Category: Seen On Campus

Observations from an elderly student

So Much For The Ivory Tower

Marxists, Seen On Campus

As universities all over the Western world start to sputter and fail because of funding shortages and bloated, costly bureaucracies, here’s an interesting take:

Universities’ response to the cash crisis reveals their deeper crisis of purpose. Up to 10,000 university jobs are reported to have been cut this year. Yet diversity, equity and inclusion teams seem to have been largely spared the axe. Instead, universities are cutting core academic disciplines. The University of Kent has closed its philosophy department, while Canterbury Christ Church University will no longer teach English literature – a university spokesperson described the course as ‘no longer viable in the current climate’.

Once, it would have been unthinkable for a university not to offer degrees in major branches of learning, such as literature or philosophy. These subjects were taught not because ‘the market’ made them ‘viable’, but because they contributed to our understanding of the word and what it means to be human. That they can now be so readily discarded speaks to an impoverished intellectual climate that universities themselves have helped to create.

Note the emphasized sentence.

What it shows to me is that the so-called intellectual rigor of the ivory tower has faded, if not disappeared altogether.  (I know, I know:  “Wake up, Kim, it’s been going on for decades!” )

As long as universities continue to be regarded as simply an adjunct to the marketplace — i.e. providing certification for careers — then of course the “thoughtful” classes such as philosophy or Shakespeare are going to suffer.  (Of course, certification is probably critical for careers such as engineering, medicine and the hard sciences, less so for law and suchlike.)

Why one would need a B.A. to be a personal assistant or office receptionist, of course, simply underlines the fact that the high school diploma has ceased to be any kind of qualification whatsoever.

And universities are becoming equally useless.  Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of Gramscian Marxists.

Ask Me Why

Seen On Campus

…whenever I get an begging letter from my alma mater, I give a merry laugh as I consign the missive to the trashcan, with extreme prejudice.  Try this one:

University of North Texas teacher’s college hides DEI language from courses following public scrutiny

I took one Ed course — one — when I was at UNT back in the day, and resolved never to take any more because it was socialist agitprop of the most obvious kind, disguised as teaching principles.  I say “disguised” because of all the students taking the class, I was the only one who complained about the content to the professor.

What else can one say when a considerable proportion of the content featured the writings of self-confessed terrorist Bill Ayers, in his post-Weather Underground guise as a professor of Education at U. of Illinois in Chicago.  Here’s a snippet from his Wikipedia (hardly an impartial source, as we all know):

William Charles Ayers is an American retired professor and former militant organizer. In 1969, Ayers co-founded the far-left militant organization the Weather Underground, a revolutionary group that sought to overthrow what they viewed as American imperialism. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Weather Underground conducted a campaign of bombing public buildings in opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The bombings caused no fatalities, except for three members killed when one of the group’s devices accidentally exploded. The FBI described the Weather Underground as a domestic terrorist group.  Ayers was hunted as a fugitive for several years, until charges were dropped due to illegal actions by the FBI agents pursuing him and others.

And we students were required to follow this not-so-ex-terrorist’s teachings?  Fuck that for a bowl of Commies.  I see with great displeasure that this old bastard is still alive and poisoning society, the prevaricating asshole.

Anyway, given that background, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the Ed Department at UNT is lousy with commiesymps and useful idiots, so of course they’re going to be staunch adherents of the disease known as DEI, and will go to extraordinary lengths to “disguise” DEI language while continuing to teach its principles to gullible students (the future teachers of our kids).

No wonder our public school system is so terrible.

Keep asking me for donations, UNT, and I’ll keep ignoring them.  Their official (i.e. un-Photoshopped) mug:

From The Old Alma Mater

Seen On Campus

Every so often I get mail from U. of North Texas, most of which I ignore because if I respond to any of them, they’ll just hit me with requests for money (like most unasked-for emails from organizations do).

Not that I’d give them a red cent, the chiseling Mean Green Leftist assholes.

But this one made me chuckle.

I hasten to add that this has nothing to do with the famous RCOB©, known and beloved of my Longtime Readers, although in the context of the above, a “teaching innovation” would be an angry roar of: “If you little assholes don’t stop looking at your phones during my lectures, I’m going to fail the entire fucking class this semester!!!”

