Follow the money given to the universities

These demonstrations/riots/insurrections from UCLA to Columbia show what a huge FAIL the DEI departments and cabals at the universities are. They all have 150-200 "administrators" and assistants to assistants sucking from the federal tit of special grants. Then each department from dance to archeology to horse breeding has a faculty member tied up in paperwork to assure equity a fantasy. And this is what has come of it. 1) cheat the Asian students out of their freedom to choose a school, 2) kill the Jews, 3) blame all white people. If you teach children that there are only two kinds of people, oppressors and the oppressed, of course you collect a bunch of fascists looking for a cause. Soros has placed a lot of his lawyers in the halls of "just us" and you can watch that being played out in NYC in a court room right now. The next trick will be all the perps will be back on campus after a short trip to court.

Although a lot of bad ideas begin in government, most by far begin in academe. Many universities would close without the money they receive from foreign governments who have to pay full tuition for their students.

Whatever the Left Touches It Ruins

Dennis Prager (and many others) say: "More than two years ago, I wrote a column titled "Whatever the Left Touches It Ruins." I listed eight examples:

• The universities.
• The arts: music, art and architecture.
• Sports.
• Mainstream Judaism, Protestantism and Catholicism.
• Race relations.
• Women’s happiness.
• Children’s innocence.
• And, perhaps most disturbingly, America's commitment to free speech.

One should now add the sciences."

"If you send your children to a university, you are endangering both their mind and their character. There is a real chance they will be more intolerant and more foolish after college than they were when they entered college.

When you attend an American university, you are taught to have contempt for America and its founders, to prefer socialism to capitalism, to divide human beings by race and ethnicity. You are taught to shut down those who differ with you, to not debate them. And you are taught to place feelings over reason — which is a guaranteed route to eventual evil."

https://dennisprager.com/column/whatever-the-left-touches-it-ruins?

The colleges' role in the student loan crisis

"Here is how the education industrial complex works.

 The universities spent $130 million lobbying to get this loan forgiveness done. The university needs money to pay for the vast overhead created by all the costs of the DEI staffs and the high operating overhead of all the amenities they now offer. 

So, they raise tuition, and then convince students to take out loans to cover the tuition which is really to cover their inflated operating budget. The student wants to attend, so they borrow, not understanding the economics of what they are doing. 

The government makes the loan with no assessment of ability to repay, or if the course of study is one that will provide a job paying enough to cover repayment. The school gets its operating costs covered by getting the students to borrow the needed working capital to operate the school. They then can put donations from rich guys who want their kid admitted, into their huge endowment which is just a giant investment portfolio. 

So now the university has gotten the student and the government to cover their operating costs, with zero liability to the university for the borrowed funds. It is magic. It is a total scam.

Meantime they have courses like gender studies, or others that have nil value to the student or employers when they graduate. So now the kid has no way to earn enough to pay the loan that financed the university operating budget. That is the reality of student loans. Universities are a corrupt cabal now destroying a whole generation with nonsense courses, and no free thought allowed. This will harm the nation for many years. This is one more example of why we are fighting the Amy Wax war. Between teachers’ unions and university corruption and ideology, we are in real trouble educationally."

(The Ross Rant, 8/27/22)

Comments on Amy Wax mentioned above: "On Dec. 20, Wax in an interview with Glenn Loury, a professor at Brown University, said that since “most” Asian Americans support the Democratic Party, “the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.”

After backlash to those remarks, the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School’s Dean Ted Ruger announced on Jan. 14 that he had initiated a faculty review process that could result in sanctions imposed on Wax." (Daily Princetonian, Jan. 27, 2022)

Dr. Marty Makary on failed universities' Covid policies

"Universities are supposed to be bastions of critical thinking, reason and logic. But the Covid policies they have adopted—policies that have derailed two years of students’ education and threaten to upend the upcoming spring semester—have exposed them as nonsensical, anti-scientific and often downright cruel.

 
Some of America’s most prestigious universities are leading the charge."

Including but limited to Georgetown, Princeton, Cornell, Amherst, Brown, Emory, Tulane, Wake Forest, Johns Hopkins. . .

"According to the CDC, the risk of a fully vaccinated adult ending up in the hospital for Covid was 1 in 26,000 for the week ending in November 27. Who was that one person? Not a college student. One analysis of breakthrough infections by age found that the average age of a vaccinated person being hospitalized is 72 years, and the average age of a vaccinated person dying of Covid is 80."

