<p>Personally I believe students and professors need to be politically open, and be able to have discussions without digressing into babbling idiots or acting like a 3 year old. I myself am a very fiscally conservative person yet when it comes to social issues I would consider myself liberal, as I am for gay marriage, abortion, legalization of marijuana and soft drugs. I think you need to immerse yourself in different philosophies and beliefs in order to truly construct your own view points. </p>
<p>As a student you must be open-minded and be willing to subject yourself to the opposite view. Discuss your beliefs not belittle others and cram your thoughts upon others. I believe there are faults on each side (especially in the pundits like O’Reilly, Oberallman, Hannity, Maddow). Politics is not a zero-sum game. Most colleges will tend to be “left” but that shouldn’t disuade you from choosing that college. College is a time for growth and development.</p>
<p>Two more conservative schools in the heart of the most liberal state - Sunny California are Pepperdine and Claremont McKenna. The South also has some good, conservative LAC’s. </p>
<p>If you son wants a good, discussion based, liberal art education than a LAC is a good choice, but he may not find what he wants in the NE.</p>
<p>My adviser said Wesleyan kids are losing their teeth, not that there aren’t many political debates, protests, or statements but I think referencing PCU is a little extreme. Its a much different school than it was 20 years ago and the way most people perceive it. A decent proportion of my friends are moderate and my closest friends are active in the Campus Republicans. I haven’t met many people who will attack each other’ beliefs, once in a class. Mostly its a live and let live kind of environment. Its left leaning but there are many many different viewpoints. I find myself discussing theories and Current events more than personal standards. As long as you’re not looking to convert anyone, I can speak for Wesleyan that most political persuasions are accepted. I’m not going to speak for any other school. Its certainly not for everyone and if you want a majority agreeing with you, definitely not. But its not one republican Vs a mob of voracious hippie vegan Anarchists.</p>
<p>I saw a similar thread a while back. Except it was the opposite. The student was liberal and was having problems because their professor was conservative; and class debates would go head to head. The thing that is amazing, is that a conservative student with a liberal professor (More the norm than conservative professors); will usually be told to put up with it; that they are there to learn; that they should broaden their mind and be open to other opinions; etc… There are a few that will recommend not going to such a liberal college. But if it’s a conservative professor, it seems that people start questioning the professor’s ability to teach; that his conservative viewpoints get in the way of learning; that he’s biased; that he should be confronted about staying neutral. I guess for some people, only liberals can be open minded and fair.</p>
<p>My suggestion to the OP is if the entire school in question is too liberal for his desires, then definitely don’t give them your money. For every school you say no to, there’s probably 10 more just as good and 20 more that are better.</p>
<p>My S graduated from Wes about 5 years ago (not exactly a whole eon ago!). Yes, PCU is a caricature. But the day S arrived on campus, there were “chalkings.” He actually applied there the year the NYT ran articles about Wes, including one about the “clothes-optional” dorm. When he visited, two bus-loads of students were off to protest against WTO. He was not fazed by any of it; but I can see a more conservative student than mine might not feel comfortable there. He, by the way, did not choose Wes because of its perceived (and quite real) liberal atmosphere, but because of its size and location as well as range of offerings.</p>
Was the school in New Jersey? Full of Jerseyites?</p>
<p>My daughter learned a lesson last semester. She’s pretty conservative but is also a scientist (not intelligent design), so she’s never run into any problems until then. She had a professor who was passionate and vocal about the Obama candidacy (this was an American history class) and assigned papers about the election, as one would expect. The first paper was to select one issue, discuss both candidates’ positions and then choose which you support. My daughter supported Senator McCain and explained why. Now, this was specifically assigned to present the student’s personal opinion. My daughter writes well, did a great deal of research and was fair and honest with the candidates’ position. The professor called her an “idiot” and gave a C-. It was very clear that was because she was outraged that someone in her class would support Senator McCain. Daughter thought long and hard and for the rest of the papers that required personal opinions, she wrote exactly what she thought the professor wanted to read. She got As and the teacher told her at the end of the semester that she felt that she had helped in D’s growth and development. Thankfully, D isn’t too political, so she didn’t get too upset.</p>
