<p>Liberty and Oral Roberts political discussions will be slanted the opposite direction of the majority of college campuses, but they will still exist.</p>
<p>In my experience, while the professors are part of the problem, some of it is due to professional protesters who frequent some college campus and try to foment discord to bring attention to their cause-de jure. This can be from various political viewpoints.</p>
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<p>It is natural for people to parse posts and pay attention to some parts and ignore others. My comments were about the overwhelming tone of the thread. Some were hinting at the thoughts with more refinement and subtility to deliver the message; others were not as subtle. </p>
<p>How about this one that was posted on the heels of a comment about listening to too many stories of commies and too much Limbaugh! </p>
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<p>And, fwiw, there is no false dichotomy between the threads I described in terms of overall reactions. The differences between the responses speak volumes. And it is easy to know why that happened! </p>
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Torveaux:
I am reposting my previous post (#316, I think) :</p>
<p>Has anyone posted this recent article yet?
<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/10/study-finds-students-themselves-not-professors-lead-some-become-more-liberal-college#sthash.AegzW7Ki.dpbs”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/10/study-finds-students-themselves-not-professors-lead-some-become-more-liberal-college#sthash.AegzW7Ki.dpbs</a>
But a new study suggests that it’s time to stop blaming professors (of any political leaning) for any leftward tilt that college students may show (and the study acknowledges that many do lean that way over the course of their college years).
The influence is coming from students themselves. In fact, the study says, the more engaged students are with faculty members and academics, the more their views moderate toward the center. But the more students become engaged in student activities, the more the liberals become more committed as liberals and conservatives become more committed as conservatives.</p>
<p>“there is definitely a perception out there that some schools encourage kids to champion causes and rally about issues and be politically active and engaged.”</p>
<p>Which schools would that be? </p>
<p>I don’t think there is much difference between the party school thread and this one. Just like there are no schools were kids don’t party (I bet they even do at Brigham Young) imo, there are no schools which are apolitical. I don’t know how one can answer the OP’s question. It’s like trying to find a unicorn. </p>
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<p>Well, Jym, that is just another expression of what I considere wrong in this thread. Everyone here agrees that what happens on your typical college in terms of political engagement campus should not create much concern. Same for the overwhelming liberal leanings throughout the country. It is not hard to “survive” the environment or as I said to learn from having to live with people who have arrested opinions. </p>
<p>This, however, does not mean that some parents might be bothered by the presence of politically engaged students. Again, families choose colleges based on a list of criteria, and those are personal choices. None of us should be entitled to see those choices are sad or expressions of poor judgment. </p>
<p>And especially not by people who claim to be on the side of the tolerant, open-minded or smarter-than-thou! For the record, I know you well enough to know that this last comment does not apply to you. Others here were more interested to establish how WRONG the OP was for even having such thoughts than to understand that not everyone follows the rules of an overbearing majority. And that happens all the time when the minority view does not fall into one of the current cause celebres that fit a political agenda. </p>
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<p>Guilty as charged. </p>
<p>This thread is starting to remind me of the thread where the OP asked where her dau should attend to hobnob with snobs. </p>
<p><a href=“Should Princeton be DD choice if I want her to hobnob with snob kids? - Parent Cafe - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/688821-should-princeton-be-dd-choice-if-i-want-her-to-hobnob-with-snob-kids.html</a></p>
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<p>And you do it as much as anybody.</p>
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<p>Why shouldn’t a thread end up with an “overwhelming tone” or slant in posters’ points of view? If someone comes on here and starts a thread called, “Which colleges have the most hot blond girls?” or “My friends say I can get into Harvard with a 2.2 GPA…are they correct?” there will be a “slant” to the responses. The fact that colleges are more liberal-leaning than conservative means more of us who send our kids to such colleges are comfortable with them than not.</p>
<p>I would also like to add that on the “most annoying thread” thread, self-appointed propriety police were mentioned as one of the most annoying annoyances.</p>
<p>Your calling out people on this thread for their opinions is laughable when you say **** like this. </p>
<p>“or as I said to learn from having to live with people who have arrested opinions.”</p>
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<p>It would be hard to disagree with the conclusion of that study. Could this perhaps be traced to the requirements of a minimum of decorum and professional integrity imposed on teachers when in public places, and the lack of such things for teenager/students? </p>
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We should definitely trade places. Where I live the overwhelming leaning is anything but. But, we are not talking politics, right?</p>
<p>I dont understand why feeling sad that a parent wants to shelter their child from exposure to political ideas is an example of “what is wrong with this thread”. This very discussion is exactly the kind of discussion I would hope would be occurring on college campuses. An open discussion of differences of opinions. Those who would want to shut this kind of dialogue down or prevent their student form engaging in a thoughtful discussion… again… well it makes me sad. </p>
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<p>Why do you think I posted that comment? </p>
<p>Not sure why I got targeted, but if you are going to call me out for something, xig, I would ask that you go back and read all my posts on this thread. It might provide a more comprehensive picture of my thoughts on this matter. They start at about # 287. Your comment to me is that perhaps I haven’t read the whole thread. I acknowledged that in post #287. But in fairness, seems you haven’t read the whole thread either.</p>
<p>Apparently some posters earlier called, or implied that the OP was an idiot. I certainly did no such thing. If you are going to speak to the TOS and decorum, I would ask that it not be attached to a post where I agreed with the OP’s initial premise, and said I was sad that the student might be prevented from having some experiences that happens in many if not most colleges. It does make me sad. I make no apologies for that.</p>
<p>“This thread is starting to remind me of the thread where the OP asked where her dau should attend to hobnob with snobs.”</p>
<p>Hands down best thread ever. This one doesn’t hold a candle to it. 
