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The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

jamesgmartin.center

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Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#41

Post by 2calazm »

edraferi wrote: post #3

It seems like there’s a gap in the market for a hard-nosed, teaching-first university. A place full of passionate professors with high standards. A place where high school valedictorians work their ass off for a B. A place where you feel your best will never be good enough because the standards are impossible... until, one day, you get an A. And that grade MEANS something. And after four years, the students walk out…

These places already exist outside of the US, and that type of repeated stunts from Duke, Brown, Reeds, etc, is probably a boon to them. I believe the current climate is a deterrent for foreign students, who in the US are caught between anti-immigrant sentiments on the right, and reactionary identity politics on the left (such as African and Indian students being called race traitors at Reeds). International students represent a significant source of income in higher ed and their enrollment has nose-dived in the US in the last few years. If this continues this will benefit non-US international universities who will manage to attract that population, not just in terms of revenue but also in standing.

So my guess is the places you describe already exist and they're about to be better known within a few years as trust in US universities erodes.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#42

Post by [deleted] »

nradov wrote: post #15
TheOperator wrote: post #7

I think there is something to the notion that there should be schools which are inclusive to students who would struggle under teachers like this. I just don't see why that school should be Duke University. I don't understand why the most elite schools seem to be among the most likely to decide that their students need protection from harm. Polarizing teachers seem like they should be right in an elite universities w…

There is no need to accommodate fragile, weak minded students in higher education. They need to toughen up or be cast aside.

[deleted]

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#43

Post by neilv »

labster wrote: post #38
neilv wrote: post #11

I haven't figured out a good opinion on the controversies of trigger warnings and safe spaces. It might be a brief pendulum swing. I think that we all could stand to show more sensitivity to everyone else, and I don't know whether that would be enough. But I've never met any 12th-grader who is so knowledgeable and wise that frosh year at a proper college shouldn't shake up their developing mind, and challenge much of…

Part of the thing about the safe space movement at universities is that it's happening at just about the same time that universities have just about completed their transition from educational institutions into corporations. If you think about them as any other corporation, they are just doing their best to keep the customers coming. Would you want to pay money to faculty who challenges the consumer's assumptions, or…

I don't know about the particular case in the article, but I thought the tradition of tenure was partly to permit professors to pursue currently-unpopular ideas, like perhaps this person was doing at Duke. I didn't know a prominent university would have a non-tenure-track professor teaching for 20 years. What is that hefty tuition paying for?

I've talked with some tenured professors who hire adjuncts, and they feel bad about the situation, but those individual professors had no say over it. Perhaps if entire faculties came together and petitioned, at least at the wealthier places, universities might spring for all instructors being tenure-track professors (assisted by grad students).

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#45

Post by XMPPwocky »

nradov wrote: post #15
TheOperator wrote: post #7

I think there is something to the notion that there should be schools which are inclusive to students who would struggle under teachers like this. I just don't see why that school should be Duke University. I don't understand why the most elite schools seem to be among the most likely to decide that their students need protection from harm. Polarizing teachers seem like they should be right in an elite universities w…

There is no need to accommodate fragile, weak minded students in higher education. They need to toughen up or be cast aside.

I mean this in all possible sincerity- do you realize you sound like a generic villain?

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#46

Post by valleyer »

emmelaich wrote: post #39
rland wrote: post #18

I have read probably 4 or 5 of these articles, written by professors/teachers, claiming to have been punished for their speech. 2 common threads about them. The first is that they rarely discuss specifics about what positions or what opinions got them censured. The second is that the comments section is typically full of drive by commenters who aren't responding to the content of the post in particular but to the ide…

Did you read the linked docs? They're pretty compelling. You cannot say it doesn't discuss specifics.

Can you perhaps be more specific about which document you think answers the question: what position or opinion caused Charney to be censured?

I've taken an admittedly brief look through them and, while I see some hints as to the general subject of discussion, I haven't yet found specific details about what got him in trouble.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#47

Post by devmunchies »

XMPPwocky wrote: post #45
nradov wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need to accommodate fragile, weak minded students in higher education. They need to toughen up or be cast aside.

I mean this in all possible sincerity- do you realize you sound like a generic villain?

Catering to their fragility is probably more harmful. Sending a soft student into the professional world is cruel. Students should be properly fortified in higher ed.

You shouldn't just cast them aside though like the parent comment suggested.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#48

Post by logjammin »

Aloha wrote: post #21

"As to academic freedom, Professor Charney’s complaint argues that the criticisms of his classroom performance, and thus the decision not to renew his appointment, really had to do with his “radical free speech” approach, in which he forced his students to discuss controversial viewpoints on hotly contested issues of politics and public policy. The panel finds no evidence, however, that anyone at Sanford objected to…

It's hard to say for sure on this quote alone. On one hand, I could read it the way you did -- I have my own qualms about what often feels like an arms race about getting offended. On the other hand, though, if I'm trying to be calm about this, I could also read it as pretty mundane bureaucrat-ese for "look, this guy was just being an asshole and we don't want him back".

Being the free speech guy / gal in charge of a classroom is a risky endeavor and requires the same amount of talent, calm, tact, neutrality, and wit that, say, a standup comic needs when trying to get people to laugh at a tough subject, and I can easily imagine an earnest but less than talented (in this specific way) educator losing their cool in a room full of jacked up and emotional undergrads debating Trump, abortion, I/P, pick your hot button issue.

"Could've made students feel more fully heard" could indeed be "sensitive undergrads whining", but it could also be "guy proclaims himself mischievous contrarian view-challenger but reveals himself to be pedantic narcissist / unhinged / aggressive / insert pretty unattractive trait or behavior here".

I see that emphasis on how he handled it and I wonder if if isn't the latter. Commanding a room is a difficult thing with way more art and god-given ability involved than people think, especially when the emotion in said room is running high. There's a reason diplomacy, marriage counseling, and the like aren't easy.

Like I said, who knows from the quote, but I've been in both kinds of room as a student. Neither would surprise me and I think we'd all do well to consider both possibilities.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#49

Post by roenxi »

valleyer wrote: post #46
emmelaich wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the linked docs? They're pretty compelling. You cannot say it doesn't discuss specifics.

Can you perhaps be more specific about which document you think answers the question: what position or opinion caused Charney to be censured? I've taken an admittedly brief look through them and, while I see some hints as to the general subject of discussion, I haven't yet found specific details about what got him in trouble.

In itself that seems to be one of Charney's complaints - that he had difficulty figuring out what the administrators didn't like. Very hard to defend yourself when nobody is quite sure what the attack is. And particularly in ethics where students really aren't learning anything unless they are a bit bothered and uncomfortable about having untested beliefs tested - although for a compulsory course the expectations are a bit different and that might not be appropriate.

Not being specific is a really nasty trick. All the more so because it makes it impossible to say if the problem is one of malicious intent or blinkered thinking from either of the two involved parties. But, critically, if the waters are muddy then the bureaucracy is going to win.

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