<p>JD; excellent point. It definitely takes being on the inside to make real change. That’s how many racial issues were corrected. But it definitely takes a strong individual to do it. If the OP’s son is strong and can handle the criticisms from some of his professors. And the possibility of getting a lower grade because of his moral positions and values; then he should definitely attend and stand his ground. Especially if there are things at that school that he definitely likes/wants. A liberal going to a conservative school has it a bit easier. Even if they were to experience the same prejudices; they have a lot more organizations willing to help them fight their battles. Attending the school and standing his ground is definitely not something I would have suggested; but being you brought it up, it’s definitely an option. If he’s strong enough. If not, go to a school more his liking.</p>
<p>“The whole country has a f*<strong><em>d up mentality man. We all got a gang mentality. Republicans are f</em></strong><strong>g idiots. Democrats are f</strong><strong><em>g idiots. And Conservatives are idiots. And Liberals are idiots. Anyone that makes up their mind before they hear the issue is a f</em></strong><strong>g fool okay. Everybody’s busy wanting to be down with a gang; ‘I’m a Conservative, I’m a Liberal, I’m a Conservative…’ It’s bulls</strong>t. Be a f**<em>**g person. Listen; let it swirl around in your head, then form your opinion. No normal decent person is one thing okay. I got some s</em><em>t I’m conservative about, I got some s</em>*t I’m liberal about. Crime, I’m conservative. Prostitution, I’m liberal.”</p>
<p>I had one outspoken conservative econ prof in college. We had some spirited debates- he thought med school was a waste of time for me, and I thought desire for wealth isn’t the best way to go through life. I think he enjoyed having me there.</p>
<p>I had one outspoken liberal history prof- almost a caricature of the stereotypical feminist. Our debates weren’t as much fun for me. </p>
<p>Most of my other profs were somewhere on the spectrum. If they accidentally let a political statement loose, they tended to cover with " but then again, I’m a ____, not a political scientist." Don’t know if that was coaching from the administration or just a realization that people were in their class for the prof’s specific training.</p>
I’m reaching back to this post because of the utter ignorance it displays about literary studies – and lots of other studies – at a university level.</p>
<p>There is no “simply presenting the material” without some degree of politics, unless you happen to be a simpleton. What are you planning to read? Shakespeare? Milton? Wordsworth? Shelley? Dickens? Dickinson? Whitman? Kafka? Joyce? Eliot (George or T.S.)? Ellison? If you don’t understand the political context in which they worked, then you’re missing a bunch of potentially interesting stuff. If you don’t relate what you’re reading to things you actually care about, then you don’t care about the reading. How about Classics? Ever met a Straussian?</p>
<p>That’s not to say that everything calls for a paean to Barack Obama. But you’re going to be discussing sexuality a lot, and religion, and class. And if you want to ignore Marx, you are going to miss approximately a century of European thought, which might not be a good idea if you value comprehensive understanding over keeping your dainty little ears unsullied.</p>
<p>I am troubled by zoosermom’s story, because I believe her, but in real life I have never heard of anything like that happening in a classroom at a well-regarded institution. I have had teachers on the far left, the far right, in between, and with political positions that were taken one way within their field and the opposite way by people outside the field. All of them loved debate, and if they loved winning the debate, too, most of the time it was because they actually knew a lot more than their students, which is why they were the teachers. Most of the other stories of left-wing intolerance I see here are, frankly, urban legends.</p>
<p>I want teachers who care about things. I want teachers to teach what they care about. If that turns out to involve politics – and with an appropriately broad definition of politics, it almost always does – then so be it. Students don’t have to agree, but they do have to respect the fact that the person teaching the class may just have thought longer and harder about the material than they have, and students may want to learn how to express their disagreements respectfully, and to make certain they know how to argue from knowledge, not ignorance. When I look at a lot of the political discussion among (generally very smart) students on this forum, I know very well that only a tiny fraction of them – on the left or the right – are competent at that, and hardly any of them have any knowledge base from which to argue.</p>
<p>^^JHS, I second that stuff like ZM described happens. It happened at a Big Research State U and involved a liberal girl and over-the-top leftwing nutjob prof.</p>
<p>JHS, my English teacher last semester (at HS) taught Victorian Lit. Marx, Darwin, and Freud came up all the time. Mill, Bentham. Foucault, Chomsky, Achebe, everyone.</p>
