What Did You Encounter?
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Older son when he transferred into UC Davis Oenology and Viticulture (wines and vines) never was subjected because it was the College of Agriculture. Basically sciences with some business. But community college for the odd courses really sneaky stuff. Lainey in Oakland – English literature course not as described. All Black Power authors. He was one of two non African-Americans. He got out of there after second class because of threats. Conversational Spanish. No conversation. Prof was railing about colonialism. Syllabuses with the actual course content handed out after dead drop dates. SF City College same except for accounting.
I was at UT in early 70s. Before I transferred out of liberal arts, in the BS courses I just kept my mouth shut. Hard Sciences were always safe
College in the early 90s. Libs firmly in power. Message was pretty clear that they were running the show.
I was pretty lib myself at that point. Watching their excesses at college was a gift from God – helped turn me around. Best thing I got out of the whole college experience.
In the 80s, most professors were left of center to say the least. Most (but not all) teachers were as well, IIRC. Being a liberal agnostic at the time, I didn’t care. I don’t think it entered into grades, though there were some who clearly treated students differently if they openly challenged liberal views. My two older sons who went through college in the late 2010s and early 2020s saw the same thing. Only a couple of times did they have professors who weren’t left of left, but it usually didn’t make a difference with their grades. In fact, in a couple cases my oldest openly challenged a dominant view and still got an A (even with a note explaining disagreement but saying he made a good case). In only a few cases did they run into the ‘left or there is the door’ classes, and in those cases they were everything rightwing talk radio says. But those were the exception. According to them, the real ‘conform’ pressure messaging came from the university as a whole and the president at that time, who frequently sent out messages blasting Trump, or advocating BLM, or making it clear where the students should stand about Covid measures. But she moved on, and the current president doesn’t seem inclined to go there (though none of my sons are in the school, so it’s hard to say).
Younger son transferred into ULLafayette because our state did not offer Petroleum Engineering. No lib profs. But he did hear many times from older adults, “Why did you pick that major? Fossil fuels are being phased out. You will never get a job.” Well he did. He makes plenty.
I dont’ have any kids, but my brother graduated from University of Maryland in the 1990s (Civil Engineering). Asked him once “Do you believe the history of all the world is about the struggle of classes against each other -classic marxism”. He said “Of course, we learned about that in college”.
I went to Design/Architecture School. First year all the Design majors (Vis Comm, Industrial, Fashion and Interiors) took common subjects. I recall 2 x subjects which had professors who were hardcore left.
The First: Philosophy by a Fashion Professor who praised the likes of Foucault, Sartre and Derrida. Sitting in the class, all I could think was how many of my fellow impressionable first-year students just hung on every word that Professor said. I wanted to jump up wave my arms in the air and shout “don’t listen to her!”
The Second: another first year subject where an overtly gay professor displayed a picture of Vivian Westwood t-shirt of an inverted crucifix to a packed lecture auditorium and began analysing it for 20 minutes. I wrote an anonymous letter (because I didn’t want to fail a first year subject) to the department head and in the next lecture he stood there for the most part of his lecture defending himself against the anonymous letter. I sunk in my chair and all I could think was “what does offending Christianity” have anything to do with design? What am I doing here.
My degree got easier when we began learning about *actual* design. Except for the odd professors who were hardcore environmentalists and everything had to be “green” and “sustainable”. Those ones would have failed you if your assignment didn’t adhere to their hardcore green philosophies. Oh, and the one subject titled “eastern design” where we had a Feng Shui practitioner who told us how people paid him to go into people’s home and “clap” the spirits away. He demonstrated this in a class. I worked very hard to control my inner laughter.
Instead of asking that, review the course lists and course syllibi. Have a gander at institutional policy. Have a gander at functional institutional policy – manifest in the symbiosis between the administration and student ‘activists’. Ask yourself why every college administration generates the same Jabberwocky.
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About 2/3 of all baccalaureate students follow occupational majors and over 80% of all post-baccalaureate students do. Some of these are tethered to a degree to the larger world (but are still infested with political discourse – see the recent decay in the operation of medical schools). Some are pseudopreparation for real occupations (teacher training) and some are paper hoops for artificial ones (social work, library administration). This twit should read KC Johnson’s critique of the accreditation standards of the National Council for Teachers of Education. Or read Jonathan Turley’s account of what’s happened to law schools since he landed his first faculty position in 1987.
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As for the academic programs, you have a mess of them that are apologetical in character – they exist to fortify particular views of social relations. That would include cultural anthropology, sociology, and American history. (See KC Johnson’s account of the elimination of whole subdivisions of American history by woke hiring committees). Others have entered a decadent period wherein students accomplish nothing, taught by professors who have no real skills (studio art).
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*students accomplish nothing, taught by professors who have no real skills (studio art).*
Depends on the institution.
Mine was a a *actual* University Degree, not a vocational college.
Most of the tutors we had were working in Design Studios. Uni teaching was their side job. If you were doing a retail design subject we were taught and assessed by a tutor who worked designing retail stores. One of the furniture Design lectures was an *actual* furniture designer, Stefan Li, who produces products sold today. He used to assist in the Industrial workshop at the university. His *Ribs Bench* is in the Sydney Opera House:
https://www.architonic.com/en/project/designbythem-sydney-opera-house/5103499
I agree most of the Arts courses are stuffed with content to push a particular agenda and the graduate is none the wiser, but poorer. But you can’t get away with this in Medicine, Engineering, Law, Commerce, Architecture/Design (to a certain degreee) etc…otherwise you will have graduates who are unemployable.
Also, we tend to forget that University is meant to prepare you for your industry. You actually learn your craft on the job. In contrast, Vocational courses and trades teach you the practicals in the courses but require you to have an apprenticeship for a reason.
The only university degree which I find ridiculous is the Building Degrees. Our university had a building degree. Being a daughter of a builder who was a full trained carpenter before electrical tools were a thing, I found that ridiculous. You need to go to vocational training and have an apprenticeship if you want to become a builder. Not obtain a piece of paper from a university.
I went to US Naval Nuclear Power School instead of college. Best educational decision I ever made.