Common Sense with Bari Weiss, Jan. 4, 2022 Dr. Marty Makary, Johns Hopkins, writes for WSJ, WaPo

Johns Hopkins professor SLAMS Ivy League universities for 'anti-scientific and cruel' COVID policies | Daily Mail Online

CRT in the schools, and the Democrats' denial

Democrat talking heads on news TV are denying that CRT is being taught in schools [defending Democrats who lost Tuesday around the nation on school issues], which is ridiculous.

Let me explain. You'll find no courses described as "Critical Race Theory" in the curriculum description in public schools. That's probably the extent of the producers' research, if they've done any. It is a full system to assure that every child learns he is either a victim or an oppressor and skin color is the defining quality. Racism is not "systemic," but teaching about it certainly is from math to English to cooking (if any schools still teach that).

 
Every university and college has a DIE department (diversity inclusion equity) and it is bloated. If you don't believe me search any university with which you are familiar, and count noses. At Ohio State, these are just a few that fall under that umbrella: 

African and African American Studies
American Indian Studies
American Sign Language
Americans with Disabilities Act Coordinator's Office
Asian American Studies
Bias Assessment and Response Team (BART)
Office for Disability Services
Disability Studies
Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU
Council of Graduate Students Diversity Committee
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
Latino/a Studies
Multicultural Center
President and Provost's Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series
Sexuality Studies
Undergraduate Student Government Diversity Committee
University Senate Diversity Committee
Office of Military and Veterans Services
The Women's Place
Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

The Buckeye football and basketball teams are not scrutinized for racial balance and equity.

The Wexner Medical Center at OSU has it's own list. I counted 27 people on its Advisory Council on DIE, and 2 vice chairs. Recent offerings are:

 
"Approaches to Reducing Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Mortality: Improved Risk Prediction for Black Women"
"Clinical Trials and Underrepresented Minorities: Mistrust, Misconceptions, Missed Opportunities and Moving Forward to Enhance Diversity"
"Black people from under-resourced neighborhoods are significantly more likely to die within five years of surviving a heart attack than Black people from wealthier neighborhoods and white people of all socioeconomic backgrounds."

And yet, reading through Wexner's own data, there are fewer minority males in medicine today than in 1978! I was in academe then, and I know there were many recruitment and special programs to bring in minorities.

 
Women are usually included in DIE departments, even if white and wealthy. Over 25 years ago I remember seeing posted in the building where I worked (Sisson Hall, veterinary medicine) a list of over 50 organizations and groups to help college female students! Must have worked for women because now females outnumber males in college--60% to 40%--and single, childless women have been earning higher wages than single, childless men upon graduation for over 15 years.

Each academic department in these schools of "higher learning" also have their own DIE departments and the universities also have departments of DIE that teach courses, usually in the humanities, leading to degrees. There must be jobs out there waiting for them in textbook companies, HR departments of businesses large and small, all levels of k-12 schooling, churches, marketing for TV commercials and magazines, etc. They definitely are NOT learning of the amazing achievements and progress of the past 50 years and the trillions the government has spent in establishing laws and regulations to assure that even the less than .1% trans-woman-disabled black has a good job and a fair deal.

The term POC, People of Color, keeps expanding and is frequently used in place of the term minority, which is why Dublin, Ohio (wealthiest suburb in Columbus area) politicians can claim the schools are 41% POC. Dublin is only 2.3% black, but almost 17% Asian, because so many executive and academic families choose to live there. Ohio's population is 12.3% black and 1.94% Asian. POC has become a marketing tool.

 
And DIE has become a necessity for every business, school, hospital, church, and club. But it's never enough. It must become an election issue because it is disguised racism and grievance policies for every group defined by color, ethnicity, ability level and sex. Oh, and fat has now joined in. Their word, not mine.

Update: "Defenders of CRT-inspired curricula and training programs often insist that these initiatives are aimed at teaching both the good and the bad in our nation’s history, and that opponents of racialized education are racists and neo-segregationists. In fact, these initiatives seek to advance a deeply divisive ideology of race essentialism, offering a distorted account of American life to promote a set of radical political ideas. That’s why the opposition to CRT has been so widespread and diverse, as evidenced by new data from Manhattan Institute and Echelon Insights. In a survey of 20 of America’s fastest-growing cities, parents oppose critical race theory in the public school curriculum by a massive 42-point margin, and a majority of black and Hispanic parents oppose CRT and support removing contentious “concepts such as white privilege and systemic racism” from the curriculum." Christopher F. Ruffo

You don’t have to fund a bad college education

Imagine a country with free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly without being attacked--unknown through out most of history, and now close to being lost if we can judge from the 25 or so Democrat candidates and Colin Kaepernick's latest antics to stop patriotism by a major corporation. I know you'll be shocked to learn this, but there is a class at a public university where a conservative Christian is on the faculty. Dr. Duke Pesta, University of Wisconsin.

https://youtu.be/mTJTFOyr0fk

• Why are you funding 1) radical ideas at your kids' college, and 2) their debt? Sure, they may return to normal by 25 or 30, but why put up with it?

