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P1234567890
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 6772
Location: Toronto, Canada
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 Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:28 am Post subject: Worst university in the known universe? |
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I just had a look at Wikipedia's article on Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_University
There are so many things wrong with that school, I don't even know where to begin.
Actually, yes I do. They gave an honorary Ph.D to George W. Bush. |
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sofyst
Tiger
Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Posts: 830
Location: Tejas
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:31 am Post subject: |
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| Perhaps you could give some objective criticism of the school. I'm not in particular favor of the school, did consider attending it, but am just wondering if there is any objective criticism that you can offer. The criticism of giving an honorary degree to George W. is not very objective... |
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P1234567890
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 6772
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:04 am Post subject: |
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| sofyst wrote: | | Perhaps you could give some objective criticism of the school. I'm not in particular favor of the school, did consider attending it, but am just wondering if there is any objective criticism that you can offer. The criticism of giving an honorary degree to George W. is not very objective... |
You think that Bush should have a Ph.D?
But sure: let's start with the name: it's called LIBERTY university, but it isn't very LIBERAL at all. It curtails the liberties of its students and professors to an unprecedented extent by telling them how to act, what to think, and even how to dress!
Universities should be places where free thinking and intellectual exploration are encouraged. This is the tried, tested, and true way of encouraging the development of new ideas and theories. Instead, liberty does the exact opposite; its faculty live under an extremely oppressive set of guidelines and rules. And worse, the teaching faculty are not tenured, which means that the administration very tightly controls what they can do or say.
It's more like an anti-university!
Just as serious is the controversy surrounding their accreditation. Accreditation is the process which gives a university its legitimacy. What's supposed to happen is that a third party audits the university to see whether or not it meets the minimal requirements to actually be called a university. Liberty's accreditation was highly irregular and suspicious.
There are obviously many more complaints to be made, but that's a good start.
Oh yeah, one more thing: in their museum, they have a dinosaur fossil on display which is claimed to be only 3000 years old! (And they call themselves a university...) |
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sofyst
Tiger
Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Posts: 830
Location: Tejas
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| P123 wrote: | | You think that Bush should have a Ph.D? |
My opinion is superfluous, as is your's.
| Quote: | | But sure: let's start with the name: it's called LIBERTY university, but it isn't very LIBERAL at all. It curtails the liberties of its students and professors to an unprecedented extent by telling them how to act, what to think, and even how to dress! |
Surely you are not thinking that 'liberal' and 'liberty' share common meanings...
EVERY college and university tells its students and professors how to act, think and dress!
Act: come to class, do your homework
Think: 2+2=4, 2+3 doesn't =4
Dress: you must wear clothes, no naked people allowed
Again, this is not an objective argument. Your beef is not that Liberty tells its students how to act and think and dress, your beef is that they tell them how to act and think and dress differently than you would tell them. Their opinions and ways of running their school are different than your own.
If every college or university told its students how to act or think or dress, then what would be the point in going to school? I could show up naked, think that Shakespeare was the famous Psychiatrist obsessed with sex and run through the halls screaming 'WOMEN'S LIB', and still walk away with a PhD in Literature.
| Quote: | | Universities should be places where free thinking and intellectual exploration are encouraged. This is the tried, tested, and true way of encouraging the development of new ideas and theories. Instead, liberty does the exact opposite; its faculty live under an extremely oppressive set of guidelines and rules. And worse, the teaching faculty are not tenured, which means that the administration very tightly controls what they can do or say. |
Free thinking and intellectual exploration can be encouraged and condoned while nonetheless telling a person how to think. If I told you to think freely, I am telling you how to think. I would still be encouraging free thinking, but I would be telling you how to think nonetheless.