<p>He did not share his political beliefs one single time. He shared his interpretations of the novels in the context of the political/religious/social framework of the time. That doesn’t at all equate with sharing political beliefs in a very strict sense.</p>
<p>jdjaguar, your contribution now consists of 3 (three) posts asserting that modern liberalism = fascism.</p>
<p>Repeating it doesn’t make it so. It’s silly, and contributes nothing to the discussion. I’m sure that if I asserted that modern religious conservatism = fascism, and cited 572 examples of rigid intolerance that brooks no dissent, you’d be squeaking about how unfair and inappropriate my comments were. </p>
<p>But I guess cartoonish assertions like yours are the sort of reasoned, intelligent academic discourse you’d want your children exposed to in college. Taught by Professors Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Ingraham, and Savage, no doubt. Who, apparently, taught you how to present your opinions as well.</p>
<p>If you made such an assertion in an actual college class taught by a competent professor who had some historical understanding of real fascism – whether the professor was liberal or conservative wouldn’t matter – I have no doubt that you would be publicly embarrassed.</p>
<p>Oh, and to the person who thought it was an appropriate comparison to ask why we don’t read posts recommending that “a gay kid be sent to a school for future missionaries, in order to have his views challenged and develop the ‘capacity’ to view issues from other perspectives?”</p>
<p>Fortunately, we don’t read such posts here. But thousands of gay kids who have the misfortune to be born into and raised by families who share the virulent homophobia that their spiritual leaders preach, are all too likely to be sent to the “Christian” equivalent of the kind of re-education camps that the Chinese Communists were so fond of during the Cultural Revolution. And all too many of them end up dead, or hating themselves for life. In other words, not a remotely appropriate analogy to bring up in the context of this thread.</p>
<p>Not all conservative campuses are homophobic. What an ignorant statement.</p>
<p>It’s a matter of respect – will a NE LAC and the student body in general even tolerate the OP’s conservative viewpoint? Of course, he might be challenged. Will anyone who is liberal be? Or is it totally one-sided? Let’s stick to the question…</p>
<p>I don’t recall anyone saying that all conservative campuses were homophobic. Where did you read that, exactly? It would indeed be an ignorant statement. If anyone said it.</p>
<p>DonnaL: Thanks for the missionary school response; I am beyond knowing how to answer that sort of language and grateful you have the energy. </p>
<p>JHS: Thanks for taking the time to write post 91. Recently someone who really should have know better, a major figure in his own field, told me in passing that history was a relatively easy discipline because “it’s just facts”</p>
<p>Even at the high school level, some of d’s friends already encountered some teachers that are similar to what ZM described. I told D if she’s ever in similar situation then she should just play along.
Hey the A grade is more important than intellectual honesty. :p</p>
<p>No, it’s not a reasonable assumption. If you read what I wrote, you’d see where several times I wrote that being an excellent professor has nothing to do with being conservative or liberal. Here, I’ll quote myself:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here, one more time; Students need excellent professors. It does not matter if the professor is politically left or right if they are an outstanding educator. </p>
<p>However, you seem to be under the impression that it is just a coincidence that the best universities and the best professors tend to be politically liberal. It is not. All too often, modern day conservative political thought does not mesh well with the highest caliber of education. It was not always so, it’s been a slow drift over my lifetime and one I expect to see corrected in the near future as I sense we are nearing the bottom of this particular barrel. </p>
<p>For now, the odds are that a student wanting to attend a top school with top professors will be attending one that is associated with modern liberal poltical thought. That doesn’t mean that it was always so or will always be.</p>
<p>Who made this ignorant statement? Other than you, I mean. </p>
<p>And while of course not all conservative campuses are homophobic it is true that colleges that rank as the least gay-friendly on list’s such as Princeton Reviews are conservative colleges. Which, just to be very clear, does not mean that all liberal campuses are gay-friendly or, again, that all conservative campuses are homophobic.</p>
<p>We didn’t recycle the letters from Texas A&M, Baylor and SMU because of the professors, we did it because of the reputation of the students general attitude/university created enviroment. If my kid’s professors are good, that’s what I care about. But he will not be living with nor trying to create a community his professors.</p>