Sorry, I'm having a Marx Brothers flashback: "The Dean is furious! He's waxing wroth!"/"Is Roth out there, too? Tell Roth to wax the Dean for a while."
So what is Roth waxing wroth about with this anodyne committee report?
The committee claims that in 2016, “departing from its traditional emphasis on the creation and dissemination of knowledge, Yale expanded its mission statement to include ‘improving the world today,’ educating ‘aspiring leaders worldwide,’ and fostering ‘an ethical, interdependent and diverse community.’”
It's weird to make a show of retreating from something so mild and vague. But Roth paraphrases the rejected mission as a matter of "independent thought, a commitment to truth even when it’s inconvenient and a focus on the creation of truly democratic citizens." Is that what the Trump administration has been "punishing" and what Yale is trying to be self-defensive about?
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Roth wrought Woke at Wesleyan then wrote an overwrought reply. Welp.
“ Yale expanded its mission statement to include ‘improving the world today,’”
The problem is that opinions differ on what constitutes “improvement”. I’m pretty sure mine is significantly different than Yale’s.
mild and vague
The problem is that "improving the world today" might sound "mild and vague," but in the context of an organization that's more than 95% on the left (and a much lefter left than the ordinary American left to boot), it's not. It means very specific things and it brooks no dispute. So to fail to "retreat[] from something so mild and vague" is just to ratify the progressive agenda.
So "retreating" from it is absolutely the right thing to do if you actually want to show that you support and value diversity of thought and the free exchange of ideas.
But there's also "do more to ensure that people do not self-censor," which makes no concrete recommendations, and "respect the ideals of free speech and academic freedom," which is semantically null (what ideals are those?). So my bet is on nothing changing, because they truly believe there's no need for change - just for performative, public displays.
“Improving the world today” sounds like a slogan for a vacuum cleaner.
…without seeing the report I’d wager the report twists and tuns with different vague language to conclude the mission of serving leftie politics needs to be expanded without admitting the mission of serving leftie politics needs to be expanded…
Yeah, Wesleyan is going to lead the way. And the moon is made of cheese.
do more to ensure that people do not self-censor
…so we can identify who’s not with us and we can sic our people on them to cancel and debanque them…
Standards for classroom discussion should include the warning that ad hominem arguments will result in adverse grading, as will related disparagement of the motives of other speakers, and that mentions of the Nazis will be treated as forfeiting any argument not arising in history classes about the first half of the 20th century.
"Democratic citizens"
Oh do fuck off.
I skimmed the Roth essay. It basically says Trump... Trump... Trump... Trump... Trump... Trump... Trump....
There shouldn't be any standards for classroom discussion In non-stem classes. The problem with that is most people are afraid of a free-for-all. I think the erosion of our academic institutions over the last 40 years, primarily at the hands of baby boomer activist administrators and Dean's who have flooded the zone with their overhead burden and command and control can only be solved by mass removal excavation of the toxic wastes.
What flavor emmenthaler
Educating "aspiring leaders worldwide" like the neonazi Navalny in Russia, he went through Yale's "aspiring leaders" program and we tried to install him as Russia's leader, also that lady we tried to install as leader in Venezuela went through Yale, in other words, these "aspiring leaders" are the quislings we have ready to go for the next CIA backed regime change operation.
Dont hate America and its traditions and culture,
Focus on real science and history and economics
One is reminded tariki amin who was deposed by the spetznaz was a columbia grad
They should worry more about diversity among the faculty than among the students. As mentioned already, ‘improving the world today' is code for promoting leftist ideas by leftist faculty and administration.
The report's recommendation to narrow the focus of the university is reminiscent of Kevin Warsh's comments about the Fed, which also expanded its scope to areas like equity and climate change.
Wesleyan is where the really nutty lefty profs who even Yale wouldn't take go to do whatever really nutty leftwing things they want to do ("teaching" is a stretch).
"The problem with that is most people are afraid of a free-for-all."
The best classes I had in high school as I recall were ones were we just sat around and talked about the subjects on hand. Philosophy, obviously but also Russian history.
Yale, like many of the Ivies, was founded as a seminary (Congregationalist, in its case). So improving the world was part of its mission 325 years ago. CC, JSM
Except they are missionaries for the old gods
John wesley would be embarassed
"Don't allow classrooms to be dominated by open laptops or other devices" - That shows a lack of confidence and imagination on the part of the faculty.