And the issue of tenure is subjective. If they choose to operate their school without tenure, so be it. If the Professors choose to subject themselves to such rules and regulations (they are not ignorant of these things before they sign on), that is their prerogative.
| Quote: | | It's more like an anti-university! |
I know, because it doesn't allow naked people and makes their students go to class! GASP!
| Quote: | | Just as serious is the controversy surrounding their accreditation. Accreditation is the process which gives a university its legitimacy. What's supposed to happen is that a third party audits the university to see whether or not it meets the minimal requirements to actually be called a university. Liberty's accreditation was highly irregular and suspicious. |
I'm ignorant of this. Inform me....
| Quote: | | There are obviously many more complaints to be made, but that's a good start. |
Oh whatever, I'm still waiting on the good complaints to be made...
Oh my God! I can't believe I just defended that school! BWAHAHAHA
If you knew me, and you knew my distaste for Ergun Caner (pretty much their 'god'), you'd know that I do not look favorably upon this school in the first place. |
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Pondering
Lion King
Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 1285
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:24 am Post subject: |
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First, it's an honorary degree...Universities give them to all kinds of people, including actors that dropped out of high school....move on...
Second, it's a private university. No is "ordered" to attend and are free to move along....it's called freemarket economics and it works 
Your ideal of LIBERTY would be some government agency dictating what schools can/can't teach? That's Iran and Saudi Arabia....not the USA.
I understand your point, but if UCLA and UC Berkeley are allowed (with public funds) to teach socialism, communism, and islamism....I guess there's room for some fundamentalists. Intellectually, I disagree with all of that, but I'm not for the alternatives... |
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Pondering
Lion King
Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 1285
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P1234567890
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 6772
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:53 am Post subject: |
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| sofyst wrote: |
Surely you are not thinking that 'liberal' and 'liberty' share common meanings...
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Yeah, I wonder where I got that impression...
| sofyst wrote: |
EVERY college and university tells its students and professors how to act, think and dress!
Act: come to class, do your homework
Think: 2+2=4, 2+3 doesn't =4
Dress: you must wear clothes, no naked people allowed
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You're not catching my meaning. With this particular point, I'm not objecting to the curriculum (although that was another point I should have made). I am not complaining about Liberty University telling their students what to think academically; I'm complaining about them telling their students what to think MORALLY.
Telling them how to dress is a good example. Forget about naked people, because there are laws for that. But Liberty doesn't allow students to attend class wearing SHORTS. Forcing people to wear certain things is NOT compatible with Liberty. If there were a Muslim university in America which forced its women to wear burkhas, everyone would be freaking out! Jerry Falwell himself would be ranting about how the evil Muslim university infringes on the basic liberties of its students.
| sofyst wrote: |
I could show up naked, think that Shakespeare was the famous Psychiatrist obsessed with sex and run through the halls screaming 'WOMEN'S LIB', and still walk away with a PhD in Literature.
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 Good one!
| sofyst wrote: |
And the issue of tenure is subjective. If they choose to operate their school without tenure, so be it. If the Professors choose to subject themselves to such rules and regulations (they are not ignorant of these things before they sign on), that is their prerogative.
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Not really; tenure is the tried, tested, and true way of giving researchers intellectual immunity so that they can research whatever they want, no matter how controversial. This is the entire thrust behind free-thinking.
Liberty denies tenure for one reason and one reason alone: so that they can keep their lecturers on a tight leash.
| sofyst wrote: |
I know, because it doesn't allow naked people and makes their students go to class! GASP!
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No, it's the anti-university because it spits on pretty much everything that universities stand for (or at least used to stand for).
| sofyst wrote: |
| Quote: | | Just as serious is the controversy surrounding their accreditation. Accreditation is the process which gives a university its legitimacy. What's supposed to happen is that a third party audits the university to see whether or not it meets the minimal requirements to actually be called a university. Liberty's accreditation was highly irregular and suspicious. |
I'm ignorant of this. Inform me....