Or something like that.

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Not As Advertised

Seen On Campus

It seems as though some over-achieving Brit students won a prize:

Three girls from an inner-city sixth form are heading to the US after securing the A-level results needed for their £1million Ivy League scholarships.

The bright trio passed their admissions tests with flying colours meaning Harvard and Princeton offered to fund the entire cost of their four-year education – for close to £350k each.

However, the final step of getting onto their courses rested on their A-level results – making for an anxious few months for the Newham Collegiate Sixth Form (NCS) pupils.

Yesterday it was confirmed that all three teenagers scored the grades necessary to study in the US – meaning they can now start preparing for the big move.

And the names of these hardworking girls?  Sally McKenzie, Julia Holbrooke and Heather Smith.

Nah, just kidding:

Tasneen Hossain, Feyisara Adeyemi, and Harmanpreet Garcha, all 18, were each awarded places at top universities in the States through a programme run by their East London school. 

You see, this is where the whole affirmative action thing poisons the well.  Yes I know, I have no doubt that these girls worked hard and got the results that enabled them to qualify.

But as any fule kno, the chances of Tasneen Hossain, Feyisara Adeyemi and Harmanpreet Garcha getting into an Ivy League university are going to be far better than if their names were Sally McKenzie, Julia Holbrooke and Heather Smith.

Because equity, you see, and Ivy Leagues are lousy with this foul pestilence.  So there’s always going to be that little niggle of doubt about whether they actually merited the scholarships over, say Sally McKenzie, Julia Holbrooke and Heather Smith (the latter automatically disqualified in the admissions process because White Privilege, you see).

Sadly, the joke is going to be on these girls, because Ivy League degrees aren’t worth a quarter of what they used to be.  As they will no doubt discover when they apply for any jobs outside academia.

That’s Impossible, They Said

Crime, Seen On Campus

Here’s an interesting one:

A schoolboy has been charged with a string of knife and sex offences including attempted rape.
The 13-year-old is accused of carrying out a three-week long campaign in the Newfoundpool area of Leicester.
He allegedly attempted oral rape on a woman while in possession of a knife in Ruby Street on July 10.
The boy is also accused of affray with intent to commit a sexual offence on a woman while in possession of a knife in Stephenson Drive on July 29.
He also allegedly sexually assaulted a woman at knifepoint in Rowan Street on July 31.
Police charged him with a fourth offence of possessing a knife in Fosse Road North on August 1.

Busy lil’ fucker [sic], isn’t he?

I was reminded of a pre-law lecture I once attended back in the early 1970s, during an ill-considered attempt to get a law degree.

The lecturer, a rather pretty blond professor, stated that under South African law, a boy under the age of 14 was considered incapable of rape.

There was a long silence after she said that;  then came a heartfelt groan from the back of the class:  “Now they tell us.”

Even the professor laughed.

It was one of my shining moments, but I still failed the course.

Straight Out Of The Marxist Playbook

Marxists, Seen On Campus

Via Robert Shibley at Insty’s place:

One academic who has written about his approach is Professor Asao Inoue, who claims that individualism is an undesirable aspect of “whiteness.” In his courses, students are not graded down for failing to write in standard English. Instead, he has implemented a “labor based” grading system in which students are graded on the basis of the amount of effort they claim to have put in on an assignment.

Why is this out of the Marxist playbook?  Marxism postulates that what counts in production is not output, but input;  i.e. that the eight hours worked by an assembly-line worker is equivalent to the eight hours worked by the company owner.   (Also see:  women’s professional tennis prize money “parity” at Wimbledon.)

Of course, anyone with a brain knows this to be false, but in the (Marxist) scheme of “equity”, reality has to conform to the dialectic.  Or, to put it into quasi-academic language:

The Marxian process of change through the conflict of opposing forces, whereby a given contradiction is characterized by a primary and a secondary aspect, the secondary succumbing to the primary, which is then transformed into an aspect of a new contradiction. (American Heritage Dictionary)