• Your tuition and fees for your kids have turned the universities into ideological cesspools (paraphrase). Why should the rest of us bail out the bad decisions of university administrations?

• Literature is not read for its own value, but students are required to read Shakespeare or the Bible or 19th century literature through the lens of radical feminism or "queer eye." How can you avoid these radical reeducation camps we call "college," or "higher education?" Maybe a year or two working first? Get a little maturity first? He suggests 20 as the starting age--have some money in the bank and some education from the job. Skin in the game.

• Universities are the church of progressivism, a bubble of Marxism, and professors are the preachers. These evangelists for Marxism have never worked in the real world, in many cases. How much more history do we need to know Marxism is a failure? Academe is a good example of the failure of Marxism/Socialism.

• Hypocrites graduating with mounds of debt; grad students acting as slaves for the tenured faculty. Universities are class based and hierarchical. Even in business schools social justice theory trumps capitalism. Speaker believes college students are graduating in 2019 with the knowledge a high school student may have known in 1970. (I think that's a stretch--more like 1940). 

• He’s really hard on "Common Core" as prep for college because it dumbs everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Sexual indoctrination into transgenderism for very young children. What worked for the Left in college is now transferred to elementary age as young as six. Even in liberal radical Madison, WI, it's too much.

The political bias on college campuses

Perhaps you aren't convinced college campuses are just birthing rooms for young Democrats?

"In total, Florida public college employees donated $587,454.47 from 2017-2018. Of that amount, 94.8 percent were made to Democrat politicians or Democrat organizations" and, "Employees of the University of Texas have given $1.1 million during this election cycle, more than 92% of it to Democrats." and at Yale "96 percent of these donations went to Democratic political campaigns and committees."

Of course, I think these are voluntary contributions--public school teacher unions (membership required in order to teach) give 99% to Democrats.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-s-most-partisan-industry-1541542039?

Keeping college students ignorant

This could be the problem. Less than 1/3 of the top universities in the U.S. require a course in American history for a history major. Not. One.

 

• That means, not only do our future leaders from our elite universities not know about the Spanish, French, Dutch and Portuguese explorers and settlers; they don't know that less than 400,000 African slaves came to the former British colonies and that about 18 million went to the islands and South America.

• They don't know about the NW Ordinance of 1787, signed before the Constitution that outlawed slavery in new states and guaranteed religious freedom; they aren't taught about the horrific expense in blood and treasure of the Civil War; they don't know why we have a relationship with Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, former colonies of Spain.

• They don't know the contribution of churches to the big 3 of the 19th century--abolition, temperance and women's rights; they don't know that whites and blacks marched together in the civil rights movement and it was Republicans that led the way for 100 years before LBJ got in the act.
• They don't know the incredible improvements in public health that our parents and grandparents paid for--they've never seen an iron lung or a person's face destroyed by small pox. Their babies don't die of measles.

• They don't know how the federal government has lied to native Americans still to this day and yet offer them cradle to grave assistance to keep them poor; they don't know why the Great Depression in the U.S. extended for a decade due to government programs instituted by FDR; they don't know how or when the military and schools were racially integrated or about the great bi-partisan efforts.
• They don't know that the U.S. government at the highest levels actually was infiltrated by Communist spies and sympathizers and it wasn't just about who could make movies. They probably don't know which came first Viet Nam or Korea or who we were fighting.

Yes, it's a shame that today's millennials learn history with social media lies or from late night comedy shows. They at least should know as much as the new immigrants do when they raise their hands to become citizens.

http://www.goacta.org/images/download/no_u.s._history.pdf

 "Of the 23 programs that do list a requirement for United States history, 11 allow courses so narrow in scope—such as “History of Sexualities” or “History of the FBI”—that it takes a leap of the imagination to see these as an adequate fulfillment of an undergraduate history requirement."

"Some strange topics can take the place of United States history. Of the schools that do not require a single course in U.S. history, majors have free-range to choose from niche courses such as “Soccer and History in Latin America: Making the Beautiful Game” (Williams College), “Modern Addiction: Cigarette Smoking in the 20th Century” (Swarthmore College), “Lawn Boy Meets Valley Girl” (Bowdoin College), and “Witchcraft and Possession” (University of Pennsylvania)."

And students and their parents go into debt for this drivel?

