"Between 1987 and 2021, at least 162 scientists who had worked at Los Alamos returned to the PRC to support a variety of domestic research and development (R&D) programs. Fifteen of those scientists worked as permanent staff members at Los Alamos. Of those fifteen, thirteen were recruited into PRC government talent programs; some were responsible for sponsoring visiting scholars and postdoctoral researchers from the PRC, and some received U.S. government funding for sensitive research. At least one of these staff members held a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) 'Q Clearance' allowing access to Top Secret Restricted Data and National Security Information." – Strider Intel
How can colleges prepare for the possibility the Supreme Court will strike down race-conscious admissions?
"At a Thursday session of the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s annual meeting, a panelist posed a question to the room: Do you feel prepared if the U.S. Supreme Court were to strike down race-conscious admissions? Not one college enrollment management official raised their hands to say yes. It’s far from a hypothetical, though." – Higher Ed Dive, 9/23/22
Asia Likely to Follow U.S. on Open Access
"Asian research powerhouses will introduce open-access mandates within the next 'two to three' years, experts have predicted, in the wake of last month’s landmark order by the Biden administration. ... Home to four of the top 10 research-producing countries—China, Japan, South Korea and India—Asia now appears poised to become the next battleground." – Inside Higher Ed, 9/23/22
British Universities Show Why “More” Does Not Mean “Better”
"The Biden administration is seeking to 'cancel' student debt by transferring what individual students owe to the American taxpayer. ... What both sides ought to ask is why we are sending so many young Americans to take college degrees in the first place. If students really are struggling to pay off college debts, does that not raise some fundamental questions about the value of what they are being taught?" – James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, 9/23/22
Prestige Hiring Across Academe
"Some 80 percent faculty members with Ph.D.s in the U.S. trained at just 20 percent of universities. So found the team behind a new study on faculty hiring and retention patterns at Ph.D.-granting institutions. ... Researchers also found that the five most common doctoral training universities—the Universities of Michigan; Wisconsin at Madison; and California, Berkeley; plus Harvard and Stanford Universities—account for one in eight U.S.-trained faculty members." – Inside Higher Ed, 9/23/22
Texas university pays $165K to professor fired for writing a joke in the teachers’ lounge criticizing microaggressions
"In a victory for free speech on public university campuses, the University of North Texas has agreed to pay $165,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees for violating a math professor’s First Amendment rights when it fired him for writing a joke criticizing microaggressions on a chalkboard in the teachers’ lounge." – Alliance Defending Freedom, 9/22/22
Yeshiva University will restart clubs without recognizing LGBTQ organization
"Yeshiva University plans to soon restart clubs after reaching an agreement with a group that wants it to recognize a student LGBTQ organization, the university’s lawyers said Thursday. ... Now the university and Pride Alliance have agreed the trial court’s order should be stayed, or put on hold, while appeals are heard — potentially all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court." – Higher Ed Dive, 9/22/22
Florida A&M students sue state over funding, allege discrimination of HBCUs
"A group of six students at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee filed a class-action lawsuit against the state Thursday alleging decades of discriminatory underfunding of the public historically Black university. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, has many of the hallmarks of past fights in Maryland, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina for equitable treatment of public HBCUs." – Washington Post, 9/22/22
Bill Would Make Colleges Pay for Defaults
"U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, wants universities to pay for student loans in default and the Congress to make other changes to the Higher Education Act of 1965 as part of a new bill introduced Wednesday. Under the Make the Universities Pay Act, a university would have to pay 50 percent of its students’ loan balances in default." – Inside Higher Ed, 9/22/22
Biden’s Abusive Title IX Rewrite
"In June, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona proposed rewriting Title IX to better reflect fashions in progressive ideology. Owing to the foresight of his predecessor, Betsy DeVos, the department was required to open a two-month window for public comment. That period closed late last week after over 200,000 comments. Many of the comments expressed alarm — warranted alarm." – National Review, 9/22/22
I wonder if Professor Treadgold is talking about his own St. Louis University, where the tuition and fees are at least nominally not much short of those at Harvard, maybe 93%.
Anyhow, I wasn’t able to read John Leo’s piece behind the WSJ paywall (I let my subscription lapse some time ago). So I went to the Amazon site, found this:
“he proposes federal legislation to monitor the quality and honesty of professors and to limit spending on administration to no more than 20 percent of university budgets (Harvard now spends 40 percent).”
This strikes me as a horrid idea for too many reasons to list. And his further idea to start a new elite university that would be different from what we already have, that would welcome moderates and conservatives along with liberals and leftists, strikes me as rather naive. First of all, don’t places like the University of Chicago, Caltech sort of fit the bill already? Both those places could use the dough it would take to start a new university from scratch. Second, I am doubtful that the new university would be more successful than most of the old in resisting what seem like almost unstoppable forces. (I know, that sort of contradicts what I just said about a couple of distinguished schools that also are something of outliers. But that sort of supports my point that the money might be better placed at schools that already exist and seem to have a track record.)
The limiting of administrative positions, in universities and K-12 schools, is a good idea. Less administrators means less wacky programs and less internal agendas, more plain old teaching and research overseen only by professional peers.
Thank you for an interesting review of “The University We Need.” I completely agree with Warren Treadgold’s thesis–founding a “new university” may be the only solution. It is unalterably clear that America’s universities have been co-opted by the far left and a college “education” is no longer worth the expense. However, I was surprised Treadgold did not mention Hillsdale College as a template for the university he proposes. Hillsdale is the polar opposite of today’s typical university and (as of now) the sole beacon of hope.(I have no connection to Hillsdale College, having graduated from the University of Redlands, a small, private college that has also been corrupted by leftist ideology. But I admire Hillsdale’s unswerving belief in America’s ideals–since 1844!)
I’m wondering how the debate teams function in the postmodern university. Remember in the old days, a topic would be presented, such as, “Resolved: Capital punishment should be ended.” One team would take the affirmative and the competing team would take the negative. But now there is only one side permitted in controversial ideas–which are now no longer controversial at the university. The team that in former days would have argued the now politically incorrect side would today be charged as thought criminals and subjected to disciplinary proceedings and rehabilitation–even though they might protest that they didn’t really hold that viewpoint. One of the foundational ideas underpinning the old debate structure was that to have an informed and reasonable commitment to an idea, one must know and understand the arguments against it as well as for it.
I got a glimpse of how “debate” teams now function, and it came as quite a shock, since I once participated on a team myself. My faculty office is next to classrooms where a debate meet was being held one weekend several weeks ago. I was surprised to hear a guy screaming, his rant peppered with F-bombs, so I went and peered into the classroom to see what was going on. The room was filled with young people in very prim attire, and the young man “debating” was standing in front, the veins on his face bulging as he rendered his social justice “oratory.” And his presentation–of you could call it that–was typical of the entire morning. It seems that what we used to call “forensics teams” back in my day are now just theater; the participants do not reason, just emote. Perhaps they are judged on how impassioned their emoting is. Are these our future attorneys?
The real old-style debate is called “Parliamentary Debate”. There are other ones “XYZ Debate” that range from limp to ridiculous.
Nowadays I expect the teams take turns denouncing anyone opposing the correct political line, and the most fervent denunciation wins. Either that or they all start clapping once the topic is announced, and whoever stops clapping first gets sent to the gulag.