<p>Englishjw, I am generally aghast of how unaware most Americans are, including college kids, of the history of our country. I wish more people read the musings of Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers. If they did, they would appreciate the remarkable achievement of the founders in devising and writing the US Constitution and would have a far greater understanding of the meaning of our Democracy and its various intricacies, including the dangers always lurking in a Republic where powers are delegated by the people to our elected representatives. It is the tour de force of political documents in the history of mankind.</p>
<p>Much of the political turmoil we are experiencing today was predicted by Madison in the Federalist Papers, particularly in number 10.</p>
<p>^^Agreed, that it’s a fascinating topic, but, the geo-centric argument that every American college student needs to revisit American History 101 because they live here, even after aceing the AP and Honors exams in high school, is a little like saying, every Claremont-McKenna student should take film studies because after all, they’re only 40 minutes from Hollywood.</p>
<p>Well, I get your point JW, but I don’t think most high school students read the Federalist Papers, even those who ace their AP and Honors exams. They certainly don’t learn the political theory expounded upon in the Federalist Papers in American History 101.</p>
<p>Nope, you completely misread me. I was mostly reciting differences between two university systems, not so much my personal opinion. Also, I don’t see these LAC course titles as any less rigorous or important as something called “Shakespeare 112” or “American History 245”. As a professor, I can tell you that a TITLE tells you almost NOTHING about what is learned and acquired in a particular course. By “fun” courses, in my previous post, I meant things like ‘Bowling 101’ or “Pingpong”. Sure take those, but get a grade on them as part of your transcript! Gag! </p>
<p>You will find plenty of fabulous liberal arts courses, along with regular traditional courses, at most Canadian universities (just like most American public universities). But again, the title tells you very little. </p>
<p>I’m a big fan of interesting courses, and open but rigorous curriculums; I’m not a big fan of ‘easy’, everyone gets an A, non-challenging degrees. Especially if core courses were not already covered in the highschool curriculum. If a student doesn’t have to be ‘doing school full time’ (ie. 40 hours a week) to get a decent GPA s/he is not in an environment where they are being challenged and it’s not a good use of $$. If most students are pulling off a 3.5, and spending less than 30 hours a week on school related work, the degree is a joke IMHO. </p>
<p>There is a MUCH better thread already started about core curriculum requirements. I think it is a worthy debate of what makes a solid ‘education’ and what are ‘must-haves’. I can see both sides on that debate, and each of us would come up with our own list. I can’t recall the title of that thread but it was based on an article written by a former president of a LAC, who had come up with his own ranking of colleges in terms of which courses they offered. I thought it was unusually light on some topics, such as economics or science, so not surprisingly what this president considers “core” others do not.</p>
<p>Parent57 may haave a point about the lack of coverage of early American history at the college level generally. For example, there’s barely a mention of it at Claremont-McKenna:</p>
<p>It seems as though someone interested in taking a course on The Federalist Papers would have to go through the Political Science department or at least those professors affiliated with this on-campus think tank:
<p>I would like to re-subscribe my previous thoughts, as I listen to my son’s jazz band play “Portrait of Mahalia Jackson” in the background. Our kids are deeper & wiser than we can imagine. Wiser than than we are, I suspect, in many ways. Isn’t that what we’re hoping for? On the flip side, the course description quoted by parents57 was truly awful, actually. But I’m not sure there’s much to be done about it in this forum. All we really want is that our kids find a place in the world that works for them. If they have to, or want to, take a few classes at Wesleyan, or any some such place, that we find totally unintelligible, why is that our problem? That they care about it, are enthusiastic about it, is reason for celebration. As long as they care, and they’re connected with their education, what else really matters? If they really hate a class, it won’t be taught for long, that’s absolutely certain.</p>
<p>JW, Intro to American Politics (Govt 20) is a core requirement for all CMC students. One of the books on the reading list for this course is the Federalist Papers. One professor actually requires their students to read the Anti-Federalist Papers as well. I noticed that “Democracy in America” by De Tocqueville is also on the reading list for some of the professors. Personally, I would make De Tocqueville required reading as well. As I said in another post, I may be old fashioned about this but I think it is a civic responsibility of higher education to require our college students to read these seminal books about American Democracy and the American experience. If we are going to save our Republic for future generations, it would be nice if all students had a well-grounded understanding of the origins of the American political system. I recognize many people will not agree with me.</p>
<p>The Salvatori Center is one of the many research institutes on campus where students have the opportunity to engage in further research in their specialty area.</p>
<p>So, even if I don’t subscribe to the ideology or politics of “Choosing the Right College”, it might interest me if courses are almost all taught from one perspective or if a student will be penalized for not having the prevailing pc opinions. This is something I have not seen addressed. Can a conservative, liberatarian or otherwise non-liberal student do well at Wesleyan, academically and socially? Or does the quest for diversity not extend to diverse political thought? Not a rhetorical question, I have not visited Wesleyan so I am genuinely interested.</p>
<p>I’m glad CMC students are able to pick it up somewhere, even if not in the History Dept. This brings up an important point and that is there are many ways of skinning the academic cat; I wish I had a dollar for every course I took while at Wesleyan that included, Marx and Engels’ “Basic Writings”, Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism” and just about anything by Freud among the reading lists.</p>
<p>CJaneRead wrote:
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<p>Yes. And it’s relevant because I’m really trying to make allowances for this demanding, prosecutorial tone you’re taking. None of us are paid to participate in these forums. I will go the extra mile try to give you an answer to <em>any</em> question about Wesleyan, but, not if you’re going to take that attitude.</p>
<p>I have no idea about what kind of “attitude” you are referring to and certainly no prosecutorial tone was intended. </p>
<p>I was looking for clarification on how merely consulting the course catalog would give a prospective student enough information on how biased, one-track, left-leaning, insert appropriate adjective, certain departments at Wesleyan are.