"Our colleges and universities, whether in the name of “inclusion” or globalism or a debased hope that they will attract more students by eliminating requirements, have created a vicious circle of historical illiteracy and the civic illiteracy that accompanies it."

I didn't major in history--I was a foreign language major, but I did have 2 or 3 courses in American history plus one in political science. This survey is just shocking, and certain explains how we've become so divided in the U.S.

Outreach and engagement

Expansion at the highest levels of academe should never surprise me, but it does. "Outreach and engagement" is for vice presidents or associate provosts of universities, and as I look through their names and photos, it's a good way to add females and minorities to white privileged administrations. The titles are often added to "diversity" jobs. They even have their own consortium.

 http://engagementscholarship.org/resources/university-based-engagement-offices

Executive Vice President and Provost Joseph Steinmetz has named a 10-member committee to search for the vice provost for Outreach and Engagement. The committee will be chaired by Vice Provost and Director of University Libraries Carol Diedrichs, and also includes Ola Ahlqvist (Geography), Eric Anderman (Educational Studies), Trevor Brown (John Glenn College of Public Affairs), Ronald Hendrick (FAES), Mark Shanda (Theatre), Natasha Slesnick (Human Sciences), Sarah Thompson (student representative, Social Work), Eric Troy (Student Life) and Kimberly Lambert (Human Resources, ex officio). Associate Vice Provost Stephen Myers will manage the day-to-day operations of the Office of Outreach and Engagement until a vice provost is hired.

The University Diversity Scam

http://prageruniversity.com/Political-Science/What-is-the-University-Diversity-Scam.html

I blogged about the bloated diversity positions at Ohio State.  More than once.  A few times.

The University of Virginia phony rape scandal and the real scandal of the media and the administration

Buck Sexton writes: “The Left has gone mad over the Rolling Stone retraction.

I don't mean it's angry and self-righteous- that's always the case. I don't mean its arguments are weak, self-contradictory, unprincipled- I expect that too. This is different.

Many progressives have absolutely lost all touch with reality over the rapidly collapsing tale of the most vicious, sadistic campus rape imaginable.

They aren't reevaluating based on the facts, they are doubling down, and saying things so stupid, and so immoral, it is hard to believe they are serious.

Here we have a prime example:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/no-matter-what-jackie-said…/

A leftist commentator, in a major newspaper, writing flat out- the truth of the Rolling Stone story of a hideous gang rape at UVA doesn't matter.The individuals falsely accused don't matter. The University and administrators defamed in the piece don't matter.

It's the cause that matters. Only the cause. Always the cause.

This thinking dictates we must believe every and all accusations of rape, right away, without questioning or investigating. That's not an overstatement, read the piece and you will see an incoherent but fervent attack on the presumption of innocence as a principle. And written by a lawyer no less!

She is not alone, by the way. Other commentators have somehow perversely turned this into a case of "rape denialism." First off, I'm not sure that's even a thing, because rape is a serious criminal violation in every state and nobody anywhere in this country denies that it exists, and it happens far too often. One rape is too many.

But denialism? If something is said to be true, and it isnt, are we to say its true anyway, lest we be denialers? This is absurd.

Are there "murder denialists?" If someone wrote a story about how a fraternity was engaging in ritualized human sacrifice and stacking dead bodies in its basement, without anyone who noticed caring enough to call the cops- I think it would raise some eyebrows and strain believability. At a minimum, it would require investigation.

This isn't "denialism," it's rationality.

Which brings us to the next point of the bitter enders on the Left here- that the entire onus of everything wrong in this whole situation is on Rolling Stone. That's just simply not true.

Did a Rolling Stone reporter find a far too convenient, one-in-a-million story with the sort of sensational implications that would get national attention? Yup. Did that reporter then fail to uphold even the most rudimentary standards of journalism in a rush to publish something that should have required additional levels of fact-checking and even more vigilant journalistic ethics?Indeed.

But Rolling Stone isn't the only party at fault here. Despite the shrill (and in the case of MSNBC's Chris Hayes twitter tirade- childishly profane) effort to place this all on a magazine that would have ceased to exist in a rational world many years ago, there is the very real possibility that the subject of the story-- "Jackie"- lied.

That doesn't mean she fabricated the whole thing, although that is entirely possible, but she did apparently get facts wrong. Not jumbled, not vague- wrong. And that's apart from the basic credulity issues surrounding all this.

Nobody downstairs at the fraternity house was unnerved enough by the site of a woman covered in blood, bruises, and broken glass to do anything? None of her friends cared? No administrator called the police? Didn't tell her parents? Not a single, honorable person is to be found anywhere at UVA or anywhere in this story?

