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Thanks for the (I assume unintended) laugh of the morning.</p>
<p>So there…please OP, recognized the ovewhelming superiority of the ‘overwhelming’ consensing (condescending?) and realize you are just not able to see the big picture. It’s been determined the question was silly. After all…science is now done by ‘overwhelming consensus’ vs non-ideological evaluation of data.</p>
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<p>But are the international students from Saudi Arabia the conservative ones from the conservative families and Saudi Arabia? There may be a self-selection bias in terms of which students from Saudi Arabia are allowed by their families to study in the US.</p>
<p>O please, the people who weighed in on this discussions are parents of current students and professors who teach them. They speak of experience; OP’s only example of her worries was 20 years old and from another country. At some point you have to call a spade a spade – OP’s daughter is more likely to be raped by a boy she knows, shot by a family member, hit by a car and probably hit by lightning than she is to be indoctrinated to an extreme political cause on the campus of her "Ivory Tower’ (OP’s words) school. </p>
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<p>Thanks for making me almost spit out my coffee. Did YOU read the paper I linked? That WAS a non-ideological evaluation of data. One that led to “overwhelming consensus.”</p>
<p>Not everything is political, you know. It’s too bad some people have to look at everything through a partisan lens.</p>
<p>“But are the international students from Saudi Arabia the conservative ones from the conservative families and Saudi Arabia?”</p>
<p>I don’t know. I’m very curious about that. Certainly the most conservative angle to take is not to educate your daughters at all. But an all-women’s college holds special appeal to some families with traditional religious views. Even supposing that it’s the most liberal families sending their daughters abroad, that doesn’t mean that the daughters of Saudi radical feminists hold views as progressive as American Bryn Mawr students, at least when they arrive. I mean, they’re working on the right to drive and to vote.</p>
<p>The young woman who moved into my daughter’s off campus apartment after her was from Saudi Arabia. She was working on a hard science PhD and interestingly (to me), she was sent with two brothers to chaperone her. Neither of the brothers had college or graduate educations. </p>
<p>“So there…please OP, recognized the ovewhelming superiority of the ‘overwhelming’ consensing (condescending?) and realize you are just not able to see the big picture. It’s been determined the question was silly. After all…science is now done by ‘overwhelming consensus’ vs non-ideological evaluation of data.”</p>
<p>There have been a few threads during the 5 years I’ve been on CC with concerns about religious groups on campuses and if they are actually cults, and threads on lots of other social and academic issues parents are concerned about in regards to their student- but I don’t recall any thread from a parent concerned about political activism (of any sort) having a deleterious effect on their student… Perhaps that is why most posters on this thread think this is not really something that should be a worry. </p>
<p>Haven’t read this long thread, but even if an academic environment had some political activism (even if its just to keep soft drinks or bottled water out of the vending machines), so what? Your daughter, OP will be an adult, and able to chose if she wishes to be involved or not. I think its healthy to explore causes and things that may get an emotional response from your daughter. College is the perfect time to explore these issues, if she chooses. She can just as easily decline to take the leaflets being handed out, or to attend some rally, should it occur. But if she decides to become active in whatever, well good for her. She SHOULD be exploring activities on campus. Why would participating in a save the environment issue be any more or less valuable than joining a club sport, poetry reading, theater group or breakdancing club? Better that she be open minded and experience opinions or views that may differ from hers. Wouldnt want her to be a , whats the term… “textureless math grind”.</p>
<p>As an aside, Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ is hardly an unbiased paper.</p>
<p>Again, I think we need to separate out the two separate issue the OP seems to have been mixing together. The first is a particular concern over faculty and student activists brainwashing, pressuring, or coercing students into radical activism that will cause them to not only neglect their studies but perhaps join an armed insurrection. That’s an ill-informed view of what college is like, and people have given the OP sound replies to that effect. We actually don’t have any idea about whether or not the OP, once she is reassured her D isn’t going to go off and join the weather underground, would be upset by her daughter becoming more lightly involved in political activities, or if she did object, whether the objection would come from the political nature of the activities or from the mere fact that they were extracurricular “distractions.” </p>
<p>The second issue is a concern about whether or not the discourse at the university is dominated by not only liberalism, but a liberalism that is intolerant of opposing views, including fairly mainstream views that may not be in step with the far left orthodoxies of the day. I think this thread HAS given the OP grounds for that concern - although I would point out to her that she asked a question that was likely to bring on some political discussion. The way you avoid politics at any school is to avoid politics, not to announce “this place is too political.”</p>
<p>I said:
" It strengthens my impression that status quo thinking is so rampant that people are not even aware that they hold opinions rather than indisputable facts"</p>
<p>You replied:
“What kind of indisputable facts would you like? And what would you consider a reliable source of those facts?”</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>You misunderstand my statement. Apparently I was unclear. To rephrase - I now have a stronger than ever impression that (many) people are so convinced of the truth of their own opinions that they do not even realize that they are opinions and not facts.
