<p>I think you will find the politics vary by departments within a college. For example, political science profs and students may be more liberal, while economics profs and students tend to be more conservative, on the average.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t a Big State University in a “purple” state (e.g. Florida, North Carolina, Virginia) provide a mix of political alignments among the students?</p>
<p>Check out New College in FL. </p>
<p>If my liberal son had wanted to stay in the south for college, we would have visited New College in FL. However, he’d had plenty of conservative exposure and took off like a shot for Boston!</p>
<p>William and Mary has a mix of political views.</p>
<p>S attended Tulane…definitely NOT conservative!</p>
<p>I have always been told that Davidson, Millsap, Hendrix were quite liberal, and that Centre was very moderate. I would agree with Tulane as well. My niece has embraced her liberal, free-thinking ways much to the despair of her Texas parents. They certainly blame Tulane :)</p>
<p>Emory is very liberal – tons of kids from Long Island, lots of Jewish kids, and special emphasis on LGBT clubs, studies, etc in their promotions.</p>
<p>UVa (big enough that it should have a bunch of liberals)
Georgetown (I’m guessing?)
University of Miami (although Miami isn’t really considered “the south”, barely even part of America…)</p>
<p>Not sure your use of the words “free thinking” really applies to liberal education anymore</p>
<p>I am an ex-liberal, and I would say that the thinking today at most colleges is more PC, where everyone must follow the liberal line, lock, stock, and barrel. I have seen kids on this sight refuse to concede, for example, that the culture and architecture of Italy is better than the culture and architecture of Chad. Or who think it is perfectly OK to admit URMs from middle class families at the expense of asians from poor families, for the sake of “diversity”. That, today, is considered sophisticated and nuanced thinking.</p>
<p>I have no problem with my kid going to liberal school (probably 80% of the professors are liberal at most schools), but I don’t want him going to some ultra left wing indoctrination program, where all views are accepted, except of course if you are a conservative. When I see kids on this sight saying they want to go to a particular college because it is “environmentally aware”, or kids who declare themselves at age 17 to be socialists (without ever themselves having worked a day in their lives), I cringe.</p>
<p>personally, i consider me self to be pretty liberal</p>
<p>but, i have to agree with much of what has been said. i always love being exposed to the other perspective, otherwise it sometimes feels like preaching to the choir.</p>
<p>often, hearing the other side can serve to reinforce my own views, and often it helps me re-evaluate what I always assumed was absolute, and just as often that re-evaluation helps reshape or add nuance to what i already believe.</p>
<p>i also think it’s good to be exposed to people who can agree with you, but not just to prevent conflict and tension (conflict and tension are what help me learn!), but to help add additional entries/perspective into my current database.</p>
<p>i got excited last semester when a professor i was looking at was known to be conservative. didn’t work out in the schedule, but i agree with people who have said it’s good to be in an environment that’s not completely homogenous ideologically.</p>
<p>Well-said Floridadad55. Maybe some of the problems (primarily the inability to listen and understand each other’s viewpoints, allowing progress to be made) going on in the White House right now stem from lack of exposure to other’s ideas from the get-go. It is not good to be so “liberal” or “conservative” that you don’t listen…</p>
<p>Having a national student base doesn’t mean a school is liberal- conservative students from all over may choose a school because it is known to be conservative. I thought Emory was conservative- or maybe it is liberal compared to other southern schools.</p>
<p>I think the “usual liberal dogma” exposure is great if the hometown environment is conservative. It is an education for many who come from small town Wisconsin to UW-Madison. btw, I suspect a lot of arguing goes on among liberals who disagree with each other. Liberal views is stagnant, challenging them is the only way to achieve change. Any “dogmas” are forever evolving. Things considered conservative today were radical ideas in 1787.</p>
<p>It’s been my experience that people who espouse the value of being exposed to “the other side” typically have friends, neighbors and workplaces that work well with their own values.</p>
<p>I’m a liberal living in south Texas. I have no choice but to be exposed to people who I fundamentally disagree with on a daily basis. I’m know as “the liberal” in my group of friends. We had the only Obama sign on our lawn in our neighborhood. The liberal church we belong to is very, very small. </p>
<p>It’s tiring. </p>
<p>Has it been good for me? Maybe but I can also read, listen to the news, visit my conservative in-laws, etc. so it’s not as though the conservative view would have been absent from my life.</p>
<p>I encourage people to live in communities where they are comfortable. And I think people need to decide what that means for themselves.</p>
<p>but not too comfortable, don’t you think?</p>
<p>especially in college. it’s good to be at a place you love, but isn’t the idea, in part, to expand what’s in the range of comfortable?</p>
<p>Quote:
“I encourage people to live in communities where they are comfortable. And I think people need to decide what that means for themselves”</p>
<p>and college is a great pace to start learning about what feels comfortable to you, especially a college that might expose one to other viewpoints. My son (more liberal leaning) attended Wake Forest University, and made many “conservative” friends. He would have missed so much had he stayed in the Northeast for those four years- he now can go anywhere, and knows that respectfully spoken, viewpoints that differ are just as important to hear.
priceless!</p>
<p>S reports a very diverse mix at Davidson - he is quite liberal (and from New England) and very comfortable there.</p>
<p>Conservatives send their kids to liberal schools all the time (after all, most of the top schools are liberal)</p>
<p>So why should a liberal be worried about doing the reverse?.</p>
<p>My son, who is gay, spent four years in a conservative high school in a conservative area in a conservative state. Believe me, he’s had more experience with conservatives than just about any college could offer. He knows there are good people, bad people and crazy people in the conservative population just as in the liberal population but he has no desire to live among large groups of conservatives and I don’t blame him. </p>
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<p>Not when you’ve had the high school equivalent of four years of the Glen Beck show. Spend four years being uncomfortable where you are everyday and then get back to me about how swell an idea it is to do it for four more years. </p>
<p>I’ll also add that while conservatives might be uncomfortable around liberals, liberals are not trying to take/keep rights away from conservatives. I mean, how comfortable are you supposed to be around people who don’t think that equal protection applies to you? I raised my son to be polite but I also raised him to fight because I had too. The next time some liberals kids slam a straight into a locker and call them hateful names, let me know and I’ll reconsider my opinion.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that’s a coincidence and yet one more reason why I do not see sending a liberal kid to a conservative college as the same as sending a conservative kid to a liberal college.</p>
<p>My DS is applying to many schools that are more conservative. He likes to argue politics and hopes to “convert” someone in his 4 years. He was raised in Berkeley, but spent his teen years in Indiana, so has lived with both extremes. But while he embraces political diversity, he has taken a few schools off that made him uncomfortable as a religious minority. He and I agree that while politics can get personal, they don’t have to be, but constantly defending ones religion (or lack of) is a hassle that he has lived with all through high school and doesn’t care to constantly defend it through college.</p>