patrick.net

TwoScoopsMcGee says

White People are the new Jews.

This is true. Watch the glee with which people hate on whites. Hating whites is a virtue signal, especially if you hang out at the "Trans & Queer Center/Unity Lounge".

CBOEtrader says

I certainly don't have the answer. Perhaps schools that are specialized to those science requirements, while eliminating the summer camp type waste.

That would be ideal and hopefully one day it may come true. If gender/ethnic studies departments would be eliminated together with affirmative action offices, then incidents such as the one described at the top of this thread would mostly go away. From what I see, students can very easily be influenced by what faculty say, and if in their 1st year they take so-called "fluff" ethnic/gender/race diversity classes to boost GPA, their mind is poisoned.

drBu says

We get pressured to hire women/minorities - in a recent hire administration openly told us that we get a position only if it is filled by someone who is not a white or Asian male. When I objected that this is not legal, the response was that we should simply not talk about this requirement.

In another friend's department a female physics professor got a prestigious chair appointment. She shouldn't have even gotten tenure (I know her). When he inquired how come, the chair told him that the Dean wanted a woman.

My friend had expected that, based on his record, he would be awarded the chair. He was so disappointed that he moved to a different institution.

FP says

In another friend's department a female physics professor got a prestigious chair appointment. She shouldn't have even gotten tenure (I know her). When he inquired how come, the chair told him that the Dean wanted a woman.

My friend had expected that, based on his record, he would be awarded the chair. He was so disappointed that he moved to a different institution.

Sounds very familiar. We vote to grant/deny tenure to our colleagues based on their accomplishments (or lack of them), and you can take a wild guess what happens if we vote "no" for a woman or minority. Vote gets overturned by higher-ups in administration with 100% certainty.

I accidentially added an Anti-Jew crank to Twitter, and realized how similar the "Whites have always been evil" narrative is to the "Jews control the world secretly" schtick.

I bet you $20 most anti-White SJWs, including those in Black or African Studies, don't know who William Wilburforce was and dismiss 100k's of White Union Soldiers as a "distraction".

Just like Anti-Semites ignore all the remote controls, quantum theory, vaccines etc. by Jews. Only the bad stuff!

We can take back Universities and Colleges from SJWs by having the State Legislature impose dispassionate education (at least for undergrads) in the Classroom, and forbid racial, sex pref, or gender discrimination and segregation.

drBu says

Sounds very familiar. We vote to grant/deny tenure to our colleagues based on their accomplishments (or lack of them), and you can take a wild guess what happens if we vote "no" for a woman or minority. Vote gets overturned by higher-ups in administration with 100% certainty.

This is why the Department of Education needs to be eliminated. Centers of higher education need the freedom to reject the cult of diversity in favor of intellectual integrity. Our university system is ripe for disruption by a new type of university system focused on intellectual pursuits only rather than diversity.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

forbid racial, sex pref, or gender discrimination and segregation.

That's hatespeech

CBOEtrader says

new type of university system focused on intellectual pursuits only rather than diversity.

One can reasonably argue that "intellectual pursuit" was the reason why universities were created, so we just need to bring back the original purpose

It all starts in in elementary. Went to school with wife today because we were told my second grader was getting an award. They gave out over a two hundred rewards are all sorts of things like just doing what is expected, even the kids in Pre-k were getting awards this was all for kids pre-k to third grade. When I was a kid they would do this stuff once and a while and like a dozen kids would get an award out of the whole school K-6. Nobody got awards for doing their homework on time, or tracing lines really good WTF.

CBOEtrader says

Sounds very familiar. We vote to grant/deny tenure to our colleagues based on their accomplishments (or lack of them), and you can take a wild guess what happens if we vote "no" for a woman or minority. Vote gets overturned by higher-ups in administration with 100% certainty.

This is unacceptable. Faculty should only be overruled in the case of some kind of major politicking or injustice.

Non-Educators have wayyyy to much power at Universities, which used to be headed by long serving Professors with a lifetime of contributions to the institution. Today they're all professional Admins who flit from job to job, rarely staying more than a few years at one place.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Non-Educators have wayyyy to much power at Universities, which used to be headed by long serving Professors with a lifetime of contributions to the institution. Today they're all professional Admins who flit from job to job, rarely staying more than a few years at one place.

I have observed that many if not most of the administrators are failed faculty. When they can not do research competitively any more, they move into administration and then bother those who can teach and research. And when they fail at University 1, they move to University 2, usually with salary increase. There are no consequences to their failures.