Of course, this is what got the story so much attention. In a country where the sexual assault scourge on campus is well-established and now even has the White House involved, this story was an outlier. Nobody had ever heard of an attack like this at a major university with such callous responses from so many.

And now those in the media who were willing to use the most baseless slurs- "rape apologists"- against anyone who questioned this outlandish narrative want to tell us all that something still happened to Jackie. It's not her fault. Maybe she got foggy, or maybe she exaggerated a little because of the trauma.

(How do they know this, by the way? Any of it? Aren't they relying on a retracted magazine piece for all of their facts too?)

But even a material exaggeration of facts in a sexual assault is problematic (and under oath, would be perjury). If someone punches me in the face at a bar, that's assault. I can't just decide to add that brass knuckles were used, and I was also robbed, in order to make the assailant seem worse and get more time. In a criminal court, the details of the crime have very real implications for the charges brought, and the length of sentence. It's not ok to intentionally get creative or exaggerate a crime, no matter how much catharsis it may give a victim.

This is all starting to feel very much like the Duke Lacrosse case of 2006- another story that to an honest reader from the beginning seemed very, very improbable, but it turned into a national media sensation anyway. "Race, class, sex, and privilege"- that was the story. And it was all a big, fat, grotesque lie.

And if you recall, the disgraced, almost comically evil prosecutor in that case- Mike Nifong- still would claim that "something happened that" after the accused lacrosse players were said by the state of North Carolina to be completely innocent! Not "not guilty," but "innocent!"

It seems the Nifong effect is on display now. Rolling Stone is disgraced, the entire rape story may have been a fabrication, and there are Leftists who think that those who questioned the initial story- even though they were right to do so- are somehow the real problem.

The truth always matters. There is no cause that can make the truth irrelevant. The Left is dead wrong on all this, but don't expect them to admit it anytime soon.

How universities remain biased and political

No one else can get on the faculty. Conservatives. Christians. Pro-Life. Creationists.  NIMBY. You have a better chance of being hired by a major university if you are a shoe bomber than a conservative pro-lifer. Even if hired to avoid discrimination charges, you’d have to face your political enemies at promotion and tenure review.

“The University of Iowa's law-school faculty, like most law-school faculties, is overwhelmingly liberal. When Ms. Wagner was considered for the job, the law school had only one Republican on its 50-member faculty, according to party registration records obtained from the Iowa Secretary of State, and he had joined the faculty 25 years earlier. . .

Hiring decisions should be based on candidates' merits, including their ability to vigorously present in the classroom and criticize conservative as well as progressive views. If the Eighth Circuit protects Teresa Wagner's constitutional rights, the court will also bolster legal education in America by promoting its depoliticization.”

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304691904579346401360317462?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304691904579346401360317462.html

Campus censorship

Since the 1960s, academic freedom has been decreasing and censorship increasing on our college campuses. 

Read this account of what happened to a tenured Twain scholar almost 25 years ago when he questioned the politicization of an upper level English course at the University of Texas at Austin.

Heterodoxy article on Alan Gribben

What is "Outreach and Engagement" other than a very well paid position?

Joyce Beatty, The Ohio State University Vice President of Outreach and Engagement, whose salary was $326,000, won the Democratic primary race for Ohio’s 3rd Congressional District on Tuesday March 6, so she’s left her position. So, just what is “Outreach and Engagement” that it pays so well, that one would leave it to make even more in Congress, I wondered? I looked at what other universities did with departments named this, and am still baffled and confused, but it’s definitely well paid.

After reading through the various descriptions of O & E, and particularly what's going on at Michigan State which seems to be the most active, I think it's a way to get scholarly credit for faculty who are busy with off campus activities and need credit for promotion and tenure. So O & E was created with lots of big, squishy and undefinable words. I could be wrong about this, but it is a hodge podge from library, to extension, to on-line courses, to partnerships with businesses in the community. There don't seem to be any departments of Outreach and Engagement at Harvard and Yale or Cornell, or they may have it under a different term. University of Michigan includes the word Sciences in its department. The vaguest definition seemed to be Ohio State's (at the bottom).

[Michigan State] University Outreach and Engagement (UOE) is a campus-wide resource dedicated to helping faculty and academic units construct more extensive and effective engagement with the communities of our state, nation, and world . . . It involves generating, transmitting, applying, and preserving knowledge for the direct benefit of external audiences in ways that are consistent with university and disciplinary missions.

[Oregon State University] Outreach and Engagement at Oregon State University enhances access to enrichment and problem solving through reciprocal relationships for the exchange of knowledge and resources in partnership with individuals, communities, businesses, industries, government, and educational institutions.

