<p>"Columbia University will offer a new course for upperclassmen and grad students next semester. An Occupy Wall Street class will send students into the field and will be taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, a veteran of the Occupy movement.</p>
<p>The course begins next semester and will be divided between class work at Columbias Morningside Heights campus and fieldwork that will require students to become involved with the Occupy movement outside of the classroom.</p>
<p>The course will be called 'Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement' it will be run by the anthropology department ..."</p>
<p>Columbia’s administrators and faculty should be ashamed of themselves for expecting students to pay for such nonsense. I predict any self respecting employer who asks for student transcripts and sees this garbage course will not hire the Columbia student who attended it.</p>
<p>To the two replies above, perhaps the two of you should be ashamed of yourselves for not seeing the value in a holistic, well-rounded education. Whether or not one agrees with what’s going on is no basis to judge Columbia for attempting to give students the most expansive education possible. This movement can’t be ignored, especially when Columbia is so close. It doesn’t say anywhere that this is a mandatory course, but it’s assumed that if a student has an interest in economic policy, or social movements that they’d enroll. I’m completely in awe that either of you would make fun of such a course on a website such as this and deduce that your responses are the result of an educational system where people value schooling and degrees more than learning and knowledge. Tut tut.</p>
Occupy is leftist hate propaganda. I am willing to bet the students who agree most with the teacher’s left wing agenda will receive the highest grades. I am willing to bet if a normal student were to take the class a point out the obvious stupidity of the occupy crowd, that student would get the lowest grade. This class is no different from a teacher creating a class to support his or her favorite political candidate or issue and then rewarding the students who participate with grades based on how well the teacher thinks the students agree with the teacher’s political views.</p>
<p>I literally laughed out loud when I saw the headline. Liberal bias in the American university system has gone to another level. They don’t even try to pretend to be unbiased anymore. Is Columbia trying to lose all its credibility? I feel bad for the students who were looking to be recruited by Wall Street firms when they graduate form CU. I agree with razorsharp and churchmusicmom, they should be utterly ashamed and embarrassed.</p>
<p>That statement is false. (**excuse me, that statement isn’t supported well enough for it to be true) Occupy Wall Street isn’t based upon party. In the article, the professor states that she intends to be objective. I’ve never once met a teacher that, when confronted with properly supported evidence, failed a student just because they disagreed. If a student can actually prove or support why Occupy Wall Street is ‘leftist hate propaganda’ then Occupy Wall Street is, indeed, ‘leftist hate propaganda.’
To assume that a teacher or professor would operate otherwise, especially at such an institution, is incredibly cynical.</p>
<p>And if there are actually classes that support political candidates (emphasis on support, not educate or evaluate), I have no hope for the world.</p>
<p>Until we have a copy of the syllabus for the course in question …</p>
<p>Sounds like a personally fulfilling interdisciplinary course enriched by a variegated assortment of secondary sources (books, articles) in Economics, PoliSci, Anthro/Soc. </p>
<p>What concerns me is that the professor may assign an unrealistic amount of reading, little to none of which enrolled students will do, and that it will be possible for students to game the course through “personal reflections” and “participation” rather than critical and comparative analysis of texts that is enhanced by fieldwork.</p>
<p>^I think you’re thinking too hard about this…this thread is about liberal bias. For example, there is no class for the Tea Party Movement…go figure</p>
<p>“Dissenting voices of all kinds are encouraged in this class, and one need not have a particular orientation toward OWS to participate. The class is about rigorous and creative intellectual inquiry, not movement-building or political conversion.”</p>
<p>Yep, the teacher has infested Columbia with the Occupy agenda and is trying to recruit students into believing the Occupy garbage. It is not possible to teach objectively a subject when you are part of the so-called “movement”. It is not possible to objectively grade students who have the common sense to condemn your movement.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I love that Columbia’s intellectual environment is all about stimulating students to think outside their previous experiences. To question the world is not a bad thing. My daughter’s time on campus as a Barnard student was thrilling for her, and I am so glad she had that time. She loved being on campus and with all the other University students when Ahmadenijhad (I am almost positive that I misspelled his name. Sorry) spoke, for example. </p>
<p>But I am not at all convinced that this professor will even pretend to be unbiased, as previous involvement in this “movement” precludes that, IMO. This class just seems, at first glance, beyond the realm of reason to me. As a tuition-paying parent, I would be pretty annoyed if my kid took this class.</p>