<p>Give me Cornell any day.</p>
<p>
[quote]
[W]hat's the gripe with West?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, let's see. Not only is he a self-proclaimed socialist, but he serves as honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.</p>
<p>Although he is a former freedom fighter from the civil rights movement, he continues to focus on race and inadvertantly pushes forward racial tensions in America.</p>
<p>In fact, just look at some of the books he's written.</p>
<p>Black Theology and Marxist Thought</p>
<p>Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity</p>
<p>The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought</p>
<p>Race Matters</p>
<p>Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America</p>
<p>Future of Race</p>
<p>He seems to be obsessed with Race and Marxism.</p>
<p>On a lesser note, he's a PETA quack who once involved himself in the "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" campaign against KFC.</p>
<p>This is not to say Cornell West isn't qualified. He was educated at both Harvard and Princeton and has taught at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. He has served some good causes in his life, but he is overwhelmingly discredited in my book when he supports anti-liberty institutions like PETA and the Democratic Socialists of America. </p>
<p>Of course we support his free speech right to be an anti-liberty quack, and in fact I respect the man for being so outgoing with his views, but none of this changes the fact that he is an anti-liberty quack.</p>
<p>incoherent quack-quack</p>
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He seems to be obsessed with Race and Marxism.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And Prof. Louis Menand is obsessed with intellectual history.</p>
<p>And Prof. Jorie Graham is obsessed with writing poetry.</p>
<p>. . . your point? Everyone has a specialty.</p>
<p>I'm not necessarily in West's corner, but I don't think this is a very good argument against him.</p>
<p>I think he meant West has an obsession of opinion, not academically :)</p>
<p>Okay, seriously, has anyone heard Cornell West's raps? They're brilliant - and I mean that in the most humorous way possible.</p>
<p>I hardly find the connection between someone being a socialist and being a bad professor...</p>
<p>That said, if any of you were able to actually take a course with Dr. West (as I was last semester), you would see that his intellectual endeavors are not, as some of you accuse them of being, entirely rooted in racial militancy. He specializes<a href="as%20most%20good%20academics%20do">/i</a>, and his interests to be race, democracy, and the philosophy of religion. In the class on public intellectualism I took with him in the religion department, he made it a point to note the intellectual contributions of *all cultures throughout history. In fact, there wasn't a single African-American on the reading list for his class last semester. Next semester one of the courses he's teaching is the introduction class for African-American studies, and I would be a little concerned if he didn't have the background in scholarship that he does in race and cultural studies while teaching such a class.</p>
<p>Beyond that, West has a dynamism that most professors these days lack. How much you've published is only one component of your effectiveness as a professor in the college-lecture world. I had a Pulitzer Prize-winning sociology professor in the fall, and I can say that I learned more and enjoyed lecture a helluva lot more with West than with him.</p>
<p>Harvard people: it isn't only Yalies who see Harvard's star falling with the Summers controversies and the Great Migration of bigshot professors to Princeton. Only Fox News and the Wall Street Journal could be giddy about a university losing luminaries like West and (the far more significant) Kwame Anthony Appiah (while retaining an ever-more- profilic-on-campus Alan Dershowitz). I've asked people who follow little of what goes on in higher education, and even they seem to believe Harvard is no longer as it once was. </p>
<p>Nature of the Zeitgeist, perhaps. A university cannot be content to rest upon the "achievements" of the Groton-reared national elite who were ushered through the Yard and into powerful positions in Washington once so long ago. Not while its current face to the world is Kaavya Viswanathan.</p>
<p>Cornel West was in The Matrix II and III. He should be teaching in the Drama Department, because that's where he's most credible.</p>
<p>oh my god this makes me want to go to yale so bad
-no RAs
-good housing
-fun atmosphere
-encouragement to take classes because they're good and not because they get you a minor or something
-fewer pretentious, name-whore students
-residential college system
-school spirit
-focus on yale college
-the awesome education!!!</p>
<p>"fewer pretentious, name-whore students"</p>
<p>I agree with the rest but I don't know about this. There are guys there with curly blond hair, striped Polo shirts and dismissive attitudes that scream "I'm on the yachting team and live in New Canaan, CT!" Future George W. Bushes, if you will. Of course, they're a minority common to every Ivy, they just seem, well, slightly nastier in temperament at Yale. Maybe it's the secret society memberships that keep them so haughty. </p>
<p>Simply the price one pays. Yale's graduates don't rule the world because they're afraid to do what it takes (use connections, be aggressive, etc.) to get what they want...</p>
<p>Did you actually talk to those people? Or are you just basing this off of stereotypes?</p>
<p>Man, I'm scared of guys with "curly blond hair" and "striped Polo shirts".</p>
<p>W T F?</p>
<p>Actually, you can find striped polo shirts cheap if you shop around. "The price you pay" for success at Yale need not be that great.</p>
<p>"Did you actually talk to those people?"</p>
<p>Absolutely. Like I said, they are not a very large percentage of people there at all. And their look in and of itself is not that important. It's the attitude that comes with it.</p>
<p>The only thing you mentioned about their attitude was:</p>
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dismissive attitudes that scream "I'm on the yachting team and live in New Canaan, CT!"
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Elaborate, perhaps (?)</p>
<p>Dear Byerly,</p>
<p>Have you ever re-read any of your posts and asked yourself why you're so weird?</p>
<p>love,</p>
<p>guy who chose yale over harvard because of people like you.</p>
<p>Now now, let's not get personal...</p>
<p>I guess there are always a small number of folks like "yaleguy" as exceptions to prove the rule.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Dear Byerly,</p>
<p>Have you ever re-read any of your posts and asked yourself why you're so weird?</p>
<p>love,</p>
<p>guy who chose yale over harvard because of people like you.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Seconded. </p>
<p>But seriously, some people are taking this way too seriously, and all of them seem to be current students or alum. This isn't about you, it's about kids who are trying to choose. Byerly and posterX, neither one of you is helping your respective alma maters by looking childish and arrogant.</p>
<p>I choose Yale because (1) I thought the students were happier and (2) they loved Yale. Harvard didn't even get an application from me after an extremely depressing campus visit. I am not the competitive type, and Harvard was wrong for me in every way.</p>
<p>Let's be perfectly honest - the education is great either place. The whole decision comes down to arbitrary personal choices. To deride the original post as too personal and not objective enough is idiotic. A college choice is supposed to be subjective. It's about a student visiting a college and saying "I would be happy here." </p>
<p>The original poster listed the reasons why SHE was happy there, and 90% of Yale students would offer the exact same explanation of why Yale is better than Harvard. Byerley and other Cantabridgians, why don't you post a "Why I chose Harvard over Yale"? You know, do something that might actually give a prospective student the biased and entirely subjective opinion of a Harvard student as to why it is better. Subjective opinions are a lot more useful in a H/Y discussion than "hard facts" since the facts are pretty damn close and you can read a lot into these subjective opinions. "Yalies are a bunch of lazy drunks" and "Harvard kids don't have fun" is a pair of subjective opinions, but I bet most students can choose the stereotype that they prefer.</p>