Would you skew a paper’s thesis to match your professor’s political views if you thought it would earn you a good grade? Would you stick to your own beliefs if you thought it would negatively affect your grade?
An entry by Stanley Fish on his NYT blog, “Think Again,” is what got me thinking (again) about politics and the classroom.
Fish is talking about whether there is a correlation between a professor’s political affiliation and his or her teaching ability (he argues there is none). I’m been thinking about a more simple, but related, topic — how a professor who makes his or her political views very apparent in the classroom can create a detrimental learning environment for students.
I haven’t taken a poll, but I would guess that the majority of the faculty at the University of Hawai‘i lean in the liberal direction. In the few classes I have taken at UH, including a Hawaiian history class and a political science class, it was not difficult to figure out the instructors’ political viewpoints, and they made little effort to conceal their personal opinions about the subject matter. But I don’t know whether a couple of professors are indicative of the entire university.
I don’t mean to say this is only a problem at the University of Hawai‘i. I majored in Political Science at a tiny, liberal arts college in Massachusetts where there were of course concerns about some classroom lectures. Politically biased professors have also been the subject of many articles about higher education. A site called “Politics in the Classroom” has even been set up for students to “out” teachers whom they believe have a political agenda in the classroom.
Certainly, there is no problem with a professor holding strong political opinions. That kind of passion for your subject compels one to delve into the issues and often leads to better instruction. The problem starts when an instructor begins to use lessons as a platform for his or her political views. Then, the class ceases to be about academic learning and starts to be about political advocacy.
The worst is when this turns the classroom into an uncomfortable environment for any person who does not agree with the instructor’s personal politics.
True story: A friend once described a class with some of the most interesting reading material he had encountered in college. But the person teaching the class was so opinionated about the texts, he said, that he felt the only way to get an A was to skew his papers toward the instructor’s viewpoint.
In my opinion, that’s a dangerous situation. College should be about learning to think independently and creatively, because high school so often is not. And a college classroom is the last place in the world where a person should be made to feel uncomfortable about his or her views on any issue.
On Monday, I read this article in the NYT about a “sustainability house” at Oberlin College with interest.
The house, called SEED (Student Experiment in Ecological Design) represents a growing effort on college campuses — including the University of Hawaii — to consume less energy, reduce carbon emissions and recycle.
Although it seems they’re still trying to nail down exactly what it means to have a “sustainable house,” the eight housemates in the Oberlin house mastered such skills as worm composting, staying warm with the thermostat set at 60 degrees (a feat — Ohio winters can be COLD), living without TV, and taking shorter showers by sticking a photo of Sen. John Edwards on the ceiling above the showerhead.
They even consolidated all their food into one fridge (there are two kitchens) and unplugged all the appliances in one kitchen.
My college held a contest with similar goals. The different houses competed to see who could lower their electricity bill the most from the previous year’s. The month-long competition was called “Do It In The Dark.”
Some students went to great lengths to compete, pushing each other to turn off lights whenever they left a room, unplug lap tops and take quick showers. Unfortunately, our house, which had eight girls, did not win the contest. But the campus did save $10,000 in electricity bills during spring 2006, my senior year.
The University of Hawaii at Manoa is working on its own sustainable building project, Sustainable Saunders, a student and faculty-led effort to make 7-story Saunders Hall a model for sustainability on the UH campus (see photo). UH is the second-largest consumer of electricity on Oahu, after military services, and according to the Sustainable Saunders web site, about $1.5 million in student tuition goes to pay the university’s electricity bill each month.
“Sustainability” has become a buzz-word that’s often easy to brush off as a vague and unreachable idea. But it has to be a very real idea in Hawai‘i, which remains the most oil-dependent state in the nation. And for young people, who may see many of the natural resources we now take for granted disappear within our lifetimes, caring about sustainability is more than just a trend — it’s caring about the quality of our lives, our future.
So go ahead, no shame: Tell your friends to do it in the dark.
Photo: Sustainable Saunders Earth Day 2008 on Flickr.
UH plans to introduce an emergency text messaging system that can be used to alert students during life-and-death situations, such as school shootings, according to Dan Nakaso’s article in the Advertiser today.
Emails were recently sent to 50,000 students in the 10-campus system encouraging them to sign up for the special text messaging.
Campus officials previously used email to communicate with students during emergencies, such as an October incident in which a 46-year-old man was arrested for threatening to shoot 30 students at UH-Manoa.
During the Feb. 14 shooting at Northern Illinois, campus officials sent students email and voicemail alerts, according to this article from the AP. The school did not have text messaging alerts.
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville recently introduced text alerts along with several other universities across the country. Announcements at SIUE are also broadcast through a speaker system on the 2,660-acre campus.
But the AP article also notes that students at many campuses with text message alert systems have been slow to embrace the program, citing “feelings of invincibility and reluctance to give out personal information.”
I’m sure it’s probably also related to questions about the effectiveness of text message alerts. UH students first have to register for the service and those without unlimited messaging will have to pay for any emergency texts. UH officials said in the article that they expect only 10 percent of students to sign up.
