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A university president makes a case against cowardice

newyorker.com

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Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#211

Post by tmpz22 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #197
lr4444lr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some reasons that I think you probably know, which don't receive enough time and attention 1) Despite an appearance of being "left leaning" (according to polls of faculty political sentiment) they continue to gatekeep education behind prohibitively expensive tuition that is out of reach of lower economic strata without crippling debt, and have simultaneously struggled to produce graduates whose economic dif…

Also to some degree there is anti-elitist backlash after being told you need to have a bachelor's, which is very expensive at these universities, but also it's basically impossible to get an entry-level white collar job without one these days; and for a while the economy bifurcated with different outcomes for white-collar knowledge vs. blue-collar workers.

And this anti elitist backlash will lead to… greater wealth inequality as the middle class is forced to cash out their equity and investments in a down market to be gobbled up by the top 1% like Elon Musk.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#213

Post by necubi »

Oh hey, Wesleyan on HN! I’m an alumnus (matriculated a year or two after Roth became president). Wesleyan has a rich history of activism and protest, and not always entirely peaceful (Roth’s predecessor, Doug Bennet, had his office firebombed at one point).

I’ve had a few opportunities to speak with Roth since the Gaza war started, and I’ve always found him particularly thoughtful about balancing freedom of expression with a need to provide a safe and open learning environment for everyone on campus. In particular, he never gave in to the unlimited demands of protestors while still defending their right to protest.

In part, he had the moral weight to do that because—unlike many university presidents—he did not give in to the illiberal demands of the left to chill speech post-2020, which then were turned against the left over the past year.

I don’t see any particularly good outcome from any of this; the risk of damaging the incredibly successful American university system is high. Certainly smart foreign students who long dreamed of studying in the US will be having second thoughts if they can be arbitrarily and indefinitely detained.

But I hope the universities that do make it through do with a stronger commitment to the (small l) liberal values of freedom of expression , academic freedom, and intellectual diversity.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#214

Post by SubiculumCode »

guywithahat wrote: post #156

The best solution here is for universities to become less involved with government money. They should have to compete for students and research on an even playing field, and we shouldn't be creating politically aligned fields through government spending.

No. Research Universities are about Research. There are non governmental sources of funding for research, but they pale in comparison with government funding. If you want to make the case that the private industry should take on research, the problem is that there is no immediate profit in it. It can take decades, and few companies can invest decades of funding hoping for some eventual breakthrough. Moreover, in that model, research is slowed because companies are notoriously bad at sharing research with competitors. So you either create national research centers, or you use research universities.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#215

Post by SubiculumCode »

ty6853 wrote: post #45
westurner wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they would need to tax nonprofit religious organizations too. Why don't they just make the special interests pay their own multi-trillion dollar war bills instead of sabotaging US universities with surprise taxes? If you increase expenses and cut revenue, what should you expect for your companies?

Why not just make a flat tax for everyone and end all the special interest pandering and exceptions for the rich. It is a poisonous misapplication of the time of our government to constantly be fiddling with tax code to favor one group or another.

Better would be to remove inheritance after death, instead distributing that wealth among the citizenship equally.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#216

Post by joe5150 »

disambiguation wrote: post #172
jwjohnson314 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The salt in the wounds is that universities are flush with cash, yet its spent on anything and everything except for the welfare of the students. Maybe the elites. State schools and small colleges are not flush with cash and many have been shuttered or severely downsized recently. Though they could still spend their limited funds better.

Recent events alone do not fully represent the affairs of the past 2+ decades. Community, state, ivy, all levels were gorging themselves on federal funding and endowments. I have no comment on the current admin, but blatantly inefficient use of funds is an understatement.

What does "gorging themselves on endowments" even mean? If they did that, they wouldn't be very endowed in quick order.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#217

Post by joe5150 »

treis wrote: post #192
recursive wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provide a way to get a lower-cost credential without using the tuition to subsidize research/athletics/arts/social programs. But that might be counter to their whole nature. Doesn't mean anyone's being irrational though. They're now de-facto gatekeepers on entering the professional class. I don't think it's unreasonable for the gate-kept to have opinions about the -keepers.

I've got the ticket to get in the gate and I'm pretty resentful of having to get it. Looking back there were a lot better ways to spend 4 years and 100k.

Resentful of what? Directed at whom? There are lots of options that cost less and many are shorter than four years.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#218

Post by Izikiel43 »

keybored wrote: post #154
_bohm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not about resentment towards universities specifically, I thought this article in The Baffler [1] did a good job of framing a dynamic that, I think, contributes to this phenomenon. My interpretation: As the country has entered the post-industrial era, holding a college degree has increasingly become a table-stakes credential for entering the white collar labor force. The higher education system has struggled or…

Remember all those people who are resentful (of course that word) towards degree-holders because they wish they had one themselves? Me neither. That’s a they-hate-me-cause’-they-ain’t-me kind of logic.[1] True othering comes from people living in different worlds and hating the other person’s world. [1] I did not read the the article but I’ve read this argument in a Graeber article.

> Remember all those people who are resentful (of course that word) towards degree-holders because they wish they had one themselves?

I think the fair comparison isn't they have a degree and I don't, it's they have a better life/savings/house/car than me, which is enabled in general by getting a degree, which becomes the common contention point.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#219

Post by Izikiel43 »

guywithahat wrote: post #164
watwut wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they went to universities. No, they are not trying to help the students. They don't even pretend to be trying to do so. They are nit trying to make it cheaper and they are not trying to make it more accessible. They agenda was either openly the opposite or they ignored the students. Except when they think they are too progressive and attack then verbally.

I mean, at a minimum, they think they're helping students. Nobody would vote for a politician who just makes things worse, that doesn't make sense. In this case, they're trying to make universities more fair and to reduce government waste in universities by removing DEI programs. There's lots of logic to that.

>Nobody would vote for a politician who just makes things worse

Why not? One thing is the campaign, another one is exercising his power. To quote a famous Argentinian President: "If I said what I would do, they wouldn't have voted for me".

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#220

Post by jhbadger »

lmm wrote: post #193
mrtesthah wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billionaires shifted the overton window by pouring money into extreme right-wing media outlets and social media platforms. Every other existing institution now appears "left-wing" by comparison. That's not universities' fault.

Not true, at least on social issues, which is what the universities are getting burned for. Policy positions that were mainstream in 2000 are now painted as far-right.

That's how society progresses though. Before 1865, slavery was mainstream and abolitionists were weird radical crazies. Before 1965, "Jim Crow" laws that said non-whites had to use different bathrooms and drinking fountains were mainstream, and people who opposed them were seen as unreasonable.
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