"Most Liberal Colleges" listed... But,.. why?

[UltraBudgie]

That's what these 'liberal' colleges offer, critical and creative independent thinking outside of the box of others' indoctrination/bias/hate that some would like others to be caged in.

That is perhaps what a traditional "liberal" education offered, until the mid-1900s. In the States, today's liberal colleges are more like this:



Let's just say, you very rarely get diversity of opinion or bold thinkers willing to go it alone and challenge conventional group-think.

Though I wish it were as you describe! Sadly, the Marxist "social-justice" mind virus has run amok...

[FlyersFan]

 That's what these 'liberal' colleges offer, critical and creative independent thinking outside of the box of others' indoctrination/bias/hate that some would like others to be caged in.

​​​​​​​
Liberal colleges are full of indoctrination/bias/hate.
That's their life blood.
There is ZERO 'creative independent thinking'.
Everyone has to follow the far left game plan and mantra
or they are abused and fail classes.

[quintessentone]

That is perhaps what a traditional "liberal" education offered, until the mid-1900s. In the States, today's liberal colleges are more like this:

[Image: https://denyignorance.com/uploader/image...hrjy61.jpg]

Let's just say, you very rarely get diversity of opinion or bold thinkers willing to go it alone and challenge conventional group-think.

Though I wish it were as you describe! Sadly, the Marxist "social-justice" mind virus has run amok...

I don't think a biased meme shows anything near the complexity of what is happening within colleges.

"Organisational adaptation is a ‘process of responding to some discontinuity or lack of fit that arises between the organisation and its environment’ (Cameron Citation1984, 123). Universities can respond to a new situation in a reactive or proactive manner (Cameron Citation1984; Välimaa Citation2022), and the range of responses may vary from continuity (i.e. maintaining the status quo) to disruption (i.e. leading radical transformation) (Sporn Citation2022; Young, Pinheiro, and Avramovic Citation2024)."

Full article: Higher education institutions as change agents in society: perspectives on adaptation and impact

It has to do with societal change which may happen with each new batch of kids entering college and/or those who have clued in after being enlightened in some other realities. Their world reality needs to be adapted to by the institutions - they are the customer.

[UltraBudgie]

Full article: Higher education institutions as change agents in society: perspectives on adaptation and impact

"The seven contributions presented herein provide a contemporary account on adaptation and impact in European higher education drawing on diverse theoretical perspectives, empirical data, and geographical contexts."


Well that is very nice for Europe. Since I do not live there and have very little interaction with graduates from those universities, I will refrain from comment, rather than pretend I have experience with what is being discussed.

As one should.

[quintessentone]

"The seven contributions presented herein provide a contemporary account on adaptation and impact in European higher education drawing on diverse theoretical perspectives, empirical data, and geographical contexts."


Well that is very nice for Europe. Since I do not live there and have very little interaction with graduates from those universities, I will refrain from comment, rather than pretend I have experience with what is being discussed.

As one should.

Colleges operate the same way worldwide and the article explains the organizational adaptations they need to consider with each new batch of kids and perhaps each new set of societal changes coming to the forefront. But, sure just ignore all that information because it's not American colleges - but it is.

World's best Liberal Arts & Social Sciences universities [Rankings]

[UltraBudgie]

You may find this an interesting read.

Is Higher Education even interested in reform?

A new featured article by the AAUP calls viewpoint diversity anathema to academic freedom. Where to even begin?

We at FIRE have been battling overreach by the Trump administration every day for months now.

When federal agencies threatened to strip Harvard of billions in research funding unless it submitted to ideological audits, we were among the first to call it what it was: unconstitutional coercion. We defended the principle, not the politics.

When the administration floated barring Harvard from enrolling international students, or even revoking its nonprofit status for alleged political bias, we spoke out again.

When Texas banned protests after 10 p.m., we sued to protect expressive freedom.

When Homeland Security asked universities to hand over student protest footage, we condemned it as government surveillance by another name.

When the State Department threatened to revoke students’ visas and deport them for protected speech, we sued to defend the right to campus expression.

And when the White House announced its “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” we called it out as an attempt to impose government-funded orthodoxy.

