I’m an “extreme moderate” who has worked on college campuses for over 20 years. For the VAST majority of faculty, you’ll never know their personal politics even after attending several of their classes.
Most of these “liberal indoctrination” stories are driven by identity politics during a divisive time. Yes, there are anecdotes where someone gets carried away on both sides and those stories get instantly magnified by social media and other venues. Enjoy college. Respectfully challenge others and be open to the same.
College is the time to grow and challenge yourself in different ways. You will be fine on most public colleges.
Go on Facebook groups etc and you can even ask admission to talk with other students or reach out to student groups and ask your peers the questions you have.
If your going for the full college experience and life experience you will have lab partners that are conservative, gay, black, Asian, white, Democrats, Liberals, Arabs, Jews, Catholics. Etc.
If any of this bothers you then I would suggest picking another college.
Note that many of the courses that fulfill this University of Wisconsin requirement do not look like ones where you would write essays specifically on the topics of diversity, equity, and/or inclusion, so writing such an essay may result in getting a poor grade due to being off topic. Examples from Courses < University of Wisconsin-Madison
Afro American Studies / Asian American Studies / Dance / Folklore 319: Afro Asian Improv: From Hip Hop to Martial Arts Fusion
American Indian Studies / English 172: Literatures of Native America
American Indian Studies 250: Indians of Wisconsin
Geography / Urban Regional Planning 305: Introduction to the City
History / Jewish Studies 213: Jews and American Pop. Culture
History / Afro American Studies 393: Slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction, 1848-1877
Wow, reading those comments were something else! This thread makes me believe that UWMadison is friendly, but those comments are pretty negative. Although I get it that it only shows a few negative comments, so I hope the comments don’t represent the majority.
It’s also funny that a lot of rich people go to Harvard, and yet they are extremely liberal. It reminds me of the saying “everyone is liberal until they start making money”. I’m sure those social justice warriors will happily accept a high paying job at Lockheed.
lobbying for STEM majors to be required to take classes in gender, African American, Latino, women’s, etc
Oof, I don’t think UWMadison is like that, but how do I check? Do I need to click into the curriculum or presentation of my interested classes? Or is there a more general place or website to look up those stuff?
Wanting money does not necessarily mean opposing DEI like you mentioned in the first post. After all, many people who are wealthy or aspire to become wealthy want to be able to sell what they are selling to people without restriction to race, religion, national origin, sex, gender, LGBTQ, etc. in order to have a larger market that makes more money for themselves.
This relates to colleges in that most generalized colleges, particularly those which draw students from larger geographic areas like states, the whole nation, or internationally, end up with more diverse student cohorts than most neighborhoods or high schools. Hence, in order to maintain their markets by making students from all demographics welcome to keep them interested, they typically need to handle DEI issues. So do not be surprised that most generalized colleges do so.
But jokes aside, being wealthy isn’t at odds with welcoming diversity and inclusion.
As I asked above, are you uncomfortable being in a diverse environment, or do you not want to take diversity related classes?
If you are faced with a subjective value judgement answer you don’t agree with, you can always answer the question with “I was told the answer is…” that way the instructor will give credit for the “right” answer (according to that person) but you aren’t necessarily agreeing to it at the same time.
Or, “according to Prof. ABCD we should enact DEI because XYZ”. Think of it as punching a ticket. You will not be the only one regurgitating what the professor wants to hear to get by.
As others have mentioned, you can check the requirements for a given course of study before deciding on a school.
FWIW I have a kid that graduated recently from Madison with a STEM (and a non-STEM degree) and he never took any DEI oriented classes. There maybe were some online orientation modules that could possibly be percieved that way but that is an easy hoop jump.
That said on parent and school related boards and social media and local media over the years, I have heard about many more incidents of racism, etc or just random petty crime than I have against specifically conservative or republican students. Wisconsin is a purple state and there are plenty of in state students NOT from the Madison and Milwaukee areas, I doubt you’d be particularly unique. Profs are individuals and are not single minded. Read reviews on rate my prof when selecting classes, I recommend that anyway. Good profs appreciate well thought out opposing discussions. It is not hard to avoid political discussion in general.
But it is a more diverse campus for Wisconsin in a mid size city and maybe that is or isn’t for you. How open minded are you? Are you comfortable navigating urban spaces? My OOS kid had a great experience there (and is still there) but is definitely liberal leaning and was raised in an urban area. But he also isn’t regularly discussing politics daily, I’m sure he has friends and acquaintences with a variety of leanings.
Have you visited campus, sat in on class, walked Madison, etc? I’d recommend that.
Sure. I wrote that tongue-in-cheek and I can see how it didn’t translate well.
I work quite a lot with folks from both political parties and I’m a political moderate. A big part of my job is finding pragmatic solutions that either don’t choose sides or annoy one group one day and a different group on another. Trying to strike that balance in our current political atmosphere sometimes feels like extremism.
Yes, look at core curriculum and required courses. My son is at Syra cuse and has to take one class in a certain group related to learning about different culture or religion. We choose it as a positive versus a negative. Sure those can view it as wasted money or “indoctrination” but others can view it as finding out how to make their own viewpoint or opinion stronger. To each their own.
Wisconsin is purple, with a heavily gerrymandered legislature that skews right (far beyond the state’s population) by design. It’s not “pretty red.” And Madison is among the bluest parts of the state.
That said, even though the university leans left, people of all ideological stripes should be able to find like-minded folks at UW-Madison because the university draws from red and blue parts of the state (and nation).
As to the classes you might end up taking, you seem to be making a lot of assumptions before you even know what these classes are all about – you’ve got a caricatured and misinformed idea of what political climates on campus look like. You are very unlikely to be assigned an essay about your opinion on DEI, for example. Most of the time, regardless of the class, professors will be happy with students who write coherent and logically argued papers that address the topic, make use of pertinent evidence, and employ analytical methods appropriate to the discipline. There is rarely a single “right answer,” and you’ll get a lot more out of these classes if you don’t start with faulty assumptions and a chip on your shoulder.
College is a good time for students across the ideological spectrum to challenge their own views with new perspectives and experiences. I hope you will take the opportunity to do that.
I teach religious history and I guarantee you that these classes are not “indoctrination.” Most of the traditions I include in the class aren’t even mine! With the exception of some (not all) theology/doctrine classes at religious colleges for which the intent is to support a specific tradition, students are expected to learn about other religions and cultures, not adopt them.
So I just looked this up on Reddit. Someone posted something extremely similar … But I think the responses are worth reading. Maybe that will help. Sorry, I thought I saved it but didn’t.
Many or most of the courses that fulfill the University of Wisconsin ethnic studies requirement are not specifically about DEI or the recent politics thereof (see post #23 for examples).
Ha! I took two of those classes: Population Problems and Asian American Studies.
Population Problems, which dealt heavily in Demography, was one of my favorite courses at UW. A sample assignment comprised being given a list of statistics for a population, and being asked to write five pages describing that population based on those stats. I loved it.
That class was not at all political.
Asian American Studies was, basically, a history course. I don’t remember it being political (at least not overly so…) either.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane – I’m tickled pink to find that they are still in the catalog 25+ years after I experienced them.
… But I think the responses are worth reading. Maybe that will help. Sorry, I thought I saved it but didn’t.