My S26 had little interest in Oberlin even though the school itself was a great fit for him academically (maybe socially but we never visited), because it was in a red state. They offered him a bunch of merit money, too.
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This site appears to specialize in rating “Little Ivies”:
Unconventional rankings include those for “old money signal” and “prestige density index.”
The site seems to show an overall affinity for Union College.
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I think Union flies under the radar for many, and there is a lot to like!
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Ivy+NESCAC anti-trust suit given greenlight:
Elite US colleges must face lawsuit claiming ‘early decision’ conspiracy | Reuters
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Appreciate them leaving Bates out of that lawsuit, save the legal fees.
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Bates has enough to worry about with the recent Atlantic article by Tyler Austin Harper. Ouch.
The guy comes across as a bit of a hypocrite himself; stays five years; waits until he finishes a sabbatical, them quits and writes a hit piece. Must be nice.
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I have so much to say about the article and TAH himself but I shouldn’t fully share on a public forum -
I will say that his discussion of confidential search committee meetings is an ethical breach and boundary violation. He also discusses job candidates who I’m sure can identify themselves. All of his examples are one-off anecdotes - did he try to change anything? Given all these issues, I don’t find him to be worthy of trust.
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I have no inside info, but it sure seems like jumping on the “anti-woke” gravy train is easier and more financially rewarding than publishing a monograph so you can get tenure….
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Ugh. He is horrible.
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Reading any of his other pieces or taking a look at his social media is such an eye opener. I can’t believe anyone is a fan of his, but he’s got them.
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Harvard, Yale, & Princeton are not among the defendants listed in the lawsuit.
Nor were Hamilton, Bates, Colby, or Conn.
I read his piece regarding The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation:
[Elizabeth]Alexander’s appointment to Mellon also speaks to another trend I’ve observed within wealthy liberal institutions, in which people of color from unusually privileged backgrounds are anointed as standard-bearers for a radical cultural worldview that many working-class minorities do not share—even as the former are ostensibly intended to “represent” the latter. Of course, it is not Alexander’s fault that she is the daughter of illustrious parents. Or that she is a descendant of the Logan family, a famous lineage of highly educated Black elites whose influence stretches back to the 19th century. Or that she is a longtime personal friend of the Obamas, or that her brother served on Barack Obama’s transition team ahead of his first inauguration, where she read her poem “Praise Song for the Day.”
(What Is the Mellon Foundation Doing to Higher Education? - The Atlantic)
The guy’s got problems.
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Interesting ranking. Unique from what I’ve seen. I’m concerned that someone there has a kid at Union, but seemingly an attempt at being thoughtful nonetheless.
They should look into Smith College a bit more if they’re that crazy about engineering. Smith has sneaky good STEM resources.
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Can someone give me the Reader’s Digest version? I don’t want to go looking for this guy and pollute my algo.
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It will be hard to make this bullet-proof, but I’ll try:
- Bright Young Thing (who happens to be an African-American man), accepts a dream job (tenure-track position at a NESCAC) right out of grad school.
- Over the space of 5 years, he is saddled with various projects, nearly all of which have something to do with making the curriculum more woke.
- Without actually saying so, we are left to assume that it’s his relatively junior position among his faculty peers preventing him from giving full voice to his manifold misgivings about - virtually everything that arrives in his inbox.
- He realizes after five years of dodging numerous confrontations over faculty recruitment, curricular reform and those dreaded DEI training classes, that life as an academic is not what it is cut out to be.
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He’s also a capital-P Poster who jumps into all of the worst cultural debates with gusto. He’s clearly chosen the path of “disappointed liberal who has no choice but to be the one man willing to tell the truth about the excesses of the left” (academia version).
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I’m still trying to figure out what exactly made him so bitter, but I’m guessing it’s
He’s got some memorable quips, but “cosplaying at a place where current and future elites paid—or were paid—for the privilege of cosplaying as radicals, victims, or both…and faculty needed protection from their own students” is not something I think many Bates faculty are engaging in.
I also am incredulous that not once did the writer mention Garry Jenkins, Bates’ President (apart from a vague mention of the word President, in general), who is black, openly gay, and married.
This is rich: In discussing a probably identifiable job candidate, he says “Charlotte did not get the offer. But the entire episode left me distressed by what it seemed to suggest…” Even though they ALL agreed the person shouldn’t be hired, it still "seemed to suggest’ something that aligns with the writer’s revenge manifesto.
“It seemed highly unlikely that I had landed at the only school in America so hell-bent on getting minorities through the door…” Except she didn’t get through the door.
Complaining about college students holding a diIdo ring toss? I’d be surprised if Bates was the only college where students do this, and who cares? It frankly sounds pretty entertaining.
I could say so much more about this article, but I won’t. I will end by saying that I 100% think the author had no clue about the vibe of Bates when he accepted the job. And he is also trying to create controversy about things that actually never came to pass.
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A kind of table read version of David Brooks.
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