<p>This will probably enrage you, xiggi, but I suspect that colleges represent pretty adequately the range of political views among people with post-baccalaureate degrees. That’s not terribly surprising. I don’t know why there should be some sort of moral responsibility for colleges to represent views that are dumb or ill-considered, or that reflect contempt for (secular) higher education.</p>
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<p>That’s also a good point, and it applies to most of the rest or the world, not just Western Europe. My daughter’s BFF went to college in Canada; she was (is) a left-leaning liberal Democrat, who worried about Obama being too conservative. In her first semester there, she was shocked to discover that she was well right of center at her large public university.</p>
<p>Some colleges…including mine have moved more to the right since the '90s due to a variety of reasons including admin efforts to attract a more “mainstream” student body and thus, raise their rankings. Something which has attracted much discussion in alum magazine articles and sometimes angry letters to the college alum magazine editor/college from older alums. </p>
<p>However, that move is very incremental to anyone who is using the overall US political spectrum as the yardstick and laughable to many Western Europeans when the topics of political spectrums, colleges, etc comes up. </p>
<p>Funny part is in some ways, I’d probably fit in better at my LAC now than I did back then. On the other hand, most of the undergrad classmates I’ve known from my time there are bitterly grousing about how our college has “grown too conservative/mainstream”. </p>
<p>Actually, JHS, that does not enrage me in the least. I am afraid that a forum such as this one makes it difficult to convey the many nuances and subtility of one’s position. The narrative of smart left vs dumb right is hard to miss, and especially when expressed by people with terminal degrees. Again, it is what it is. </p>
<p>Speaking about nuances, is it wrong to recognize that one can accept a “situation” and still understand that others might find it … concerning. In this case, can one both think that there should be little to no concern in dealing with overly political schools and also understand that someone can be apprehensive about it? </p>
<p>In the end, do we choose our schools and later compose a mental list of favorite schools along political lines? Take a look at the school that was listed above as the elite non-left leaning school. Isn’t it a school that should be very high on my “fav” list if my positions were following my so-called political leanings? You and I know that is simply not the case when it comes to Chicago! In my case, my short list of schools was hardly a conservative dream team. The political landscape was irrelevant to where I sent in my deposit. I would have been ecstatic to attend a school that happens to be among the most liberal in one of the most progressive cities in the US. </p>
<p>Again, and again, one learns more from people who have different opinions and positions. One of my favorite teachers was my polar opposite in terms of reforming our education system. One can respect the opinions of others and still disagree with them … vehemently. </p>
<p>Little in this world is ever black on white! </p>
<p>If supply and demand economics applied to the rather odd business structure of ‘not for profit’ colleges, the current demand - evidenced by the huge number of applicants - should have resulted in a phenomenal building boom. </p>
<p>“The quality of our data varied. Not all faculty are registered to vote and not all reside in the county or even state which we searched. The political affiliation of these individuals was therefore not accessible. In other cases there was more than one individual with the same name, again making a positive identification impossible In some places, the Center was able to identify most professors; at others, only a minority were positively identified.”</p>
<p>A ridiculous study and nothing in the study whatsoever documenting bias in the classroom or by an administration by anyone regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof. </p>
<p>Not to mention that ‘Students for Academic Freedom’ is an offshoot of a Conservative political organization. </p>
<p>“Are there any colleges at which liberal views are mandatory? I don’t think so.”</p>
<p>I’m going to rephrase this, since people won’t agree about whether a socialist is a liberal, etc… Are there colleges where some conservative viewpoints are more or less forbidden? I think there are a few. Bryn Mawr in the 90s was one of them. I can say with great confidence that in 1997, if you gave a speech that being gay was a sinful choice and gay sex should be illegal, a lot of your fellow students would have replied that you had no business being at Bryn Mawr. You would be a pariah for saying that. I suspect that that is still the case at BMC, Smith, and probably Oberlin, Bard, Sarah Lawrence, possibly a few more.</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr has changed somewhat in that there are now a ton of international students from conservative countries. The American population there seems identical to what it was 20 years ago. I’m involved with the Bryn Mawr club and meet many U.S. applicants and current students that way. I’m not sure how the views of Pakistani, Saudi, etc. students are tolerated. They may just stay quiet if they disagree on the really touchy social issues.</p>