According to one professor on this thread, not much can be gleaned from looking at the course descriptions. Hence, the interest in the comments provided by the “trainwreck” ranking. </p>
<p>I do think it is of value to know what the campus and academic culture is of a school when considering it, especially in smaller schools like LACs.
FWIW, I have no axe to grind in re. to Wesleyan and really would like to learn more about it, but I think it is harmful to sweep away concerns about political diversity and how well it is tolerated on particular campuses, because it can lead to student’s making decisions without a real sense of the place.</p>
<p>You may have a point, but, if so, it’s one that could be aimed at the authors of the train-wreck poll as well. Maybe, their budget included on-site visits to 100 colleges where they paid someone to sit in on every class. I honestly don’t know. But, my assumptionn has been that they did the same thing Parent57 did which was go to the Wesleyan search engine and plug in the word, “gender”. My point was, why rely on their search engine skills (or, anyone’s for that matter) when you can access the entire catalogue at your own leisure?</p>
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<p>There’s no question that Wesleyan is a politically liberal place, but, conservatives do exist and often thrive. My sense is that there is a personality type that enjoys being the odd-man out, the court jester, the the guy who shouts “The Emperor has no clothes!” Those types abound at Wesleyan, and you don’t necessarily have to be to the right of John Boehner to fit that category. Where conservatives go “wrong”, IMO, is when they personalize their attacks, or attempt to make actual people – members of the faculty, students or administrators feel embarassed or humiliated. This tactuc goes back to the days of the student take-overs by The Left back in the 60s but, seems to have lingered a little longer among young conservatives. The important thing to remember is that small colleges are communities first and ideological platforms second. People are much more concerned with whether you are a good person (and, most Wesleyan students are) than where you stand on lowering the deficit.</p>
<p>I was reading student reviews of the school at the ***** website, and quite a few students said that because of the open curriculum you can select courses and make your academic experience as difficult or easy as you want it to be. I am all for academic freedom and having some flexibility to choose your courses, but I have to admit it makes me uncomfortable if students are avoiding core curricula because the courses may be difficult. Before Dyer or anyone else has a heart attack, I don’t know to what extent this is happening at Wesleyan, but it troubles me that it may be possible for a student to receive a college degree and avoid the sciences, foreign languages, economics, political science, math, etc because the courses may be difficult.</p>
<p>So, let me see if I understand this: it’s okay to avoid Wesleyan completely because it’s “hard” being a conservative there. But, somehow it’s a failure of intestinal fortitude not to take a foreign language, if you choose not to? Sounds like rubbish.</p>
<p>I’m glad a list like this exists. You don’t always hear about stuff like core curriculum and the presence of trendy disciplines at a college. It’s clear that there is a conservative bias in the list, but it’s not like you have to support the list or even read it. Even though I don’t agree with everything it purports to measure, it’s a refreshing take on college rankings from a voice that isn’t often heard.</p>
<p>Actually, that too was a thread on the Wesleyan message board. The one thing that really and truly set Parent57 off, and for which “Mr. Diversity of Opinion” has never forgiven me, was a previous thread (on the Pomona board, IIRC) where I suggested it was common for different students in the Claremont Consortium to wear each other’s t-shirts. Apparently, for a CMC student to be seen wearing a Pomona t-shirt is an act of treason. But, now that I know one of his touchstones is Early American history (think Benedict Arnold) I can forgive him his extreme views on t-shirt wearing :)</p>
<p>JW, for the life of me I have difficulty understanding your sense of humor (think Benedict Arnold) but maybe that’s just me. It is true I originally posted here because of our rich history (actually I was trying to be humorous); however, it doesn’t mean I am not curious about the subject matter of this thread. I am curious about Wesleyan, particularly some of the points made by the ranking that gave you the name of this thread. I have been trying to determine the veracity of their comments regarding the politicization of the curriculum and whether Wesleyan is a hospitable environment for students who don’t share the political views of the majority. It has been difficult to glean this information, apparently because it triggers an emotional response from a few of you. It seems like a few posters would prefer to attack me rather than answer these questions. Maybe lashing out at me is easier because they do not want to address these topics. </p>
<p>Anyway, I would never wear a Pomona t-shirt; I don’t like their colors. (are you laughing)</p>
<p>teelow, I appreciate your last post. I was not expressing an opinion about the Open House; I did think, however, the language used to describe the many subsets of the gay community was a little farfetched. I was also using irony to suggest that conservatives may be less welcome than every other group (sadomasochism - no matter how obscure they may be) on campus. So, for your edification, I do not have a problem with this house.</p>
<p>This thread has forced us to delete a great number of overly aggressive posts. Time has come to tone down the rhetoric and refrain to post gratuitous attacks with abandon. </p>