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The Wikipedia article goes into it a bit:
| Quote: | Controversy arose when Liberty University applied for accreditation in 1991 and the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS) gave "immediate accreditation" to the university.[6] Consequently, two years later in 1993, Steve Levicoff published a book "condemning" the questionable practices of TRACS. Levicoff's When the TRACS Stop Short: An Evaluation and Critique of the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (Institute on Religion and Law, 1993) brought a twenty minute telephone call from Jerry Falwell, in which Falwell asked Levicoff to withdraw the book, which was critical of the accreditor. Levicoff refused, and subsequently credited the book with "hanging TRACS' reapproval by the U.S. Department of Education up for almost two years (which I like to think of as the price of Jerry's call getting me out of the shower)." Due to the book "a federal review was instituted in 1995, which gave TRACS eighteen months to improve or be removed from the list of official accreditors."[7] Today, TRACS remains recognized.[7]
Liberty was founded in 1971 and recieved Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation in 1980.[4] In the 1990s Liberty was "placed on probation by SACS and, while the probation was ltimatelt lifted, the university continues to have financial problems was is under investigation by the Department of Education."[8] Currently, the university is accredited by SACS and TRACS.[5] In 2006, Liberty successfully completed re-accreditation, and remains currently accredited by SACS and TRACS.[6] Steve Levicoff wrote, "it's pure speculation on my part, but it wouldn't suprise me if Liberty were to maintain TRACS accreditation as a hedge against possible loss of their regional accreditation at some point in the future."[9] |
You never addressed my point about the dinosaur fossil labeled as being only 3000 years old in their museum...
Do you think it's ok for them to be teaching Young Earth Creationism in their biology classes?
(Because this really is like teaching that 2 + 2 = 5). |
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P1234567890
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 6772
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:01 am Post subject: |
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| Pondering wrote: | First, it's an honorary degree...Universities give them to all kinds of people, including actors that dropped out of high school....move on...
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And I completely disapprove of that as well! Call me old-fashioned; I think that people should have to earn their degrees.
| Pondering wrote: |
Second, it's a private university. No is "ordered" to attend and are free to move along....it's called freemarket economics and it works
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What if you realize that you need a university degree to get a decent job, but Liberty is the only school you can get into?
| Pondering wrote: |
Your ideal of LIBERTY would be some government agency dictating what schools can/can't teach? That's Iran and Saudi Arabia....not the USA.
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Nope, I absolutely don't think that there should be a government agency dictating what schools can and can't teach. But I still think that teaching Young Earth Creationism as if it were anything other than objectively false is just plain wrong.
But morals and dress codes are another thing. There's no way a university should be able to tell its students what they can and can't wear!
| Pondering wrote: |
I understand your point, but if UCLA and UC Berkeley are allowed (with public funds) to teach socialism, communism, and islamism....I guess there's room for some fundamentalists. Intellectually, I disagree with all of that, but I'm not for the alternatives... |
I totally agree with you about government interference in universities. The compromise that was developed is the accreditation process. If I had my way, Liberty's accreditation would be yanked quicker than you can say 'Liberty university teaches Young Earth Creationism.'
There are minimum standards which universities should meet, and if they don't then they should no longer have the certification which says that they meet minimum standards. |
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P1234567890
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 6772
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:03 am Post subject: |
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I hope you don't think that I share those opinions... |
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Pondering
Lion King
Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 1285
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:30 am Post subject: |
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| P1234567890 wrote: |
I hope you don't think that I share those opinions... |
No I don't...I'd say you were a liberal in a Thomas Jefferson sense (equality of opportunity, promotion based on merit and not on birth, etc)....The nutcases are in California are more akin to Fascists....they don't want equality. They want revenge.
They want to overturn the power historically held by white conservative christian males and give that power to "minority" groups...and then subject the former to the same bigotry, hate, and dismissal that they feel their interest group was subjected to.
It really is a case of Orwell's Animal Farm..."all pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than others...."
The Liberal Left's platform is decidely un-equal:
- Protection of some interests (Islamists) but no equal time for Christians...and I'm not defenending Christians, I'm just asking for equality under the law.
- Freedom of speech means tolerance of all kinds of things that you or I may personally disagree with. Burn the American flag and I want to punch that person...but I don't because I respect the basic idea of freedom of expression...so why would Islamists get special treatment for their flag?