I am not asking for facts, I am pointing out that you hold opinions, I hold opinions. I am aware that my opinions are opinions. Many on this thread seem to think that their opinions are facts that cannot be argued with. This is sometimes called dogmatic thinking.</p>
<p>It’s also interesting that the OP seems to think that there is a dichotomy between the “ivory tower” and political activism. In the US, the most academic colleges are usually the most politically aware/active. The U of Chicago is probably the most intensely academic ivory tower in the US (extolling the life of the mind and all that), and students there are as politically active as anywhere (while still hitting the books hard).</p>
<p>Bascially, to the OP, you can hold whatever opinions you like, but you don’t seem to have much of an idea of what colleges in the US in 2014 are like.</p>
<p>“I now have a stronger than ever impression that (many) people are so convinced of the truth of their own opinions that they do not even realize that they are opinions and not facts.”</p>
<p>Okay, but does this tell you whether charismatic profs/leaders do or don’t pressure students into political involvement? No poster of any political stripe claims to have seen that happen much, if at all, at modern U.S. universities. I can’t speak for others, but that’s the only point I was trying to make to you.</p>
<h1>291 I have read those posts, and I do appreciate the minority of calmly made anecdotal reassurances that these are rare occurrences.</h1>
<p>I think my use of the word “charismatic” set some people off; I wonder if this is a cultural thing. I used it in the sense of persuasive, ideological, whom many within the college community look up and defer to.</p>
<p>scholame, I see from another thread you started that Pitt is one of the schools your kid is looking at. Better think twice about that. </p>
<p><a href=“Recognizing Activism: Pitt to Give Iris Marion Young Award for Political Engagement | University of Pittsburgh News”>http://www.news.pitt.edu/news/recognizing-activism-pitt-give-iris-marion-young-award-political-engagement</a></p>
<h1>293 But I thought my fears of colleges promoting activism were unfounded?</h1>
<p>No, I think posters on this thread have told you there isn’t a college or uni that is apolitical and has no activism. They have also said that it’s is highly unlikely a student at any college will be sucked into activism by a charismatic professor or so distracted by activism their coursework will suffer. </p>
<p>However, you have said you want a apolitical college or uni for your kid, so I am just telling you that Pitt does not fit your criteria. </p>
<p>@emilybee, ok, thanks. I actually do appreciate the link.
Degree of activism is one of my criteria, but not the most important one.
I looked at the awardees - 2 faculty members, one staffer, one undergrad in a humanities course. What I’ve heard about Pitt is that the engineering students are unlikely to be activist.
Anyone from there (parent/student) feel free to tell me if I’ve been misinformed.</p>
<p>Another activist to take note of at Pitt:
<a href=“David B. Houston Award | Center for Latin American Studies”>http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/clas/houston</a></p>
<p>And an entire department (at least one)
<a href=“http://www.sociology.pitt.edu/about/current-research.php”>http://www.sociology.pitt.edu/about/current-research.php</a></p>
<p>I recommended Northeastern earlier in the thread - the engineers (in fact, most students) at Northeastern tend not to be politically involved, but the school does offer a social activism minor and has at least one “activist professor” (an African American civil rights advocate) and a professor currently researching activism among women in Asia. </p>
<p>How does one guarantee that a campus that isn’t currently “activist” doesn’t become so, at least for a subset of the student body? I went to college being completely uninterested in politics or any kind of activism, but by the time I left I had become part of the move to force the university to divest of its holdings in South Africa (this was during apartheid). I know students at other colleges who have become involved in animal rights issues after seeing how animals are treated in science labs. Still others become involved in gender-equlity or minority-rights issues.</p>
<p>@“actingmt” - An adult wishing to be taken seriously should avoid punctuating a comment with “lol.” It might have the effect of reinforcing the very stereotype he or she was attempting to repudiate. I try to refrain from personal insults, but my gloves come off when someone thinks that “lol” raises the level of discourse.</p>