Has someone suggested the Hillsdale survey is scientific and unbiased? And, are bias and truth mutually exclusive?
Yes, there is clearly an anti-socialist bias. But why must everything that comes from an institution be a properly designed, “scientific” survey? Surveys are notoriously bad for finding truth because there are infinite ways to design a survey, and infinite ways to interpret the results.
Hillsdale said the survey results will be shared with policy makers. Are we so concerned by this survey that these policy makers, every one of whom were elected after a campaign of misinformation and deceit, will act on something that isn’t scientific?
Yes, Hillsdale has an anti-socialist ethos. No amount of truth-seeking and research is going to lead to an epiphany that will change that. And that’s ok. Every adult is capable of digesting information and forming an opinion on the findings, including whether a survey was faulty and biased.
In particular, Hillsdale students with academic credentials on par with students at the University of Michigan, UVA, and Emory are certainly capable of dispositioning this information. They aren’t little kids anymore.
As for additional comments on UTAX, as I said in prior posts, it looks to me like a bunch of disgruntled profs trying to fix something that’s not bad enough to be fixed. But more power to them. I don’t see any similarity between UTAX and Hillsdale.
Further, these people aren’t even on the “board of directors.” They are on an amorphous “board of advisors” which means very little, except that the actual founders want to capitalize on the good names of advisors who don’t have any skin in the game, and are not part of the structure or operation of the “university” at all. Here how UWV president Gordon Gee, one of the “advisors,” put it:
Serving in an advisory capacity does not mean I believe or agree with everything that other advisors may share. I do not agree other universities are no longer seeking the truth nor do I feel that higher education is irreparably broken.
And the list of actual founders and professors is much less auspicious than the list of "advisors.
You did, when you asked, rhetorically, what was “egregiously biased” about the poll. I do agree though that it wasn’t mean to be a scientific survey. It is purely marketing propaganda aimed at a certain segment of society. This is exactly what is happening with this new university.
I agree, and it’s why I don’t consider Hillsdale worthy of my recommendations to students any longer. They’ve ducked below a bar marketing it as a survey to the masses. I expect similar from PACs - either side - not something calling themselves an institution of higher learning (college or university).
I’ve yet to see anything similar from Grove City or Patrick Henry or other true colleges.
I don’t know if the new place will stoop to Hillsdale’s low level or try to place themselves with higher level conservative colleges.
E. Gordon Gee, as the only member of the Board of Advisers who is also a sitting President of another University, was getting heat from that university (West Virginia) for, among other things, the statements of the founders critical of all existing institutions. He therefore dissociated himself from those statements, though confirming that he is serving on the Board “with the highest intention to develop strategies that would improve and potentially benefit all of higher education.” It seems to shock MTmind that people can disagree on this or that point and yet carry on together, but that is very much the ethos of the new school: “We would expect that our advisers will not be in full agreement with each other or all the choices we make as an institution. This is exactly what we hope for given our commitment to vigorous analysis and spirited debate.” Hard to understand, I know, when lockstep uniformity is your expectation.
The school presently lists only three “founding faculty fellows” - Peter Boghossian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Kathleen Stock. These are high quality people, though admittedly provocative ones, who have become anathema in the world of higher education. You could say that their pariah status in that world is a good argument for why they should be the first hires in this one. It is an indication of the need for this university. A message is being sent.
Are we being asked with straight face to think of the 26 eminent persons on the Board as simply useful idiots in the hands of the nefarious founders? Isn’t it more reasonable to suppose that these people, all of whom have reputations to lose if the venture takes the crazy turn MT predicts for it, paid close attention to the stated objectives of the founders and approved of those objectives, even gave their advice in the formulation of them? Yes, all of them will no doubt be keeping an eye on performance, as will we all. But these people have seen a need. Others have seen it too. Inside the belly of the beast, however, it is hard to get a clear view of the outside world.
Off topic - but does anyone else keep reading Boghossian as Bosshoggian? I haven’t seen the Dukes of Hazzard since it originally aired but I cannot seem to stop reading this guy’s name this way.
I had a look at the Hillsdale educator questionnaire. Hilarious.
Question 3 asks this: To what extent do you think our colleges and universities suffer from a Left-wing bias in their presentation of American history and government?
There is no question to ask if colleges and universities suffer from a Right-wing bias. LOL. What a joke.
I wish I had taken a pic to post of the “survey” Hillsdale sent me before I sent it in. I wasn’t thinking fast enough. I was just miffed that any college would do such a thing - then it occurred to me it might be a scam (so started the thread asking). Nope. They’re just part of the political sleaze crowd and calling it a survey to pretend it has educational value.
But there is no such thing as an “enduring truth” apart from in a religious context. As soon as you posit that there is, you are already stifling scientific and scholarly enquiry. There is only enduring enquiry….
@Tigerle , to be fair, the statement is advocating the “search” for enduring truths, not the retention of old truths. And “enduring” doesn’t mean “eternal.” The great authors and thinkers are always being reappraised, and some of them become less central with the passage of time, some are even discarded. However, some of them have hung on a long time because they are, simply, great. Every now and then, of course, something completely new and wonderful comes along. What matters is the search, not the arrival at a fixed destination. With that conclusion we are in agreement. I will add only that a certain school of contemporary thought simply denies the possibility of truth or value, not to mention the signficance of the classic authors. If that’s what you are saying, well, we have a disagreement. Good, I like disagreements.