<p>When I was a college student years ago, I had a number of very left-wing professors, and there were still plenty of hippie types on campus. One, a wonderful teacher, talked a lot about nuclear disarmament and had protested at military bases. Some of their views were far different than the ones I’d grown up with. I listened, learned, and did exactly what I wanted – which didn’t include getting recruited by anyone for anything. I can’t name a single student in any of my classes who radically changed his/her views “under the influence” of a professor.</p>
<p>I cannot understand this fear that there are professors actively recruiting students to the (perceived) dark side. Any student who is grounded and reasonable is not going to flip out suddenly and become a totally different person. Students who do change course dramatically are probably either (a) already eagerly searching for different perspectives when they go to college, or (b) fairly unstable to begin with.</p>
<p>Some parents send their children to such places as Liberty University to “protect” them from the ideas they fear. The problem is, though, that places like Liberty are even MORE political than most colleges.</p>
<p>If it’s your money, though, you make the rules.</p>
<p>The international students from such countries tended to already be radically left before arriving on campus or weren’t very active politically. </p>
<p>This was especially the case with the conservatory students…whether American or international who, on average, tended to be more conservative and much more apolitical compared with us college counterparts. </p>
<p>Also, some international students…especially from authoritarian/totalitarian societies may not be active politically because they may have concerns about word of their activities getting back to their home countries’ governments with negative consequences for them and their families/friends back home. </p>
<p>Fwiw, the point is not about bias in the classroom, but merely about numbers. You called my argument of imbalance as utter hogwash, and I pointed to the work of some who tried to identify the political affiliation. </p>
<p>Regardless of the merit of the “study” it remains that we either believe most members of the faculty in our colleges are predominantly democrats or not. Fwiw, I think that the same “data” is what prompted JHS to make me see that the colleges reflect the political leanings of people who are better educated and what is routinely repeated in the liberal media. The words of John Stuart Mill still resonate! </p>
<p>So either we believe that it is true that most of the faculty in the US veers to the left of center, or we don’t … when convenient. Talk about eating your cake and having it! </p>
<p>Xiggi, you were the one who said " pointing out how the academic offerings are unbalanced." </p>
<p>Academic offerings is now supposed to mean only numbers? I call BS on your “revisionism.” </p>
<p>Also, if there is no bias in the classroom or administration what the **** difference does it make if one is a D, R or U? </p>
<p>And it appears there are studies which show that this, in fact, true. </p>
<p>"Sylvia Hurtado, professor of education at UCLA and director of the Higher Education Research Institute, said that she didn’t know what to make of the surge to the left by faculty members. She said that she suspects age may be a factor, as the full-time professoriate is aging, but said that this is just a theory. Hurtado said that these figures always attract a lot of attention, but she thinks that the emphasis may be misplaced because of a series of studies showing no evidence that left-leaning faculty members are somehow shifting the views of their students or enforcing any kind of political requirement.</p>
<p>Neil Gross, a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia, has written extensively on faculty political issues. He is the co-author of the 2007 report that found that while professors may lean left, they do so less than is imagined and less uniformly across institution type than is imagined, and that many are in the political middle."</p>
<p>@thumper1, my folks were at UW-Madison from like 68-72. Apparently the place was pretty riotous during that time, and Sterling Hall (?) was bombed…</p>
<p>If you can’t see that academic offerings was a proxy for number of schools, I really cannot help you. </p>
<p>What was the context of the post to which you objected? Try looking at the first word in the box of my reply. Supply! What do you think offering means? </p>
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<p>Did I not address that several times with my personal views on that precise issue? </p>
<p>The bigger influence on a naïve young student is going to be her peer group. Not that many of them get all starry eyed about professors. Boyfriend are another story.</p>
<p>“If you can’t see that academic offerings was a proxy for number of schools and composition of the faculty at such schools, I really cannot help you.”</p>
<p>“The narrative of smart left vs dumb right is hard to miss”</p>
<p>Whose fault is that? The right has become vocally anti-intellectual and anti-factual. And until that changes (Republicans weren’t always that way!) the right will be perceived either as dumb, intellectually manipulated/manipulative and/or blatantly ignorant. </p>