- Affirmative Action = Jim Crowe
- A view that "the State" can better parent children than parents can....
- Government controlled redistribution of wealth (at least the middle-class's wealth). For all their talk of helping the poor, do you know that Christians donate something like 70% more to charities than liberals do? Interesting stat...my numbers may be off, I'll look for a supporting source doc. |
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Pondering
Lion King
Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 1285
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:18 am Post subject: |
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| P1234567890 wrote: |
| sofyst wrote: |
EVERY college and university tells its students and professors how to act, think and dress!
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You're not catching my meaning. With this particular point, I'm not objecting to the curriculum (although that was another point I should have made). I am not complaining about Liberty University telling their students what to think academically; I'm complaining about them telling their students what to think MORALLY. |
Shoot P#s, you're keeping me busy today! Ok...first Liberty is private school. That's important. Student elect to go there. And it seems that you object to what they're teaching Morally, because it differs with what you believe morally
but that aside, are you saying that other Universities (even state sponsored ones) don't teach moral values? UC Berkeley allowed a nudist to attend classes, because "clothes violated his belief system as a naturalist". Everyone had to put up with his hairy twigs and berries...or go elsewhere
Liberal profs use their lecturns as pulpits to teach communism, 9/11 conspiracy, and other personally motivated opinion (see Ward Churchill for an example)
| P1234567890 wrote: |
Telling them how to dress is a good example. Forget about naked people, because there are laws for that. |
see comment above about UC Berkeley.
| P1234567890 wrote: |
But Liberty doesn't allow students to attend class wearing SHORTS. Forcing people to wear certain things is NOT compatible with Liberty. |
They have a choice...dress per the code or go elsewhere.
| P1234567890 wrote: |
If there were a Muslim university in America which forced its women to wear burkhas, everyone would be freaking out! |
First, I don't think so...look at the madrasas in the UK, but if there were... they too would have a choice, wear a burkha....or die. 
| sofyst wrote: |
I could show up naked, think that Shakespeare was the famous Psychiatrist obsessed with sex and run through the halls screaming 'WOMEN'S LIB', and still walk away with a PhD in Literature.
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You mean it's not? huh...gotta talk to my thesis advisor again
| P1234567890 wrote: |
| sofyst wrote: |
And the issue of tenure is subjective....
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Not really; tenure is the tried, tested, and true way of giving researchers intellectual immunity so that they can research whatever they want, no matter how controversial. This is the entire thrust behind free-thinking. |
not my area...I have some limited experience as adjunct faculty and some quasi-friends that are professors. I do know there is huge pressure to reach tenure and a keen interest to keep the tenured profs "happy" until you yourself get tenure...once tenured, you pretty much have to kill a student in class to get fired...
[quote="P1234567890"]
| sofyst wrote: |
| Quote: | | Liberty's accreditation was highly irregular and suspicious. |
I'm ignorant of this. Inform me....
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The Wikipedia article goes into it a bit:
| Quote: | | Controversy arose when Liberty University applied for accreditation ... |
Again, not my area. I know that I looked at who accredited the University I went to as I knew enough to know that there were larger, more broadly recognized accrediting associations and there were "Joe's Accreditation, Inc" schools...I chose one of the former and avoided the later.
| P1234567890 wrote: |
Do you think it's ok for them to be teaching Young Earth Creationism in their biology classes? |
No, but I don't think a college class on "The Simpson's as social commentary" is particularly good either...but edutainment is the name of the game as schools have become business |
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Ana
King of the Jungle
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1549
Location: BC
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:48 am Post subject: |
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The rules are a tad more stringent than 'show up to class and don't be naked'. Here are some of the rules:
| Wikipedia wrote: | | The university has a strict code of student behavior, documented in "The Liberty Way", including possible reprimands (and with the accumulation of reprimands, fines) for attending dances, violating curfew, viewing R-rated movies (on or off campus), drinking (or even associating with those drinking alcohol), smoking, viewing sexually explicit material, entering the bedroom of a member of the opposite sex (on or off campus), and participating in unauthorized petitions. |
The one I greened, by the way, pretty much flies in the face of the bible, especially the part in parentheses.