CBOEtrader says

drBu says

mostly reader says

There may be a silver lining though. University-based educational system is stuck in 12-13 century. SJW culture may be just the thing to build the critical mass of mind share required to finally make it obsolete and move on to better models.

Would be extremely interesting to learn what that better model would be in majors that produce students who actually contribute to economy - such as chemistry, chemical and petroleum engineering, mechanical engineering, etc.

Coursera and Khan academy are the models of the future. Add in VR and it could feel like an immersive class. We don't need 200 econ 101 professors. We need diversity of thought, and specialized instruction of marketable skills. Think YouTube marketing videos vs marketing classes in a university. You ...

Yes, that's one option.
Teachers either instruct, or provide feedback. Instructions - lectures, do-this-don't-do-that. Feedback - tests, grading.
For instructions, a relatively small number of presumably best participants and video aids may cater to everyone else. Think professional sports model: small number of super athletes cater to the rest of us. Plus a network of online TAs for 1:1 tutoring, possibly operating under instructor or school trademark (or not). This would provide both superior instruction and complete transparency into the process.
Indeed, this is incomplete and leaves out things such as access to labs. I recon it's all solvable within that model though.
Feedback is also doable, and that bar for feedback is not that high. Most classrooms with top level instructors are already too big for personalized approach.

That's one approach. I think that if smart folks really decide to take on that challenge, they'd come up with better ideas.

drBu says

tenure to our colleague

See what happened when Dr. Amy Bishop (Harvard trained, she would remind any and everyone), a certifiable nut who got away with killing her brother years earlier, was denied tenure:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_University_of_Alabama_in_Huntsville_shooting

drBu says

CBOEtrader says

Coursera and Khan academy are the models of the future. Add in VR and it could feel like an immersive class. We don't need 200 econ 101 professors. We need diversity of thought, and specialized instruction of marketable skills. Think YouTube marketing videos vs marketing classes in a university. You ...

1. Labs in chemistry/chem engineering can not be done online. Refineries/oil companies (where many of my students work) will not hire someone who has no proven ability to NOT set their plant on fire.

2. I regularly teach undergraduates, and ones who take intr...

Sure, there are unanswered questions. Note that some of them also apply to homeschooling, and were (are being) successfully solved.
Cheating seems like a low hanging fruit, because this has been solved in the world of homeschooling for the most part. Lab access is harder to fix, I think that it's also doable though.
Quality of instruction? Oh, we haven't seen anything yet.

FP says

A friend recently got a new university job. As part of the hiring process they made him write an essay about diversity. Insane!

That is not at all unusual.

I applied to speak at a tech conference (SXSW) and was required to write an essay explaining how I would bring diversity to the conference.

"Diversity" is a code word for anti-white and anti-Asian racism, and anti-male sexism.

We should have zero tolerance for demands for "diversity", which is simply judging people by the biology they were born with.

drBu says

) and you can take a wild guess what happens if we vote "no" for a woman or minority. Vote gets overturned

We had a case like this. Eventually the department and the Dean worked out a deal. We gave her tenure but they moved her to a different department (whose chair she was dating!)

rando says

I applied to speak at a tech conference (SXSW) and was required to write an essay explaining how I would bring diversity to the conference.

Wow, never heard of this. What did you write - "I'll present new ideas at the conference" ?

mostly reader says

Cheating seems like a low hanging fruit, because this has been solved in the world of homeschooling for the most part.

It has not been solved in online education, despite online schools/classes being around for quite a while.

I have yet to see a competent graduate in my field from any online school (and I am not saying that this will be true for all fields - computers/programming will be completely different). Furthermore, there is a push by university administrators/state legislators to have more online classes, which actually turn out to be more expensive than contact classes (technology fees). Reason is very simple - they can pass everyone, and so everyone is happy and school collects millions in tuition! No unhappy students failed by insensitive white and Asian male professors who do not share their oppression ideologies! In contact classes taught by tenured faculty, at least in non-humanities, failure rates are very high. In Chem Eng, for example, only 5% of students graduate at our school so companies who hire from us can be sure that they are hiring the best of the best. With online education, it will be 95% graduating. None of the large petrochemical companies here hire from online schools and that is very unlikely to change any time soon.

FP says

Eventually the department and the Dean worked out a deal.

We do not even get any deals - vote is overturned and all we can do is say "yes, sir, thank you for your wise decision".

drBu says

mostly reader says

Cheating seems like a low hanging fruit, because this has been solved in the world of homeschooling for the most part.