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<p>I agree. If college is not the time for intellectual growth, what is?</p>
<p>I think we have all (or almost all) been respectful of the cultural differences that may have led to the OP’s question. It shouldn’t surprise anyone (or cause anyone to take offense) that the goal of discouraging vibrant discourse or dabbling in issues and ideas seems at odds with what most of us value in the American college experience. And I stand by my position that the OP has been vague about her concerns. I am not the only one who has tried to get more specific information on her mindset and fears for her daughter.</p>
<p>Sorry, jym, but I don’t care what someone writes in another article, I have had the fortune to take courses at 4 separate colleges across the country in my life and the professors are definitely part of the problem. Not all of them, of course. The worst ones in my experience are those who are not teaching ‘political’ courses. In some ways, the article is even confirming my point…though they author did not realize it. Not so much the students, but the organizations. Often at the heart you will find organizers from a national group who use college organizations to recruit people to their cause. Not necessarily a bad thing, but there can be considerable manipulation of the naive in a situation like that.</p>
<p>If this was just an isolated anecdote, I would be the only one who thinks this way. The reality is that there are many hard-core leftists in academia and some are very intolerant of divergent views from theirs. In those courses, one must parrot back the professors opinion or suffer in the grade department. Wise students figure out who those profs are as soon as possible and either drop or go along to get along. </p>
<p>Torveaux,
It isnt just “what someone wrote in another article”. Its a “study is by Kyle Dodson, assistant professor of sociology at the University of California at Merced, and it appears in Professors and Their Politics, a collection of research papers and essays, about to appear from Johns Hopkins University Press.” noted in an article in Inside Higher Education.</p>
<p>Read more: <a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/10/study-finds-students-themselves-not-professors-lead-some-become-more-liberal-college#ixzz37rVRCw5c”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/10/study-finds-students-themselves-not-professors-lead-some-become-more-liberal-college#ixzz37rVRCw5c</a> </p>
<p><a href=“Professors and Their Politics | Hopkins Press”>https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/professors-and-their-politics</a>
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<p>Times have changed since most of us went to college</p>
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<p>That sounded more like my experience with one HS substitute who was so strident about her hippie radical lefty views to the point of obnoxiousness. However, that didn’t stop yours truly and several other classmates ended up having fun baiting her by arguing for very conservative positions. </p>
<p>This included classmates who would otherwise agree with her, but felt they couldn’t allow a teacher to get away with preaching at us…especially when that wasn’t her job or professionally appropriate. </p>
<p>That was far from my college experience…and one at one of the most radical progressive lefty colleges in the nation. If anything, arguing against the majority of the campus in areas of Marxist/Leninist/Maoist ideology or sometimes even tweaking my Profs’ arguments sarcastically in class discussions actually appealed to the Profs and was reflected in my final grades. Grades which were ironically higher than many classmates whose arguments in class mirrored/largely agreed with the Profs. </p>
<p>Sometimes, it doesn’t pay to be a people pleaser/brown noser. :)</p>
<p>It is totally fair to question OP’s premises, but I do think that some of the responses to her were based on what I’d call a bad faith reading of her post.</p>
<p>OP’s concern was way overblown, but the fact remains that there are schools that are more associated with far-left (or far-right) thought and activism than others. The question isn’t absurd, unless you read it in the least generous of all possible ways and assume that OP actually believes that an entirely apolitical school exists. I prefer to assume that most people are not convenient strawmen for me to argue with unless they prove otherwise, and given that the core of her question is “I don’t want a terribly radical or politicized campus,” there are lots of ways to provide her with useful advice, which a few people did, but most just piled on. </p>
<p>As hysterical as some of OP’s fears were, I think it is equally hyperbolic to act as if a desire to avoid a school like Smith or Bard or even Brown is tantamount to being a young Earth creationist who doesn’t want their child to ever encounter an unauthorized thought. Based on some of her later comments, it is clear that OP DOESN’T want to totally insulate her daughter; she said politics was just one criteria she was looking at, and said she’s be OK with some level of political involvement that didn’t interfere with her studies. I look at what OP wants as the equivalent of a parent saying that they were willing to let their their kid going to college away from home, but they wanted them to be within five hours driving distance. You can learn to swim without being pushed in the deep end. </p>
<p>apprenticeprof,</p>
<p>One of the reasons for many on this thread to respond in believing the OP wanted a completely apolitical school was not only from the title, but also subsequent posts such as OP’s post #40:</p>
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<p>There’s also posts where OP implied one can completely separate the “ivory tower” from the larger world around the college campus…including politics. Something many of us have pointed out is unrealistic, especially at the more respectable/elite universities.</p>
<p>It’s also doubly ironic as I’ve seen many such immigrant parents of classmates in HS who asked similar questions and found the answers to conflict with their desires for their kids to attend the best colleges in the nation/field. </p>
<p>More recently, this desire to avoid much political activism is one reason why issues related to their ethnic groups/areas tend not to be taken as seriously and why even after attempting to mobilize politically, there has been some missteps. </p>
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Apprenticeprof-
That is VERY similar to what the OP said, in another thread:
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