Harvard’s fault even if you might start believing that it is what you need to do in an year.</p>
<p>That is an anti-intellectual attitude unworthy of a college student. There has been serious scholarship on ethnic groups done by members of other ethnic groups, and you should not close yourself off from it. A problem with having separate departments such as African American studies or Chicano studies, rather than covering these subjects within humanities and social science departments, is that separate departments will cater to this attitude.</p>
<p>If there is no objective truth, it makes little sense for society to fund research universities that are trying to discover what does not exist.</p>
<p>“If there is no objective truth, it makes little sense for society to fund research universities that are trying to discover what does not exist.”</p>
<p>How come subjective truths (like pretty much everything in the humanities) don’t count? I don’t think you’ll find many professors of art, music, religion, or literature who think that they’re engaged in a search for objective truth.</p>
<p>I’ve searched the entire UT Course Catalog, and couldn’t find even one course that teaches URMs that AA is bad for them. TALK ABOUT BIAS!!!</p>
<p>Or in simpler terms, if college is integral to personal and professional growth, a necessary part is for students to choose their field of study. Yes, some students will choose badly.</p>
<p>Well, Bel, if you had phrased just a bit differently, I might be agreeing with you. My experience is that these studies (eg, Chicano Studies) begin within some other dept, the FTEs are often calculated within some larger context (eg, under humanities, SS, or anthropology.) But when enough interest exists, they can obtain some semi-autonomy. My grad program was rolled out from a mainstream subject. Later, rolled into another group. All the while, the faculty counts, budgets, info dissemination, various procedures, chain of authority, etc, stayed under another umbrella. Ie, you don’t know.</p>
<p>texaspg-- how would that be Harvard’s fault? High schools don’t teach ethnic studies the way colleges do (or even at all). There’s a wider range of resources for everyone, especially students belonging to those cultures. Maybe some people are “pushed”/ the idea is repeatedly forced, but that’s not a ubiquitous phenomenon. Lots of people come to college and are drawn to their own ethnic studies departments because for the first time there are people like them teaching their history and they want to continue that and use that to build on other things in their careers.</p>
<p>Beliavsky-- I really don’t care what you think about my opinions or intelligence; I don’t need validation from you or anyone else. You’re in no position of authority to judge whether someone’s opinion is “highly anti-intellectual” for whatever “type” of person they are. I knew about everything you said already, and my opinion still stands. Like I said, I have no qualms with people teaching about other ethnicities or male OB/GYNs. I personally will never choose a male as an OB/GYN and I don’t want someone other than my ethnicity to teach or build upon MY history. All the research in the world doesn’t make up for actual experiences. Subjectivity is important. I’ve had lots of white teachers teach “this is how AAs/Hispanics live/act and this is their history”. They make sweeping, incorrect generalizations about something they know nothing about, with little repercussions for them. A Hispanic or AA teacher will be a lot more connected to the material and wouldn’t make such generalizations because they know what it’s like to be generalized, stigmatized, and discriminated against.</p>
<p>I don’t know if there’s a type of doctor that specifically works with male bodies, but the same thing goes for a woman male-body doctor. </p>
<p>I’m not going to ask your ethnicity, because I don’t care and it’s not my business, but I’m sure we’re coming from different backgrounds and experiences which heavily affect our opinions on certain topics.</p>
<p>NewHope- that’s your opinion. There’s no factual conclusion that AA is good or bad. People from all backgrounds have opinions. Some ethnic scholars oppose it, some agree. Some white people oppose it, some support it. It’s not a university’s job to tell students “AA is BAD” or “AA is GREAT”. If there’s a course that has AA as a topic or subtopic, it’s the professors jobs to give the students all the information there is on the subject, the differing opinions, and anything else relevant. It’s up to the individual to form their own opinions. Anything else is indoctrination (unless it’s something factual like 2+2=4 or there are 50 states in America").</p>
<p>That article, btw and IMO, is ridiculous. She thought her interviewer would expect her to speak in the native language? She “became the Indian I had promised they were getting.” Say what?</p>
<p>" how would that be Harvard’s fault?" Since you never went to Harvard intending to major in African American Studies, it is possible you have a passing interest in a course or two but not the major. </p>
<p>What ends up happening is that influential professors decide that they need more people majoring in their area and try to convince a majority of a race to major in studies in their own race. Education should never work this way where elite schools have a bunch of people studying about their own roots and not do something they had an interest in when they got there. As long as you keep this in mind and don’t get brainwashed into the studies, I have succeeded in my message but the Borg always gets what it wants.</p>
<p>FWIW, I think every department in a major college should have every race represented in teaching and research. Otherwise, critical areas like why some drugs don’t work well for African Americans gets left behind because there are not enough of them looking into it and pushing for it.</p>
<p>^ CPU - Sorry. I should have put <sarcasm> at the end of that first paragraph. </sarcasm></p>
<p>My point was that our society depends on citizens who are self-directed. Basically, “Your life, your decision.” My OPINION is that the best a society can do is provide opportunities for people to make reasonable choices. (Forcing Richard Feynman to take up the trumpet instead of Theoretical Physics is not a suitable use of his abilities.)</p>
<p>“What ends up happening is that influential professors decide that they need more people majoring in their area and try to convince a majority of a race to major in studies in their own race.”</p>
<p>Were you in my Af-Am 10 course at Harvard? Because I didn’t see anything there that I didn’t see in lots of other intro courses. Naturally, professors take students under their wing and try to recruit them as majors. That’s good leadership. I strongly suspect that professors’ biases come into play across the academic spectrum when it comes to that kind of mentoring. Do the black kids (and women) get recruited into STEM fields? Probably not at the same rate white and Asian males do, and Harvard certainly bears some responsibility if that is the case.</p>
<p>When people of different races live in the same country, their history is intertwined, so it not too useful to talk about white American history or black American history. Whose history does the Civil War belong to? Is a black professor in an African-American studies course obliged to select course readings only by black authors? </p>
<p>History professors teach based on their scholarship, not their personal experiences.</p>
<p>Look, my male gyn had not experienced what I inquired about. But he had studied and practiced and had the collective wisdom from dealing with many women- and he was a quality doc. Handled it. Recently, I changed to a female gyn, who- guess what?!- also had not experienced something I asked about. Duh. She grudgingly referred me to a- oops- male doc who specializes in that topic. Guess what? He resolved it, despite never having experienced it. The OB/Gyn example doesn’t quite cut it.</p>
<p>Nor does saying you have run into an issue with poor professors. CPU, I don’t know where you study, but assuming only one sort of person can teach a particular subject is narrow. I’d say, you have a valid point in there, somewhere. But need to think about the broader purposes of taking a specific class, teaching a specific class. And what makes a great prof versus one who comes in with assumptions- on one side or any other side- which he/she allows to flavor the learning experience.</p>
<p>And who says these profs are actively trying to convert kids? It’s like some religious sect? Beware? If a kid is interested, perhaps the teacher encourages him to take a few more classes, consider more. (Some of these SS courses ARE downright fascinating; in general, many SS courses can offer perspectives/ways of viewing and digesting that the kids don’t get in other arenas.) Lots of kids like them- not because they are pushed and prodded to fill some need.</p>