| Merriam-Webster's def'n of liberty wrote: | | 1: the quality or state of being free: a: the power to do as one pleases b: freedom from physical restraint c: freedom from arbitrary or despotic control d: the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges e: the power of choice |
How does this jive? |
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Pondering
Lion King
Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 1285
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:31 am Post subject: |
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| Ana wrote: |
| Merriam-Webster's def'n of liberty wrote: | | 1: the quality or state of being free: a: the power to do as one pleases b: freedom from physical restraint c: freedom from arbitrary or despotic control d: the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges e: the power of choice |
How does this jive? |
Just like Liberty Mutual Life Insurance...it's a buzzword.
Again...applicants apply to that school by choice.
I'm pretty sure that school doesn't have a draft! oy veh!
I wouldn't go there, but I also wouldn't go to UC-Berkeley 
Don't like Liberty's curricula? How about these choices {my comments in bold}
* Occidental College’s The Phallus covers a broad study on the relation “between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism.”
* *Man's Man* Musicology at the University of California-Los Angeles explores how “sexual difference and complex gender identities in music and among musicians have incited productive consternation” during the 1990s. Music under consideration includes works by Schubert and Holly Near, Britten and Cole Porter, and *Kitty Kat* Tourette.
* Amherst College in Massachusetts offers Taking Marx Seriously: “Should Marx be given another chance?” Students in this class are asked to question if Marxism still has “credibility,” while also inquiring if societies can gain new insights by “returning to [Marx’s] texts.” Coming to Marx’s rescue, this course also states that Lenin, Stalin, and Pol Pot misapplied the concepts of Marxism. {but I'm sure they provided a balanced, objective view}
* Students enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania’s Adultery Novel read a series of 19th and 20th century works about “adultery” and watch “several adultery films.” Students apply “various critical approaches in order to place adultery into its aesthetic, social and cultural context, including: sociological descriptions of modernity, Marxist examinations of family as a social and economic institution” and “feminist work on the construction of gender.”[excuse me, Marxist examinations? Just Marxist examinations? oy veh ]
* Occidental College offers Blackness, which elaborates on a “new blackness,” “critical blackness,” “post-blackness,” and an “unforgivable blackness,” which all combine to create a “feminist New Black Man.”
* Border Crossings, Borderlands: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Immigration is University of Washington’s way of exploring the immigration debate. The class allegedly unearths what is “highlighted and concealed in contemporary public debates about U.S. immigration” policy.
* Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism is Mount Holyoke College’s attempt to analyze race. The class seeks to spark thought on: “What is whiteness?” “How is it related to racism?” “What are the legal frameworks of whiteness?” “How is whiteness enacted in everyday practice?” And how does whiteness impact the “lives of whites and people of color? (better known as "Guilt 101"?)
* Native American Feminisms at the University of Michigan looks at the development of “Native feminist thought” and its “relationship both to Native land-based struggles and non-Native feminist movements.”
* Johns Hopkins University offers Mail Order Brides: Understanding the Philippines in Southeast Asian Context, which is a supposedly deep look into Filipino kinship and gender. (getting worried about the field research here)
* Cornell University’s Cyberfeminism investigates “the emergence of cyberfeminism in theory and art in the context of feminism/post feminism and the accelerated technological developments of the last thirty years of the twentieth century.”
* Duke University’s American Dreams/American Realities course seeks to unearth “such myths as ‘rags to riches,’ ‘beacon to the world,’ and the ‘frontier,’ in defining the American character.”(you see, the American dream is really just a myth, so you should hate yourself)
* Swarthmore College’s Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism “deconstruct[s] terrorism” and “build[s] on promising nonviolent procedures to combat today’s terrorism.” The “non-violent” struggle Blacks pursued in the 1960s is outlined as a mode for tackling today’s terrorism.
