Maranto on University Reform

by Cliopatria

An interesting piece in today's Washington Post from Villanova political science professor Robert Maranto.

While he notes the troubling effects of ideological one-sidedness in the contemporary academy, Maranto also dismisses the Horowitz ABOR concept, which he terms unworkable.

His conclusion:"Ultimately, universities will have to clean their own houses. Professors need to re-embrace a culture of reasoned inquiry and debate. And since debate requires disagreement, higher education needs to encourage intellectual diversity in its hiring and promotion decisions with something like the fervor it shows for ethnic and racial diversity. It's the only way universities will earn back society's respect and reclaim their role at the center of public life."

The entire article is here. I agree with his conclusion, but see little evidence such encouragement will be coming anytime soon.

comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:

Andrew D. Todd - 12/13/2007

Here's something I turned up. There seems to be a boom in internet-based tutoring, with the tutor in India. At this stage, they are still tutoring students who are in immediate difficulties, but the next stage would be to start coaching students for things like Advanced Placement examinations, or teaching high-school subjects to forth-graders, the ultimate form of advanced placement. Things like languages are more easily learned at middle-school age, but the schools are not set up to teach them.

I don't know what the ultimate implications are, but given the extent to which American colleges are actually dependent on teaching high-school subjects, they might be considerable. In global terms, American universities are outliers, performing a much wider range of services than universities in most other countries.

Most college students are not liberal arts students. They are only within reach of the humanities departments for a couple of years while completing what in most of the world would be considered a high-school diploma. If students start presenting, say, two years worth of advanced placement credits, that may mean that they go straight into, say, the business school and start studying accounting.
---------------------------
Hiawatha Bray, "Online tutoring pays off at home, abroad," Boston Globe, March 28, 2006

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/03/28/online_tutoring_pays_off_at_home_abroad/
-------------------------
Amit R. Paley, "Homework Help, From a World Away: Web Joins Students, Cheap Overseas Tutors," Washington Post, Monday, May 15, 2006; Page A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/14/AR2006051401139.html
------------------------
Ronak Shah, "Online Tutoring In India Beginning To Take Off In A Big Way!"

http://www.watblog.com/2007/11/28/online-tutoring-in-india-beginning-to-take-off-in-a-big-way/
------------------------
Elle Cayabyab Gitlin, "For students, outsourcing makes help only half a world away."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050908-5288.html
-------------------------
George Joseph, "NYC stops online tutoring from India," Rediffusion India.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/nov/06bpo.htm
--------------------------

David M Fahey - 12/11/2007

Nearly all of us can provide anecdotal evidence that Republicans and other conservatives are scarce in history departments. Probably this scarcity in less pronounced, even non-existent, at small church-related colleges and rural community colleges, but at the institutions that employ most historians the scarcity is pronounced. This doesn't mean that historians at the radical end of the liberal Democrat spectrum are numerous. History departments aren't literature departments! And today even in lit departments only a few graduate students are likely to read Marx for political guidance. Finally, at the risk of sounding naive, I don't see any active discrimination, so I am puzzled why history faculty members don't to a greater extent reflect the politics of general public (or, in the case of my university, the politics of the student body). Fearing being a minority at a lunch table or not being invited for soup and salad shouldn't scare away prospective history professors. Conservatives (and radicals) are made of tougher stuff than that.

David H. Noon - 12/10/2007

I found the op-ed to be poorly argued. He roots his claims in two anecdotes and a short list of research commissioned (and soon to be published) by the AEI. Several of the scholars he mentions -- especially Robert Lichter -- are known for their shoddy methods and for their implausible "non-ideological" pretensions.

His stated conclusions (e.g., opposition to the Horowitzian wing of the movement) are sincere, I'm sure, but the fact that all of this is being carried out under the care of the AEI makes me skeptical that the this piece and the "research" it touts won't actually be used by the ABOR clowns.

art eckstein - 12/10/2007

Sorry, the second sentence of my first posting should read: "These people are not very open to being reformed and they are not going to reform themselves."

Thanx.

AE

art eckstein - 12/10/2007

I should have said: Adherence to the "proper" political positions is viewed by these faculty not merely as an indicator of general morality but of general intelligence as well. Thus, not only would no one hire an "immoral" person (i.e., a conservative, or a Republican), but no one would hire a "stupid" person (i.e., a conservative, or a Christian).

For an extreme yet unselfconscious expression of this attitude, I strongly suggest reading Barry Ames, David C. Barker, Chris W. Bonneau, and Christopher J. Carman, "Hide the Republicans, the Christians, and the Women: A Response to 'Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty'", The Forum: Vol. 3: No. 2 (2005). Ames was Chair of the Dept of Political Science at the U of Pittsburgh at the time he headed the team writing this article. No Christians (or conservatives) need apply for positions in HIS Department, I'll tell ya!

art eckstein - 12/10/2007

KC, in your final sentence you put your finger on the problem. These people are not very open to being reformed and they going to reform themselves; in both cases, this is because they believe that their personal political positions are not mere political positions but indications of a person's general morality. Thus, instant agreement with those political positions constitutes an indication of any person's general morality. And no one is going to hire for a faculty position an "immoral" person, i.e., a conservative, or (increasingly) a middle of the roader.

Meanwhile, the only openly religious person likely to be hired by such folks as rule in the Humanities and Social Sciences now is (perversely) a Muslim. Openly religious Christian are especially treated with disdain.

KC: Given the increasingly widespread admission of the PROBLEM of PC, what do YOU see as the solution? I ask this sincerely.

I'm speaking as a full professor of History at a major state university.