<p>The overwhelming majority of well-meaning American kids would not care for a truly “conservative” university campus – that’s why the authors of “Choosing The Right College” spend most of the book dissing only the most popular colleges in the country; if they spent it promoting the handful of colleges that actually fit their viewpoints, no one would buy it.</p>
<p>IMO, most debates about where colleges fit on the liberal/conservative divide (a purely American pastime, btw) have little to do with ideology per se, but with how you view college life: should it be completely frivolous and care-free for four years, or spent in a complete state of cognitive dissonance? Fortunately (or, unfortunately), there’s no true test case for either side. Because of a little something called, “workload”, most people have only a limited time to play OR protest.</p>
<p>The c/l distinction is so slippery it is hard to get much traction on it without carefully defining what you mean first. To me, it’s an odd set of criteria that would lump Chicago and Brigham Young together at one end of the spectrum, then identify Middlebury College as a strong example of the opposite end (as cited by #11). </p>
<p>You can count the peeling Obama stickers in the parking lots to get one answer. Or count the distribution of nose rings and popped collars in the student population. These indicators may signal the presence of your political or cultural tribe on a campus, but are not very helpful in distinguishing fundamental differences in educational approach. They signal differences of *attitude<a href=“or%20taste”>/i</a>, which are coincidental to different approaches to the university mission of spreading knowledge.</p>
<p>To make the distinction in a different way, try asking, What defines what students need to learn in school? The interests of the individual learner? Professional licensing requirements? Some collection of important ideas (or books) that have “stood the test of time”? Scripture? </p>
<p>If you frame the distinction around this question, I’d put Brown and most other Open Curriculum schools on the moderate left, Columbia and Chicago somewhere in the middle (or center-right), and St. John’s College on the right. These are not political labels because none of these schools have an essentially political mission. Schools on the more radical left or radical right would differ from this mainstream by defining objectives in the sphere of action, subordinating pedagogy to political or social goals. There seem to be far more colleges on the radical right than on the radical left; it appears the radical left has been more easily absorbed into the knowledge exploration process at mainstream schools. Conservatives misinterpret this to mean that American colleges tend to have a left-wing agenda, when in fact they have at most a left-leaning orientation in particular classes. These schools generally remain about as mission-focused as they ever were on professional training or knowledge discovery (as the case may be), with a nod here and there to civic obligations.</p>
<p>“The c/l distinction is so slippery it is hard to get much traction on it without carefully defining what you mean first. To me, it’s an odd set of criteria that would lump Chicago and Brigham Young together at one end of the spectrum, then identify Middlebury College as a strong example of the opposite end (as cited by #11).”</p>
<p>Ah, but these schools were considered to be two different types of conservativism. BYU is a socially conservative mormon school. Uchi has had a major fiscally conservative outlook-- and was rated for just being more accepting of the conservative view point. More balanced, if you will. Uchi would be center-right to this book, not the complete spectrum end. </p>
<p>That being said, I only used the book in question because I had actually picked it up and read it for about an hour. I don’t honestly agree with the men who wrote the book, but the heart of things I found to be true: Many to most schools are center-left- have nods to civic obligation, liberal clubs, or liberal(ish) teachers or speakers- and some are center-right. Both center-left and center-right show the other sides generally speaking and extreme right or left schools do tend to have certain markers of their political outlooks. </p>
<p>Not many extreme right schools will have a Gay and Lesbian studies class was the gist of it. (Not all left schools do either.) As my mother pointed out-- Is is Berkley, where the first thing that comes to mind is anti-war protests? Or is it a Ministry school? </p>
<p>Most places fall somewhere in the middle- and political climates change. I wouldn’t worry about it too much OP unless you have a specific belief whereupon you want to participate in groups of students with similar beliefs. Then I’d look at the student activities center to see if they have some similar group. :)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes, Conservatives abhor the idea Iran isn’t a democracy, thus their desire to convert it into one in a similar manner as was done in Iraq. Sure, liberals aren’t thrilled about their views toward the US, but they wouldn’t discount it just based on its system of government, thus the reasoning behind why Barack Obama would much rather use diplomacy rather than chemical weapons and troops to solve relational problems between the two "superpowers’ (don’t underestimate how much power Iran holds in the political world)</p></li>
<li><p>Maybe it’s impossible to negotiate, maybe not. We’ll never know until we try, and honestly, what’s to lose? A pen in a conference room in Istanbul? Get real.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’ve thought that the word isn’t very apt either, but it’s the word that everyone uses.</p>
<p>But it is worthy to note that a lot of people who hate gays ARE afraid of them. They are afraid that gay teachers will pervert schoolchildren, that gay parents will contaminate chilldren, and homophobic men fear that gay men will “put the moves on them.” So I think a lot of the hate often stems from fear.</p>
The man was heckled. O.K., not nice. But homophobia is among his milder offenses. It’s surprising nobody threw a shoe at him.</p>
<p>What was Columbia thinking when they invited this guy? As if he’s just another public intellectual with controversial ideas, like an Arthur Jensen or a Charles Murray. For crying out loud, he wants to murder everybody in Israel.</p>