<p>Our family is fairly liberal, but our daughter is interested in a school with a diversity of views and we support this. Rhodes looks very attractive, but its endorsement as a "good college for white people" by David Duke and some extreme right-wing websites is disturbing. Also, it looks like the business and economics department is dominated by some conservatives whose views disturb us. Does this make the college more attractive to right-wing types?</p>
<p>I had not heard about the Duke endorsement; somehow it didn’t make the Rhodes news page. Odd, that…</p>
<p>Being serious, I have two answers for you: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Come visit. The best way to get a feel for whether you’d fit in and whether it’s the right place for you is to come down, spend the day letting your daughter sit in on classes, talking to students, eating in the cafeteria, maybe even staying overnight on campus. </p></li>
<li><p>On our freshman survey we ask about political beliefs. The modal response is moderate, with roughly equal amounts saying moderately conservative and moderately liberal. Just a relative few, again roughly equal numbers, say they are solidly conservative or solidly liberal. On the senior exit survey, we ask again and political beliefs appear to lean slightly more towards the liberal than the conservative, but there’s still a good mix in the class, and again most identify as moderates.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This is to say that if there are any extreme right-wing types on campus, they’re few and far between and there are probably an equal number of extreme left-wing types.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>My DD, a current junior, would identify herself as solidly liberal, and she is quite comfortable at Rhodes.</p>
<p>Duke’s bizarre list to which the OP refers (where Rhodes happens to land at the very bottom) specifically states that it is not an endorsement. In my opinion, anything posted by this ignorant, openly racist, and notorious former politician should be wholly ignored.</p>
<p>D. is a freshman and is very liberal. She has had no trouble finding like-minded friends among her fellow students. I think a visit to campus will confirm that among the students, there is indeed a diversity of political beliefs. I cannot be quite so reassuring about the faculty in the Econ department. D. is not an Econ major and it’s sort of a long story how I came to know one particular faculty member’s work, but honestly if D. was wanting to major in Econ I might be a little troubled, too. Not enough to rule out the school altogether, but cautious. And I am not sure “dominated” is the right word–the difficulty is that Rhodes is a small school and the number of faculty in each department is fairly small too. So one or two staunchly anything professors in a department can be a problem. From what I can tell, Rhodes does do a good job of offering many sections of intro classes (even these classes are small–a real benefit of a small school) and your D. can probably avoid the troublesome professors, unless she is wanting to specialize in their areas of specialty.</p>
<p>Rhodes seems very mainstream to us. Typically professors are more liberal than their students in LACs and conservative students need to learn to deal with it. If there are a couple of conservative professors at Rhodes it is good for the liberal students to learn how to cope as well. Our students live in a society with multiple of belief systems so it may not be comfortable but they need to learn to accept a variety of view points even if in conflict with their own.</p>
<p>Wow, I wasn’t aware of such a statement. I’m a Senior here and I wouldn’t say the school as a whole leans strongly one way or another. Departments and even professors within departments vary in how liberal or conservative they are. I know both very liberal and very conservative students on campus and in my experience they all get along quite well. I’ve had some serious political discussions with friends and it never becomes an argument but rather remains a conversation.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say the campus is particularly politically active either. Even the presidential election didn’t create much public conversation, but rather remained mostly in the dorm rooms and Middle Ground between small groups of students. That said, extreme activism would likely not go over well here, but talking about your beliefs, whatever they may be, is very welcome.</p>
<p>D is a junior at Rhodes and politically liberal. Her experience with the political views of her professors has been that they all have them! Some are conservative, some are liberal. In the small classes at Rhodes it is hard to hide and discussions are encouraged and provoked. Discussion is the point! So is thinking! Hopefully the students are learning what the world seems to have forgotten: how to make a logical argument, how to have a civil disagreement, how to get along with people who are different than you.</p>