Someone who has called poor Annika’s piece “a very poorly written & poorly edited published article comprised of superficial disjointed thoughts” could perhaps have used a red pencil himself: he perpetrates the solecism of substituting “comprised of” for “composed of.” Careful writers avoid that confusion. It figured as an example of incorrect usage in an SAT question from years ago. See Fowler, see Merriam-Webster. The former is as harsh on it as some here have been on young Annika: “This lamentably common use of ‘comprise’ as a synonym of ‘compose’ or ‘constitute’ is a wanton and indefensible weakening of our vocabulary.”
Be that as it may, I suggest we move on to substance. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of perfect command of our language. Forgive us sinners, O ye gods of grammar.
Agreed. I wish the discussion would stay on topic, rather than get hung up on the age or suspected politics of the writer and wander into trial briefs or other irrelevant subjects. @Publisher, @amsunshine, @1NJParent - you must have some intelligent opinions you can share on the topic of ethos?
The OP called the opinion piece an “article” and deemed it “interesting” and then apparently thought this “article” provided insight about Stanford. It was an opinion piece, not an article. The piece was also a poorly written, illogical and meandering rant that had little grounding in fact. I’m actually surprised that anyone who purports to be concerned about the “life of the mind” (including anyone at U of Chicago) takes this opinion piece seriously. Or maybe the “life of the mind” refers to upholding imagination and delusion over logic and reason? I have no dog in this fight as far as Stanford or U Chicago are concerned, btw.
I don’t consider the opinion piece especially political, but the author does appear to be enthusiastic about conservative politics. Examples include the following. I don’t mean to suggest this should devalue the accuracy of her opinion piece, but I doubt that it is reflective of typical student opinions. When I was a student, the Review was a platform where students who had minority opinions that differed from typical students could speak out. And the students I knew who participated (including the editor) were quite passionate about conservative politics, so much so that it often influenced their careers.
-Is Editor Emeritus of Stanford Review (alternative, traditionally conservative paper)
@amshine your opinion seems to be about as supported as the author’s. Not to make the same accusation of having just read a meandering rant, but I’m wondering if you have an opinion on the distinct ethos between UChicago and Stanford, or on the historical trend in Stanford’s own ethos, or rather do you just feel like posting whatever pops into your head?
No, I actually don’t have an opinion. I was interested in reading something insightful and intelligent about either Stanford or U Chicago and was disappointed.
Without getting into violations of the TOS, I know that Stanford Review is considered to be a “conservative” publication. Whether it welcomes other viewpoints, I don’t know. Nor do I know whether a variety of viewpoints are welcome in the Stanford Daily. None of that addresses my question of @1NJParent which concerned how long the author has held her viewpoints. It’s not a relevant matter anyway, as far as this thread is concerned. If it’s a hangup for some, they are better off commenting elsewhere so that we can stay on topic.
Most of the cut Stanford sports have been doing this and more, including fencing. I was an athlete on one of the sports (walk-on, not recruited). There was flurry of emails among alumni in my sport soon after the termination, with a multi-pronged strategy for getting the sport back that involved many persons and went far beyond just raising money. The emails have briefly mentioned similar activities in other sports, including fencing. I imagine the author also heard about such activities, and may have been involved. More recently there appears to be far less activity, as re-instating the sports is seeming increasingly less likely.
If you cross reference her athlete page (posted elsewhere in this thread), she quit fencing after her freshman year (2018), well before Stanford cut fencing in 2020, so those cuts didn’t impact her at all. But, her athlete page references younger siblings so perhaps it did impact them.
It’s an opinion article that does not provide much evidence for many of the claims. I wouldn’t take everything at face value. Silicon Valley absolutely is a still a place where persons take chances and start companies, particularly Stanford students. There are resources on and near campus for founding startups. It’s common for professors in relevant classes to share business connections and resources to support students. Tech classes often have an entrepreneurial slant. This history influences which students choose to apply and attend. Students who are interested in starting tech company’s are more likely to favor Stanford. Pitchbook’s 2020 list of undergrad colleges with the most entrepreneurs that go on to garner venture funding is below.
1 . Stanford
2. Berkeley
3. MIT
4. Harvard
5. Penn
I also think that the mass exodus away from CA is overstated. CA population by year is below. The rate of growth may be slowing, but population is not decreasing. While some news articles mention a small minority of tech companies have left the state, other news articles also mention record high number of tech jobs in total, particularly in the SV area, such as Tech jobs soar to all-time record in Bay Area – Silicon Valley .
California Population
2020 – 39.4 million
2019 – 39.4 million
2018 – 39.4 million
2017 – 39.3 million
2016 – 39.1 million
2015 – 38.9 million
This is probably the biggest difference between UChicago and other top schools. The inability to escape back into your comfort zone can make the adjustment quite difficult, especially when combined with the pace of the 10 week (and now nine week!) quarter system. UChicago has a distinct approach to what it means to be “liberally educated.” It involves acquiring an understanding of how the various disciplines will think about a problem. So, for example, while the humanities core might be “interdisciplinary” across humanist subject areas, it won’t really leave much room for someone who doesn’t enjoy close reading to be able to slide by without doing close reading (several hundred pages a week). In order to succeed, one simply has to learn how the humanities profession thinks - oftentimes on subjects that might not be personally interesting or engaging. I suspect that’s very different from other places with more flexibility to the curriculum.
Hmm. Could somebody familiar with Stanford address the core issues the writer raises without attacking her style and substance?
The issues that I could spot were
Hoover incident and freedom of speech issues connected with it and whether Stanford handled it like a world class University would have
Whether Stanford is doing any disservice to the ethos of being a student athlete by cancelling sports that may be niche focused.
Whether Stanford has diluted it’s Humanities curriculum intensity and has thus hurt the quality of learning for a majority of its undergrad students. There is a broader question of what constitutes a good undergrad education.
Here is one viewpoint
Whether you agree with the above viewpoint of not is besides the point. They are taking a particular position and defending it
Does Stanford instill students with a particular orthodoxy, rather than encouraging them to weigh different lenses of viewing history. This is an extremely serious charge
In fact, all these are serious charges and require serious analysis instead of an ad hominem attack on the writer
Yes, I think that the topic of ethos is important when a student considers where to study. @amsunshine Are you saying that if something is deemed interesting and it’s an opinion piece it should not be shared. Or is it that you don’t share the author’s opinions? So therefore it is filled with “imagination and delusion?” Strange to me. If I didn’t like it, I’d just skip over it.
The life of the mind refers to the students who are considering Stanford or any other school. Many are not going to agree on what constitutes the type of learning they want. No delusion there. I think your points are based on your reaction to the article.
And I think that pointing out this aspect is great for potential students. My potential U Chicago student would have no idea that humanities and STEM are equally emphasized to fulfill the requirements. Honestly, that would be a plus in our family.
I really don’t understand being stuck in the style weeds when the article’s emphasis is on the ethos.
If those are issues of concern to the writer of the opinion article, then she should have put forth a better effort rather than having various readers speculate as to what her purpose was in writing this piece.
Poor writing & poor editing are issues worthy of note as communication skills are important in both the academic world and in the world of business.
I’m sure ethos as you are using the term is important. I also think the concepts of ethos, pathos and logos in terms of persuasive writing and speaking are important. The author may have pathos, but no ethos or logos.