First off, having your texts in electronic form saves you from having to lug a ranger rucksack of books all over campus. Makes access to education more available to the disabled and to small women. Are these guys sexist and able-ist?
Second, if the course is so boring you're looking for distractions, you'll find them, whether you have AI Ray-Bans or a slate board.
Third, instant access to information from your device can enhance the classroom experience, if the prof is fluent enough with technology. Give mini-research assignments right in the classroom. Put equations or theorems up for the kids to solve or prove on their individual machines, then pick someone to put her solution up on the big screen. Not to mention the very prosaic uses of a laptop to take notes (which you can then search by keyword instead of having to flip furiously through a spiral book trying to read your own handwriting), or to continuously update your Contracts outline.
As for the noise of hundreds of people typing: I remember when I took Chem 20, and whenever the prof changed color on the chalkboard, all the pre-med 4-color pens would click at the same time. Frightening sound, like a savage host fixing bayonets in the woodline. Key-clacking is nothing compared to that. CC, JSM
Here's another Yale wannabe quisling, err, I mean "aspiring leader"
https://yaledailynews.com/articles/shah-heir-ponders-future-in-iran
They should worry more about diversity among the faculty than among the students.
And administrators. Exactly. The students - at least some of them come in non-progressive, but either they go underground or they convert. Faculty (especially tenured, which would suggest that the university values their presence) and staff would send a much clearer message that diversity of thought is a university priority.
Yeah entirely the wrong focus
Meet Michael Roth, Office of the President | Wesleyan University - Wesleyan University https://share.google/HkOCAiYM7JwUWp9KO
When your highest truth becomes "don't cross the intellectual mob", the pursuit of all other truth becomes both easier, more unpredictable, and less fruitful.
Why are so many college students socialists? An interview with Paul Kengor. | The College Fix https://share.google/SZDdtgwBOwSrbX2al
Improving the world today is not mild (it is grand) and it is not as vague as it might be in a vacuum when it succeeds a prior mission based on creating and disseminating knowledge. Because it means this is not the means by which the world is to be improved. Moreover, through time and tradition, the mechanism for knowledge creation and dissemination was non-corporate -- the university didn't claim authority to what is as a corporate entity (not if they had academic freedom).
And that's the rub -- to improve the world you have to know how it is to be improved, in which direction. And if you think you are in the information discovery business, you have to have a (corporate) disposition that you don't already have the answer. So "to improve the world" without limiting it with "by discovering and disseminating information" is a radical mission shift.
Yale expanded its mission statement to include ‘improving the world today
I don't think these are "better than nothing is a high standard" people. They seem more like "do something and make other people do the same something too" sorts.
It doesnt seem like they care about building institution but letting the barbarians rampage
"Improving the world today" calls for a lot of concrete reinforcement. Maybe too much.
I went to USA Today (the world is just too big) looking for, you know, some reinforcement closer to home, and what did I find, "Palace says king won’t meet family of Epstein survivor on US trip" -- They have a talking Palace over there across the pond? and Trump is here trying to build a dancing ballroom?
No wonder kids are not interested in the classroom. How did they get stones to talk? and then I remember my favourite Bible verse, which Trump probably should have selected, since he's a builder and all. "Jesus responds to Pharisees asking him to rebuke his disciples for praising him during the triumphal entry, stating: “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
Yeah. We need Elon to look at this Talking Royal Material that can colude to hide the Epstein deep dark secrets. My goodness gracious.
Ironic, though, that these inward reflections and attempts to reform are coming right at the precipice of the destruction of the university by AI. Universities were centers of learning because they had gathered artifacts - libraries - from which to learn. That’s all pretty much worth worthless now.
“Improving the world today” sounds like a slogan for a vacuum cleaner.
It is a license for mischief.
A properly-educated person can see that a mile away. It can't stand up to the most basic questioning, let alone any amount of rigorous examination.
Organization after organization has fallen apart after broadening its mission and thrived by narrowing its focus. Perhaps no one from the Yale Business School was allowed to participate?
So the "smart and sensible recommendations" did not include anything about not letting one stone stand upon another, or sowing the Earth with salt?
I suppose it is an interesting question, or at least a worthwhile speculative inquiry. How much better off would the US be if Yale had never existed? Can it even be quantified?