[University of Illinois] "The term 'public engagement' reflects the reality that so much of what we do takes the form of faculty members collaborating with communities, agencies, and organizations to address critical issues. When our faculty, staff or students become involved in a public engagement project, they are entering into a contract, in which both they and those they engage with, have much to gain through the sharing of and creating, new knowledge to the benefit of both campus and community." Chancellor Richard Herman, September 2004

[James Madison University] Outreach & Engagement serves as a catalyst by utilizing JMU resources to create mutually beneficial partnerships, advance educational opportunities, and empower individuals and our extended communities.

[University of Colorado Boulder] At CU-Boulder, we define outreach and engagement as the ways faculty, staff, and students collaborate with external groups in mutually beneficial partnerships that are grounded in scholarship and consistent with our role and mission as a comprehensive, public research university.

[University of Minnesota] As one of the very few land-grant research universities located in an urban setting in the United States, the University of Minnesota has made a priority of discovering solutions to the many complex issues facing urban communities. Reflecting that vision is the University of Minnesota Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center (UROC), housed in a renovated building in North Minneapolis in the heart of a highly diverse community. A new model for university-community engagement and urban problem solving, the center is home to a dozen University programs committed to research and problem-solving in authentic and engaged partnership with individuals and organizations in Northside communities.

[University of Southern Indiana] We serve individuals of all ages through noncredit programs, on-line learning opportunities, off-campus courses, dual credit programs for high school students, the Bachelor of General Studies program, certificate programs, continuing education for various professions, and more.

[University of Idaho] Through outreach, the University of Idaho develops engaged scholarship and student learning opportunities. Outreach adds value to our teaching and research activities by helping build partnerships with stakeholders in Idaho and beyond. Engagement at the University of Idaho involves two kinds of partnerships: internally, across colleges and disciplines and externally, with stakeholders in Idaho and beyond. Outreach occurs from every college on UI’s Moscow campus, the UI Library, and from each of the University’s physical locations around the state. Our outreach infrastructure includes 42 county Extension offices, UI Boise, UI Idaho Falls, UI Coeur d’Alene, multiple research and learning facilities, and the telecommunications infrastructure that bridges physical distance.

[The Ohio State University] Mutually beneficial partnerships and collaborations are central to both the definition of outreach and engagement and how the Office of Outreach and Engagement does its work. We exist to work in collaboration with faculty, staff, students, and units to enrich Ohio State’s partnerships with the community and to embed outreach and engagement into colleges and departments. We are pleased to work with the following affiliated program: Service-Learning Initiative supports the integration of outreach and engagement into teaching.

Who established our institutions of higher learning and why

Interesting introduction in the book by James Anderson Hawes, Twenty Years Among The Twenty Year Olds A Story Of Our Colleges Of Today, (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1929) which attempted to explain to students of 80 years ago how much better off they were than those who had come before them. He probably wrote it before October (stock market crash).

"Harvard was the first college or school in America and was founded in 1636 by a vote of the "General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay," which agreed "to give four hundred pounds toward a School or College," for the purpose of educating a selected few for the Church from their earliest days, "dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in dust."

The next educational institution founded was the Collegiate School of the Dutch Church in New York, . . . The third institution William and Mary was not chartered until 1693, when it was organized by the Church . . . with a similar object, "that the Church of Virginia may be furnished with a seminary of Ministers of the Gospel, and that the youth may be properly educated in good manners, and that the Christian faith may be propagated among the western Indians to the glory of Almighty God."

In 1695 St. John's College at Annapolis, Maryland, was founded. . . Sixty-five years after Harvard, Yale was founded largely to supply a local demand for the early training of ministers and because Harvard even then began to be looked on as rather too liberal in theology for the good old Puritan Fathers.

Therefore the first five institutions of learning on this Continent were founded as schools to train young boys of a select class, as leaders in Church and State. Please note that the founding of all our early colleges was to provide the advantage of training selected leaders, and never apparently for the purpose of offering free higher education to any and all who might wish to learn something of almost anything. They certainly had no purpose of helping all-comers to get jobs or secure wealth for themselves. The principal object of the founding of these early colleges was frankly theological and for many years a majority, or at least a very large proportion, of those who graduated entered the ministry.

. . . the fact must be remembered that our entire educational system from top to bottom was instituted and for many years carried on directly by the Church in every one of our colonies. Not only was this the case in New England, but Princeton, founded next, was a product of the interests of the Presbyterian Church. The next founded was Pennsylvania, in 1750, when Benjamin Franklin interested the cultured Quakers in a center of learning for their city and section. . . the first with any definite idea of charity in helping the poorer classes.