@Creekland , how can you call the author of “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construction” and “Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at an Urban Dog Park” a sleazeball? Say it ain’t so. After all, those two hoax papers were among several published or accepted and awaiting publication as part of the great “Sokal Squared” hoax concocted by Boghossian and two others to expose a certain, shall we say, tendency within the field of Grievance Studies. It was a caper, but it made a point. It was so embarrassing to orthodox sensibilities that it could not go unpunished. Boghossian was hauled up for academic discipline on the charge that he and his partners in crime had been “experimenting” on human subjects (the editors and peer reviewers of these journals) without their consent. One either considers this very funny or is outraged by it. Probably the camp you are in on that matter is the same camp you are in with respect to the starting up of the new university.
@Lindagaf , I’m inclined to agree that the question about liberal bias at American universities was a pretty dumb one, if only because the many surveys of political affiliations of American professors make that point already: Liberals outnumber conservatives massively in almost every college and every discipline. In Sociology, Anthropology, and English it is often hard to find a single prof in a given school who will identify as conservative. One survey showed that in the New England schools the imbalance across all disciplines was 28 to 1. In the South it was only (!) 6 to 1. One would have to deny such results or else contend that they have no effect at all on the teaching of subject matter to deny that there could be a bias at play. Of course there are many other proofs of this, some of which appear almost daily in the FIRE compendium thereof.
This mindset (“America needs more Conservative professors!”) is part of the reason there is such polarization right now. I want my kids to learn from a professor who is a great teacher and who knows his subject. Unless the English teacher is asking them to write essays about why the Left sucks, or why the Right sucks, I don’t give a rat’s behind if they are liberal or conservative. I want my kids to be taught critical thinking skills. Any political persuasion can teach those.
Does it matter if your anthropology professor is a Republican or a Democrat or a member of the Guns and Dope Party? Neither of my kids has ever once mentioned the political affiliation of a single professor. I can’t recall a professor ever saying anything political when I was in college. When students walk into class these days, does the prof introduce himself by saying “Hi, I’m Professor Jones and I’m a Liberal/Conservative!”
Maybe being a professor is generally more appealing to people who lean liberal. That’s fine. Why does it matter???
I wish this nonsense would stop. It’s so counter productive. If UATX indeed ends up being about free speech, etc…, great. If they end up sending out inane surveys like Hillsdale, I hope they fail.
ETA: I also don’t care about the political views of a history professor. As long as he/she isn’t glossing over or presenting a revisionist historical recounting of slavery (“workers”, as infamously cited in Texan history books) and other important topics, or deviating wildly from accepted historical knowledge, I don’t care who they voted for. The problems arise when people try to deny what actually happened. (As is currently going on with the CRT controversy right now.)
If it happened, it happened.
I am a Physics major with a Math minor. “Playing” around with such things as he did only makes me roll my eyes. I feel the same about other studies that are out there that he was using his hoaxes to make fun of TBH, but the difference between him and I is I feel no need to make fun of that which other people feel is important. I just roll my eyes and wonder how much they were able to make studying “that.”
He’s not going to be open to all sides of education. He’s made that clear with his past.
My 20 something year old son raised in a red area came to an interesting conclusion about this… He said something to the effect of, “It’s funny how so many people change their views once they go to college and see what’s really out there. Should we really be blaming the educators or the content of what they are learning causing their intelligent minds to reweigh what they feel is more correct?”
Kids grow up learning what those around them think. Once people actually get out in the world (if they ever do) and see more do they come up with their own thoughts. Colleges provide a lot of facts, studies, and theories to consider. It’s no surprise at all to me that many adjust their thinking after seeing such things and meeting different friends. Usually it’s not a bad thing.
It’s also funny how many change their views post college once they look at their pay stubs for the first time and realize what the government withholds😀
And I just scrolled back - when did I do this? Or call anyone a sleazeball? I talked about political sleaze with Hillsdale’s “survey” which is defined by the Oxford dictionary as:
noun
1. BRITISH
immoral, sordid, and corrupt behavior or material, especially in business or politics.
“political campaigns that are long on sleaze and short on substance”
I guess it depends on the subject. One of my kids mentioned the professor who is an avowed communist and doesn’t believe the market can offer any solutions whatsoever to the policy issues they are discussing (often seen in the press criticizing the policies that colleagues are developing to deliver those solutions). But that’s perhaps more analogous to the anthropology professor who doesn’t believe in evolution. Even in that case it’s probably better to let them have their academic freedom to disagree.
I agree that the most important question in any classroom is the quality of the teaching and integrity in the treatment of all concerned, not political affiliation. But that wasn’t what we were talking about - it was the matter of bias. It’s being a bit naive to argue that a prof’s political orientation doesn’t correlate at all with the content of research or the way subject matter is presented in a classroom. Just to take the vexed issue of CRT, do you think there would be no difference at all between the way that theory would be presented by a liberal prof as against a conservative prof? Just one of many examples.
Should be easy to show IMO as a “facts” based major person. What were the policies (factual)? How did it affect folks? (Stats) Stats will also show if there was a difference by race or income or whatever. Then see which theory/ies fit.
Okay, I was taking liberties, @creekland , you didn’t call him a sleazeball, just not a “high-quality person.” That must mean he’s a low-quality person. We will have to consult St. Thomas Aquinas to determine whether one can be a low-quality person but not a sleazeball.