It has not been solved in online education, despite online schools/classes being around for quite a while.

So what do you think is the big difference between homeschooling and online education, from the point of view of cheating control?

mostly reader says

So what do you think is the big difference between homeschooling and online education, from the point of view of cheating control?

Financial incentives perhaps. Also, differences in failure rates between high schools and universities.

rpanic01 says

overly feminine men

https://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/05/25/study-physically-weak-men-more-likely-to-be-socialist-strong-men-more-likely-to-be-capitalist/

> drBu

I doubt that difference in failure rates is a factor. Homeschooled high school students still need to produce proper scores to get enrolled in a univ/college of choice (anything less is a relative failure), and that process is controlled reasonably well.

Financial incentive is indeed a factor. Means to enforce are already here, they are just not used in this framework, because there is no motivation. This would change if online courses start to be more of a vehicle towards certification (such as a degree in a good school). Which, in turn, requires public rethinking and reclassifying available options for education.

Today, we don't see stickers "my son/daughter completed XYZ course in online academy ABC". It's not prestigious. Reputation of a school is based on quality of alumni, and, well, for alumni "garbage in" results in "garbage out". The chicken and the egg problem.

This is where SJW culture comes into the picture. They are doing fine job reminding people that in this day and age they may have other options for educating their kids, and possibly shifting public opinion. We may see more qualified students going the "online" route and improving that landscape.

Or not. Berkeley admissions for the next school year would be somewhat telling.

mostly reader says

This is where SJW culture comes into the picture. They are doing fine job reminding people that in this day and age they may have other options for educating their kids, and possibly shifting public opinion. We may see more qualified students going the "online" route and improving that landscape.

Many regular schools have no SJW culture. For example, Texas A&M is pretty highly ranked, relatively cheap, and has very little if any SJW nonsense. When a state school gets hit by this (U of Missouri-Mizzou), enrollment drops and students go elsewhere (http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/04/06/mizzou-shuts-down-more-dorms-as-enrollment-continues-to-drop-drastically/). Of course, man-hater colleges or other exclusive, very expensive private schools will not suffer if their students and faculty are behaving ridiculously, as they are meant for "educating" crazies.

In another friend's department a female physics professor got a prestigious chair appointment. She shouldn't have even gotten tenure (I know her). When he inquired how come, the chair told him that the Dean wanted a woman.

My friend had expected that, based on his record, he would be awarded the chair. He was so disappointed that he moved to a different institution.

I watched a female with no real Chemistry knowledge climb the ladder over the last 15 years. Her PhD was a sympathy one in which she should have failed out. She easily obtained tenure with no real research. Then, at one point, she tried to become department chair. The 51% of the department that was sane put a stop to it by not voting her in. 2 weeks later, she went above everyone's head to the university president and she's magically a dean.

I probably have a half dozen of these stories of incompetent women climbing the ladder in science and engineering just because. The worst part about it is that the people who get pissed off the most about it are the competent females in the field. Whenever they try to go into industry, they are overly scrutinized because the people doing the hiring are well aware of this bullshit.

To all those that talk edumacation,
"If your so damn smart,why aren't you rich?"

drBu says

Texas A&M is pretty highly ranked, relatively cheap, and has very little if any SJW nonsense.

Except it elected a gay student body president because of so-called "voting irregularities" by his competitor, a, gasp, straight white male (probably aren't many of them in A&M):

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/21/us/texas-am-openly-gay-student-body-president/

P N Dr Lo R says

Except it elected a gay student body president because of so-called "voting irregularities" by his competitor, a, gasp, straight white male (probably aren't many of them in A&M)

Interesting. The cancer of PC has infected even A&M. However, most students did vote for the other guy (out of very few that actually voted), and the blame lies squarely with administrations, and not student body or faculty. The solution is then to get rid of 99% of useless administration who think they are above democratic process.

McIntosh was disqualified because he had failed to provide a receipt for glow sticks appearing in a campaign video on Facebook, which is ridiculous.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Perry-Did-A-M-shun-due-process-in-the-name-of-11021097.php

I am somewhat familiar with A&M and have not seen any SJW nonsense in students or faculty there. I guess school leadership will have to try harder to get it implanted.

theoakman says

I probably have a half dozen of these stories of incompetent women climbing the ladder in science and engineering just because.

There is Hillary Clinton-guess who voted for her??

HEY YOU says

To all those that talk edumacation,

"If your so damn smart,why aren't you rich?"

But I am.