The next in order was King's College in New York, changed at the time of the Revolution to Columbia. This institution was founded largely by the Episcopal Church and supported by Trinity, perhaps the richest private church corporation in the world. It was essentially aristocratic in its organization and a school for the better class of New Yorkers, especially of the Episcopal Church, as the charter reads,
“The chief Thing that is aimed at in this College is, to teach and engage the Children to know God in Jesus Christ, and to live and serve Him in all Sobriety, Goodliness and Righteousness of life, with a perfect heart and a willing Mind.”

Rutgers followed on a foundation by the Dutch Church . . ."

Ohio State sets new enrollment records

According to OSUToday: "Ohio State has set new records this fall – in the size, quality and diversity of its student body. There are new records in the number of students attending the Columbus campus and several regional campuses. New autumn quarter enrollment figures show a 2.7 percent increase in Ohio State enrollment, with a record 63,217 students on all campuses and a record 55,014 on the Columbus campus – a 2.4 percent increase. Across all campuses, there are a record 49,915 undergraduates including 9,510 new first-year students — providing more students than ever access to higher education." Read more: the full report (51 pages) or the press release http://osu.edu/news/newsitem2575

The library has now moved back to the main campus, so in order to go there, I'll have to compete for parking again. I loved having it on Ackerman Rd. The ACK STAX. I think I used the library more those 3 years than all the other years in my retirement (9).

Obamagates

"[Obama’s racist error in the Gates arrest] allows us Joe and Jane Voter Americans to see him more clearly than we could see him before. Barack bumbled into an area in which we regular Americans have expertise. “Cops” plays 10 times a night on cable TV. We understand the lack of reasoning behind the rash Gates Assumption. We understand the racial agenda behind the Gates Assumption. We understand men who are too vain to see their mistakes and apologize for them. We GET this. Barack is unmasked in our eyes. And, if he’s unreasonable, agenda-driven, and unwilling to admit error here: WHERE ELSE is he unreasonable, agenda-driven, and unwilling to admit error? The End Zone" and this . . .

"How many Black American Princesses does it take to change a light bulb?

Nine.

One to change the light bulb. One to scream out "racist society" to the neighbors. One to berate the black police officer on the scene. One to berate the Hispanic Police Officer on the scene. One to call the (black) Mayor. One to call the (black) Governor. One to call the (black) President. One to begin booking the talk shows. One to start production on the documentary film." Also End Zone

Positive things will come from the haughty "Black American Princess" attitude of Professor Gates being publicized. It's not just at Harvard, you know. Students are exposed to this marxist, sexist, elitist, racist nonsense at the overpriced ivy colleges and state universities alike, and not just in Black Studies programs. The constant harange against our history and particularly white males, or anything good and decent in traditional values like marriage or religion is in literature class, American history class, biology, sociology, and education. From the experience of an OSU student I met last October and recorded in this blog:

He told me that he has seen every one of Michael Moore's movies in his college classes! It was required. One was a biology course, one was a political science course, and I've forgotten the other two. For one class final in a Latin American history course the only question was to write an essay on the seven best things Fidel Castro had done for Cuba. In another course where the students needed to write a persuasive paper, he chose "Why the U.S. needs to drill in ANWR." His instructor, an honest but not particularly ethical woman, told him at the outset he'd need to choose another topic. She'd have to flunk him because he'd never be able to persuade her, no matter how good his argument or bibliography, she said. He says the ridiculing and trashing of the Bush administration has been relentless in all his classes.

The speech Notre Dame grads didn't get to hear

Here's a graduation address that could have inspired them to go forward and be their best, given to 2009 graduates of University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas, May 9, 2009 by the Most Rev. José H. Gomez, S.T.D., Archbishop of San Antonio.

Now the world you are entering into, dear graduates, sees things very differently. In fact, our society today is a lot like Pontius Pilate—it doesn’t recognize the truth. It doesn’t believe there can even be any one truth. Our culture believes instead that there are many truths—as many different truths as there are individuals, and that it’s wrong to try to decide or judge among these competing “truths.”

This sounds like a very fair and reasonable way to live in a free society where there are many different religions, lifestyles, and points of view. But in practice: when nothing is true, everything is permitted.

When the only truth is that there is no truth, then we end up with what Pope Benedict has called the “dictatorship of relativism.” What’s right or wrong, true or false, good or evil, is decided by majority vote or imposed by powerful special interests. As a result of this dictatorship of relativism, our society not only allows evils such as abortion, it also protects them under law.

No boys allowed?