The emergency texting system is designed to do what email can’t, that is, get in touch with students when they’re on the go, walking around campus or sitting in class. But when I was in college, I also almost never took my cell phone to class since I had profs who were notorious for kicking students out of the room if a cell ring disturbed their lectures. So I either left my phone in my room or turned it off during the day unless I was expecting a call.
UH students can check this site for emergency status updates and to register for the new text messaging system.
If you logged on to the Honolulu Advertiser homepage this evening, you would have been greeted by an interesting pair of headlines.
In one story, we learned that Greg McMackin has officially accepted the offer to become the next University of Hawaii head football coach. McMackin will succeed June Jones, whose coaching helped bring the Warriors a thrilling 12-0 record this season and a trip to the Sugar Bowl — two accomplishments that (despite the story’s ending) inspired people throughout Hawaii and stoked immense local pride in our team and our university.
In the other story, we learned that UH officials issued a security alert on Tuesday after a female resident of Hale Manoa dormitory reported that an unknown man had tried to enter her shower stall on Monday night.
It was at least the fifth UH dorm break-in reported since August.
A recap:
On the eve of the fall semester last August, two burglaries and one sexual assault were reported in one weekend in Hale Aloha Mokihana dormitory.
In late November, two incidents of intruders entering UH dorms happened in less than a week. The first intruder, who was apprehended, was found with a stolen pink iPod and women’s underwear in his possession, according to police.
The second intruder reportedly tried to photograph a female student in the shower with his cell phone camera.
And a day later, a 21-year-old Ma’ili man was charged with allegedly fondling a student at the campus music building (not a dorm, mind you).
To their credit, campus officials have been working on beefing up security since December.
But with this most recent reported incident, I’m not sure about you, but if I were a female student at UH, I’d be scared.
Proximity-wise, I can ALMOST say I’m a student. I grew up about two minutes from UH-Manoa, and my parents’ house is still in the same spot. The university has been a fixture in my life and in the day-to-day goings on in Manoa ever since I can remember.
Even though I’ve only taken a few classes there, like many Hawaii residents I feel a personal connection to UH. It’s our university.
So, I shared in the giddiness and pride in our football team last season, but now it seems that it’s back to reality. And that reality (unfortunately) includes at least five dorm break-ins since August.
I suspect that students at UH want what I want whenever I return home to my place in Manoa: Safety. Security. A quiet place to study, maybe.
How about an uninterrupted shower.
How about not feeling like you have to double lock your door when you step out for two seconds to brush your teeth.
How can we make this happen?
Perhaps we could invite our Warrior football players to take turns guarding the dorms wearing full gear and menacing looks on their faces. Bet that would make any potential intruder think twice about it.
Regardless of where you got your news today, the blogosphere was abuzz with the news about Coach June Jones leaving Hawaii to accept a 5-year, $2-million contract at Southern Methodist University.
That was followed by word that UH Athletics Director Herman Frazier might be leaving, too.
For a lot of people, including many of my friends, the news about Jones seemed to ruin their entire day.
I was scrolling through some of the blog comments (the legendary Warrior Beat had about 1,000 today alone), and it’s interesting to see the reaction and some of the questions now swirling around about the future of the U.H. Athletics Department.
A friend summed it up most accurately with a play on an AP headline in his away message:
“AP: Hawaii in chaos.” Hm. Sounds about right.
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Leaving Hawaii aside for a minute, we’re also on the eve of the first primary of 2008, where New Hampshire residents will select their Democratic and Republican nominees for president and unlimited media attention will be showered upon the small New England state, which I never had any trouble locating in high school geography because it is shaped like a leg of ham.
Yes, think about it.
There’s a good article in the New York Times tomorrow about the surprising presence of young voters in Iowa, and in general, younger support for two candidates in particular: Barack Obama and John McCain.
According to the NYT, in Iowa, 57 percent of voters ages 17 to 24 said Barack Obama was their first choice, compared with 14 percent for John Edwards and 10 percent for Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Anyone who’s been following the election on sites like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube probably noticed a correlation between the strength of candidates’ online presence and their strength in Iowa last week.
The NYT’s Katharine Seelye has a piece on it today.
Is there really a link? Well, check out these graphs from Tech President: one shows viewership on YouTube per candidate, the other shows number of “friends” on Facebook. Obama is far ahead in both.
One of the great things about internet campaigning is that it’s suddenly made the race more interesting and more accessible to young people in particular. Most candidates are realizing that, and Obama is running full speed ahead with it.
The Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary traditionally predict who will do well as the election moves forward, but until this presidential election, we maybe haven’t considered linking internet presence to which candidate will do well.
As the generation which is considered the most tech-savvy, that affects us directly. A lot of people are skeptical about how the numbers will translate since — hey, let’s face it — our generation doesn’t vote.
But who knows. Perhaps this is our chance to prove them wrong.
Would you skew a paper’s thesis to match your professor’s political views if you thought it would earn you a good grade? Would you stick to your own beliefs if you thought it would negatively affect your grade?
On Monday, I read this