(includes free handout "Oxymorons aren't just for morons!")
* UC-Berkeley’s Sex Change City: Theorizing History in Genderqueer San Francisco explores “implications of U.S. imperialism and colonization for the construction of gender in 19th-century San Francisco’s multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic” community. The course also covers “contemporary transgender, *Man's Man*, genderqueer, and post-*Man's Man* cultural production and politics” and “the regulation of gender-variant practices in public space by San Francisco’s Anglo-European elites.”(I just don't know what to say.....)
* Cornell University’s Sex, Rugs, Salt, & Coal asks students to ponder the questions: Why are “oriental” rugs collector’s items? How did we come to keep salt shakers on our dinner tables? When did coal start replacing wood as a fuel source?(other topics include "Why is there air? How is Paris Hilton better tha Paris France? )
* Hollins University’s Drag: Theories of Transgenderism and Performance analyzes historical, theoretical, and autobiographical perspectives on drag, including transgenderism and performance in non-Western cultures.
* University of Colorado-Boulder’s Introduction to Lesbian, Bisexual, and Gay Literature introduces some of the forms, concerns, and genres of contemporary lesbian, bisexual, and gay writing in English.
* Swarthmore College’s Peace Study in Action partners students with a local “peace” organization “to study its mode of action and develop a document or brief that brings useful peace research to the service of the organization.”(I'm actually ok with this one
* Swarthmore College’s Renaissance Sexualities explores the homoerotic, chastity and friendship, marriage, adultery, and incest.
* Oberlin College’s first-year seminar, She Works Hard for the Money: Women, Work and the Persistence of Inequality, “tackles” price differences, occupational segregation, comparable worth, and other factors that supposedly uncover institutional discrimination against women.
* Hollins University’s Lesbian Pulp Fiction examines “a literary genre that critics once deemed ‘trash’ and moralists commonly found ‘scandalous,’ but that formed a crucial part in the burgeoning canon of *Man's Man* literature.”
From: http://media.yaf.org/latest/12_19_06.cfm
Last edited by Pondering on Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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P1234567890
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 6772
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Pondering wrote: |
The Liberal Left's platform is decidely un-equal:
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I'd say you're right, but you've neglected to mention that the Conservaitve Right's platform is also decidedly un-equal. I don't need to cite the examples; they're obvious enough.
| Pondering wrote: |
- Protection of some interests (Islamists) but no equal time for Christians...and I'm not defenending Christians, I'm just asking for equality under the law.
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I agree.
| Pondering wrote: |
- Freedom of speech means tolerance of all kinds of things that you or I may personally disagree with. Burn the American flag and I want to punch that person...but I don't because I respect the basic idea of freedom of expression...so why would Islamists get special treatment for their flag?
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They shouldn't. If anything, they should get less, because their flags don't stand for anything good, whereas the U.S. flag (although kind of gaudy) stands for some really good things.
| Pondering wrote: |
- Affirmative Action = Jim Crowe
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I agree that simplistic affirmative action is bad. I am willing to entertain more enlightened forms of affirmative action, but even then...
| Pondering wrote: |
- A view that "the State" can better parent children than parents can....
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Here you've got to admit that this is sometimes the case...
| Pondering wrote: |
- Government controlled redistribution of wealth (at least the middle-class's wealth). For all their talk of helping the poor, do you know that Christians donate something like 70% more to charities than liberals do? Interesting stat...my numbers may be off, I'll look for a supporting source doc. |
This is a more complicated issue. Cut taxes and the rich benefit the most. But then they also reinvest their money, which stimulates the economy, and creates jobs for the lower classes. Raise taxes and put the proceeds into social programs. This decreases the amount of money that the rich people are reinvesting and the number of jobs being created, so poor people lose their jobs. But then there is a bigger social net to catch them when they fall... I don't think this is such an easy problem.