I think single sex education is very beneficial. Kids can really buckle down and study when they don't have to worry about attracting or performing for the opposite sex. But if there were special programs excluding young girls from getting a step up to a good career in the sciences, I can't even imagine the line of lawyers ready to take that case.

Here's a few summer engineering programs just for girls I noticed, beginning with Ohio State. I also noted that "fun" and "social life" were promoted features of these camps. So that's what it takes to attract girls to the sciences?

The Ohio State Women in Engineering Program is still accepting applications to the 2009 CheME & YOU @ OSU Summer Camp, a six-day residential summer program for girls who will be entering ninth grade in the fall of 2009. Participants will live in a university dorm and will explore chemical engineering through fun, hands-on activities. The camp will run from Sunday (8/16)-Friday (8/21). Applications must be postmarked by Friday (5/15).

At Penn State we have the MTM Engineering Camp for girls--An engineering day camp for girls entering grades 9 - 12 in Fall 2009. Hands-on engineering design projects and career experiences featuring 5 engineering disciplines such as: Architectural Engineering, Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Product Design & Innovation/Industrial Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, each offered in one-day modules. Choose to attend one day, or all five! ($30/day or $125/week) A fun way to explore careers and meet friends! Full scholarships are available.

At Purdue they call it EDGE. Session I: July 19 - July 24, 2009, Session II: July 26 - July 31, 2009. EDGE is for students who have just completed 9th or 10th grade. Apply your creativity to hands-on engineering projects with teammates! Meet women engineers who are shaping our world! Discover how your talents can lead to an exciting career in engineering! Have fun working with current Purdue engineering students!

At the University of Cincinnati, the hands-on camp, which ran July 28 to Aug. 1, 2008, allows young women in grades 9 through 12 to explore careers in engineering as they work with University of Cincinnati faculty.

"Kathy Johnson, director of undergraduate student enrollment in the College of Engineering at UC, says that the camp helps motivate high school students. “It’s a chance for students to come see if they are interested in math, science and engineering,” she says. “Through the camp, the girls get a great overview of what’s available. They get to meet our faculty members and receive information on all the disciplines offered here at UC.”

My alma mater, the University of Illinois, calls it Girls Adventures in Mathematics, Engineering, and Science, or G.A.M.E.S. It is an annual week long camp, designed to give academically talented middle school aged girls an opportunity to explore exciting engineering and scientific fields through demonstrations, classroom presentations, hands-on activities, and contacts with women in these technical fields."

Oregon State University has a variety of engineering summer camps for all ages, and when the boys are very young, they are allowed to attend, but by middle school the organizers are only looking for girls. So Mom, don't get his hopes up--send the little duffer to basketball camp--it's probably co-ed.

The Women in Engineering Summer Camp at the University of Dayton is a Sunday-through-Friday experience that gives girls the chance to dabble in engineering through hands-on, learn-by-doing activities they can't get in high school [why not?].

“Guided by UD professors, you'll conduct experiments, innovate, make cool stuff, take things apart — then put them back together again — in engineering classrooms and laboratories on campus. You'll visit a job site. Meet women engineers. And spend time checking out new innovations and more.”

They've been running these special science camps for women at least since I was involved back in the 1980s (through the libraries). When will the public schools be able to pull off attracting girls to the sciences without denying boys the same summer opportunities?

How's your state doing on freedom of speech?

Nearly three-quarters of colleges and universities maintain unconstitutional speech codes, according to a report released today by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Here's my alma mater--the school that used really poor judgement and hired Bill Ayers as a professor of education. Everyone else has to be silent, but terrorists can speak out about this terrible country and the state that pays his salary, I guess.

"In September 2008, faculty and staff members at the University of Illinois received a memo from the university’s Ethics Office informing them that, “when on university property,” they were prohibited from engaging in a wide variety of political expression, including attending a rally for a particular candidate or political party or wearing “a pin or t-shirt in support of the Democratic Party or Republican Party.” The memo even implied that faculty and staff could not drive onto campus with political bumper stickers on their cars. After news of the memo generated controversy, University President B. Joseph White responded with a vague statement that university employees needed to “use common sense” to determine what types of political activity were acceptable. Eventually, after extensive condemnation fromthe public and fromfree speech and academic freedom organizations including FIRE, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the American Association of University Professors, White issued another statement clarifying that faculty and staff could, after all, wear pins and t-shirts, place bumper stickers on their cars, and attend rallies on campus, provided they were not on duty at the time." FIRE'S Spotlight on Speech Codes, 2009

In last year’s report, FIRE gave 259 of 346 colleges and universities that designation: 75 percent, compared with 74.2 percent this year. I did a word search on Ohio for "red light" and didn't see Ohio State, but I think I noticed Ohio University.