Jupiter,
I don't think there is any question that Yale was beneficial during the first part of its existence. So a more profitable inquiry would be - - approximately what year did Yale cease to be a net benefit to the country?
Yale did produce Alito and Thomas, so there is that. But also the less reliable Kavanaugh, and the Wise Latina, so maybe it's a wash.
James K.,
My question involves *net* benefit. There is no question about Thomas or Alito, but it's conceivable they could have come out just as well at some other institution also.
They should hire a sensible, controversial or conservative speaker, give fair warning, and expel every student, defund every organization, and fire every employee who tries to silence him. Repeat as necessary until decorum standards are re-established. Then they can admit real diversity of thought by students & faculty.
You can always tell a Yale man or woman, but you can't tell them much.
So said thurston howell
My lefty lingo decoder ring translates "inconvenient truth" as "convenient lie".
So whats your movie pitch?
The Roth of Caanes.
Sounds familar.
Its about A Jewish guy is Southern France.
Oh, my mistake.
We just need to end all taxpayer subsidies to universities.
There are maybe 5% of the population that belongs in university settings.
The rest are men who should be fixing air conditioners and women who should be having kids.
What about purges, loyalty oaths and other authoritarian tactics? I mean it is Yale after all.
So this the same clown circus president of Wesleyan that said "safe spaces" are necessary for "muh feel8ngz!" students but the same students are ok to violently take over colleges in the name of Allah and his pedophile prophet.
Perhaps they'll have Dick Brodhead lesd a higher ed review on thr presumption of innocence?
Or Claudine Gay on plagiarism?
Young people try to be like other like minded young people and not every young person wants to take on their professor. The Ivies put the liberal in liberal arts education, but people grow up and old. Kids who like M&M's develop a taste for olives in later years. Smart kids get a chance to hang out with each other for four years. That's where they get most of their education.
The thing about AI that scares me is how easily it mimics the vocabulary and rhetoric of college presidents, academics, lobbyists, lawyers, Fortune 500 executives, priests, ministers, and politicians. I have the sense that people with power and prestige are scripted in ways they only dimly perceive.
So, educating ‘aspiring leaders worldwide,’ sound like Yale would like more representation in the following groups:
NWO, Illuminati, WEF, Freemasons, The Vampire Council, Knights Templar, Deep State, The High Table, Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Skull and Bones, Bohemian Grove, Committee of 300, Rothschild Family, Rockefeller Family, Black Nobility, Club of Rome, Tavistock Institute, Jesuits, Priory of Sion, Ashoka's Nine Unknown Men, Triads, Tong, Yakuza, Thuggee, Hashshashin, Üst Akıl, Russian Oligarch Network, Chinese Communist Party Inner Circle, and the Dragon Society.
With some help from Grok after prompting it to eliminate the "rhetoric of college presidents, academics, lobbyists, lawyers, Fortune 500 executives, priests, ministers, and politicians" and just give me the damn list I ask for.
Grok included Skull and Bones when I only asked about shadowy groups seeking world domination or other global and likely nefarious goals, so there's prima facia evidence right there of what the INTJs at Yale are trying to do to us.
In my opinion, however, most of the people that graduate from the American University system with advanced degrees, especially those from so called elite institutions like Yale, fit better in Hedley Lamarr's list of vicious gun slingers and criminals.
And they get his phoney-baloney jobs! CC, JSM
Roth is a bright fellow, but when he's wearing his college president cap, he ought to stick to fundraising. College presidents have no more moral authority than any corporation president or Senator or other huckster. Even if they "mean well," their organizations have their own needs and demands.
Universities are full of enough rich kids and kids who want to be rich that talk of "improving the world" and "educated aspiring leaders worldwide" isn't to be taken entirely seriously, but clearly there has been a shift from national priorities to "global" ones and towards activism. The latest crops of Rhodes Scholars, for example, are more likely to be DEI lads and lasses with pronounced social and political agendas than hard scientists, let alone poets.
I wonder, though, about Roth's "creating knowledge." Pre-modern universities were content with disseminating knowledge and producing professionals and future leaders. That changed in the 19th century. For the most part we've benefited from the knowledge that modern university scientists and engineers have created and made use of, but in the humanities and social sciences "creating knowledge" has become problematic. It's an iffy thing whether much of that "knowledge" is reality-based or true or useful for the wider society, rather than useless or destructive. Does Roth address that?
Ralph L is a pretty smart cat, as usual.
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