We frequently held seminars at my prof's house, and had access to their home phone#'s for any sort of questions that came up during the Quarter. TA's rarely "taught" our classes, or did anything other than 'assist'. This level intimate connection with the subject matter and academic experience is an invaluable pedagogical component any prospective student should consider when deciding on a school.

I went to a small nationally reknowned public liberal arts college with an institutional mission to promote strong critical thinking skills and a desire for environmental and social responsibility. My local Republican Senator is a grad, as well as the wife of our state Senate majority leader (also Republican), though he says she gives him hell for his party's positions and policies. Evergreen produces a lot of free-thinkers and committed activists, some radical, some liberal and some conservative. The school cured me permanently of any hint of partisanship. Partisanship is the antithesis of free and critical thinking, and is the hobgoblin of little minds--many pardons to Emerson.

A school, no matter its mission or ideology should teach its students how to think, not what to think. A critical distinction proponents of the supposed liberal bias in Higher-Ed need to keep in mind. If the bias is so rampant, then why is the very word "liberal" such a pejorative term in American culture? Clearly exposure to "liberal" ideas and attitudes isn't the crippling, life-distorting impact its made out to be...look at me, I survived.

http://www.evergreen.edu/

"Liberal" is a pejorative because of the Democrat's horrible misuse of the term and Rush Limbaugh's willingness to accede to that misusage.

If it weren't so burdened with inappropriate baggage, I'd call myself a liberal. Instead I, like many many people embrace the lowercase, "libertarian" label.

To me a liberal is (or was) somebody who clearly understood that freedom is not license, else you're a libertine. Liberal is not necessarily either socialist or free-marketeer. Rather, liberalism guides all political factions with the belief that protecting, maintaining, and enhancing individual liberty is the single most important function of government.

But the Democrats have hijacked the term, "liberal" and turned it into a parody of itself, which Limbaugh, cleverly and with full knowledge, misuses with derision with great effect.

Botnst

...I agree that Dems have distorted the term Liberal, but for differing reasons. When is the last time you heard leaders of the Democrat party use the term Liberal unless it was to defend themselves from the perception of being "liberal". The fact that Gore and Kerry are commonly referenced in the media as Liberals is a patently laughable perversion of nomenclature.

But, nevertheless, I wasn't as interested in semantics, as the attitudes and values of so-called "liberal" academics. Exposure to these social pariahs hasn't seemed to produce hordes of Liberal scourges throughout our society. The er...uh, zeitgeist has steadlily drifted ever rightward, despite the best efforts of those bedwetting pantywaists--what gives?

Ah, two issues, one semantic and the other pedagogical.

Envy moment: I wish I had gone to a school as fine as Evergreen.

As Kerry and I argued previously, a good teacher should overcome his (her) particular biases for the good of the student. For example, to this day I have no idea what my philosophy teacher's personal views were on anything. The ba$tard was a chameleon. He could efficiently and convincingly argue from lots of perspectives. To me, that is a first-rate educator of philosophy. Also, a good scientist shouldn't allow his particular political or philosophical beliefs influence either his teaching or his reasearch.

The highest goal of any educator, as you indicated, should be to help students realize their full intellectual potential. No politics there, just a love of learning and a love of humanity: philosophy and philadelphia.

Botnst

What gives was explained by Marx a long time ago. The ideas of the age are the ideas of the ruling class.
Liberal leftists intellectuals simply lack the $$$ to have much cultural influence. They don't read Marx closely enough and think that progagating radical ideas in a classroom is the basis of cultural transformation.

...yup, no argument there.

How can someone be an intellectual, a letfist, and not read Marx close enough?

Seems contradictory....

I agree, seems contradictory.
I know a number of leftist/Marxist/socialist/liberal intellectuals who have no idea where a local union hall is and have never had an inclination to visit one or join.
Class prejudice, near as I can tell. I may be wrong.

Until the liberal professors start marching their students down to the local IWW office to join up, the right doesn't have much to worry about.

It’s not so much class prejudice as it is vast indifference. Most folks don’t consider anything except their next meal....and then only when they’re hungry. And what do we get? Fast food restaurants galore. Leading to vast obesity.

Indifference thereby becomes the unstated “goal” of any organization. Look at the presidential election: the 2 primary candidates represent the status quo and not being the status quo while not making any difference at all. Leaders of the herd.
How ironic is that?

Education is only a little different: many want an education that will empower them to be....the same after the diploma is handed out as they were before. What is learned is only dealing with an institution and getting predictable work done on a timely basis. Can you think of a more wasteful use of the educational process? And its probably why leftist are so perceptive and insightful, yet so disorganized. And how ironic is that??

Praxis--put your theory into action. One of my Political Economy profs takes students down to Mexico to interact with the Zapatista rebels. He and the group got deported a few years ago for waving machetes during a peasant farmer protest near Mexico City--he really caught hell in the local press for that one. Evergreen has a very active Labor Studies Center with strong ties to local Labor Unions, but the Unions themselves have fallen into disrepair in recent years. Many of Evergreen's faculty and staff are an integral part of our local community, but sadly, this isn't the case for many self-described academic "Leftists". This sez a lot about the sorry state of the Left in this conservative-reactionary era. I try to imagine what the Right must've been like during the '30's-'40's--in retreat and in disarray. Here's a pic of a mural in Centralia Wa, depicting the famous Centralia Massacre of '19
http://www.centralia.com/Murals/Wobbley17.jpg
This image sits 15 miles away from me in the most Republican county in WA. This is a huge mural on the side of an old municipal building, converted into a shopping center.
http://www.evergreen.edu/laborcenter/ongoing_sections/centralia_mural/mural.html

Z do you see such an excursion as a real learning experience or the equivalent of a trip to Disneyland?

Put differently, what is there about the Zapatista rebels that touched the life of anyone who visited?

Not intended as sarcasm but rather curiosity. When is a learning experience for someone in college valid beyond entertainment value?

...don't know for sure, but I believe the students actually help the farmers in their fields, construct and staff health clinics, and generally get a fair amount of 'hands-on' experience. I suppose what they 'get' out of the experience is proportional to what the 'put' into the mix. Evergreen puts a strong emphasis on the collaborative learning process, thus teamwork and interaction amongst the students and their surroundings are all integrally related. The school also speciallizes in interdisciplinary education where students will frequently sign up for 2 or 3 quarter programs that can study topics as diverse as botany, economics and religion, weaving the 3 into a seamless fusion. The faculty often cite these programs as an important learning environment for themselves as well.

I'm confused. How does walking to his classes correspond to being a lefty?

Most of the people I hunt with consider themselves conservative. As in they like things not to change too fast. And they don't approve of the mobile tree stand...they walk in to their hide(s).

Does that mean that they have to be lefties?

He walks to save the environment and becasue he doesn't need a car to get to classes. He honestly thinks that we should live in trees. He got pissed off and punched me a long time ago when I called him a whacko for thinking that people should swing from trees. This was a long time ago. He was trying to appeal to me as a naive kid that we could all live like Tarzan. He does consider himself left. He's further left than Gore and was going to vote for Nadar in 2000 but didn't want to waste his vote so he gave in and voted for Gore.
David

She's dreamy...