If you look at Scandanavian countries, they have extremely high taxes, and virtually zero poverty and a massive and intricate social net. This suggests that the best way to fight poverty is to follow the Scandanavian model, at least if your country is monocultural and monoethnic... |
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P1234567890
Emperor of the Universe
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 6772
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Pondering wrote: |
Shoot P#s, you're keeping me busy today! Ok...first Liberty is private school. That's important. Student elect to go there. And it seems that you object to what they're teaching Morally, because it differs with what you believe morally
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I don't really care if they teach morals to students... But they're doing a whole lot more than that. They are ENFORCING certain behavior, and that's just not ok. What do they do when they catch a guy having sex with his girlfriend in the girl's dorm? I bet that he gets turfed. What happens if you get caught smoking or drinking or attending class in shorts, for that matter? They aren't just TEACHING morals, their rules have teeth. At UC Berkeley, they probably teach people that it's wrong to eat animals, but it's not like they expel you from the university if you go to McDonald's...
And that's just the moral issue. What about the fact that they teach Young Earth Creationism? In which parallel dimension is it ok for a university to do that?
| Pondering wrote: |
but that aside, are you saying that other Universities (even state sponsored ones) don't teach moral values? UC Berkeley allowed a nudist to attend classes, because "clothes violated his belief system as a naturalist". Everyone had to put up with his hairy twigs and berries...or go elsewhere
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I agree that this is extreme and stupid, but it's not the same thing. Giving someone extra rights and freedoms by letting someone go naked is not the same thing as restricting people's freedoms by telling them what to wear.
| Pondering wrote: |
Liberal profs use their lecturns as pulpits to teach communism, 9/11 conspiracy, and other personally motivated opinion (see Ward Churchill for an example)
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And if this is outside of the purview of the course being taught, then their tenure should be revoked, and they should be turfed.
| Pondering wrote: |
| P1234567890 wrote: |
But Liberty doesn't allow students to attend class wearing SHORTS. Forcing people to wear certain things is NOT compatible with Liberty. |
They have a choice...dress per the code or go elsewhere.
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Not an option if they can't go elsewhere. Making students choose between being forced to dress and act a certain way and at least getting a degree or being free but getting no degree isn't very nice.
| Pondering wrote: |
| P1234567890 wrote: |
If there were a Muslim university in America which forced its women to wear burkhas, everyone would be freaking out! |
First, I don't think so...look at the madrasas in the UK, but if there were... they too would have a choice, wear a burkha....or die.
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I guess that's a good way of putting it: Liberty University is a Christian madrasa.
[quote="Pondering"]
| P1234567890 wrote: |
not my area...I have some limited experience as adjunct faculty and some quasi-friends that are professors. I do know there is huge pressure to reach tenure and a keen interest to keep the tenured profs "happy" until you yourself get tenure...once tenured, you pretty much have to kill a student in class to get fired...
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No, you could also have your tenure revoked for touching students... inappropriately.
But while on the subject, there's a famous story about one tenured prof killing another one. It took them CONSIDERABLY longer to revoke his tenure than it did to convict and sentence him!
I'm not saying that tenure doesn't have problems; but it certainly is how you encourage free-thinking.
| Pondering wrote: |
| P1234567890 wrote: |
Do you think it's ok for them to be teaching Young Earth Creationism in their biology classes? |
No, but I don't think a college class on "The Simpson's as social commentary" is particularly good either...but edutainment is the name of the game as schools have become business |
Agreed; undergraduate programs everywhere have become a farce. But there is a difference between teaching a b.s. class in the arts and teaching a b.s. class in the sciences.
Nobody can argue that the Simpson's as a social commentary is FALSE, because the Simpson's actually does contain social commentary. It's stupid and virtually devoid of any cognitive content, but the point is that it's subjective, so you can't say that it's wrong.
By contrast, teaching Young Earth Creationsim is objectively false. There's no excuse.
I'm not saying that Liberty should be shut down or anything like that. But they should definitely lose their accreditation. What on Earth is accreditation good for if they're giving it out like candy to schools with no academic standards? |
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