In other words, we’ve spent the better part of this year defending higher education from a White House intent on micromanaging its politics.

But we’ve also been pretty clear, from 25 years of advocacy, that higher education badly needs improvement. And we’ve seen some positive signs. A number of university presidents seem to understand that the moment demands reform: on free speech, institutional neutrality, intellectual pluralism, and transparency.

Indeed, we’ve been told more times than we can count that a “vibe shift” happened last fall, and that reform is essentially already a done deal. But we think those with the biggest vested interest in campus — professors and administrators — often don’t seem to have gotten the memo. At the faculty level, particularly in the humanities, the reflex too often remains obstructive.

No institution better embodies that reflex than the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Under its current leadership — President Todd Wolfson, who frames criticism of academia as part of “right-wing forces… striving to dismantle our institutions” — the AAUP has responded to legitimate calls for reform with a mix of denial and deflection. “Professors are not the enemy,” Wolfson recently declared. “Fascists are.”

While FIRE defends higher education from federal intrusion, the AAUP defends higher education from reform. It is a guild that sees itself as untouchable: the critic-proof steward of a trillion-dollar industry, allergic to feedback from a public it doesn’t seem to know it serves. It stands atop its Perfect Rhetorical Fortress, ready to (mis)label anyone who disagrees with it.

The genuinely politically diverse heterodox Academy? “Conservative.”

Critical of DEI, which has in fact been used to threaten academic freedom? “Right-wing.”

FIRE? “[C]omplicit with the attacks on higher education being led by the right” — and when someone demanded evidence, the AAUP hilariously pointed to the STOP WOKE Act, which FIRE successfully sued to block. (And then, of course, they deleted the tweet.)

We can think of few things that are more anti-intellectual than this name-calling habit, which Greg has dubbed Fashcasting. The idea is that simply claiming your opponent is right-wing is tantamount to refuting their argument. It’s little more than a schoolyard tactic, but somehow it works in environments that should not take it seriously — another sign of a viewpoint diversity problem, which the AAUP also vociferously rails against.

This brings us to the latest entry in AAUP’s recent history of dodging reform: the lead essay in its flagship magazine, Academe. It’s titled “Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity,” written by Lisa Siraganian, and it’s an unintentional masterclass in how to lose the moral high ground.

Let’s go through these theses one by one.

Thesis 1: “Viewpoint diversity functions in direct opposition to the pursuit of truth, the principal aim of academia.”

The piece starts out with this genuine banger. Siraganian treats “viewpoint diversity” as a threat to truth-seeking itself, tossing out caricatures about “flat-earthers” and “QAnon believers” (because of course it does) to avoid addressing the real question: How can you find truth in a system that systematically excludes dissenting voices?

The answer, of course, is obvious: you can’t. Every period of intellectual stagnation in human history, from the medieval university to Lysenkoist biology in the Soviet Union, has begun with the same conviction: We already know what is true, and those who doubt it are either fools or heretics.

Today’s academy, dominated by an overwhelming ideological consensus on many of the most contested political and moral questions of our time, risks the same fate. You don’t need to hire conspiracy theorists to recognize that the absence of serious dissent makes error invisible. If a department of theologians once all believed the sun revolved around the Earth, the best cure was not more theologians — it was a heretic with data.

Viewpoint diversity creates an environment where serious, evidence-based challenges to orthodoxy are possible and safe. The Supreme Court put it simply in Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1967): “The classroom is peculiarly the ‘marketplace of ideas.’” If the classroom ceases to be such a marketplace, academic freedom ceases to be necessary, because its primary value to society is to ensure the freedom to challenge orthodoxy in the institutions where orthodoxy has traditionally been challenged.

[article continues]

https://eternallyradicalidea.com/p/is-hi...interested

[quintessentone]

You may find this an interesting read.


https://eternallyradicalidea.com/p/is-hi...interested

The most important part of that:

"While FIRE defends higher education from federal intrusion, the AAUP defends higher education from reform. It is a guild that sees itself as untouchable: the critic-proof steward of a trillion-dollar industry, allergic to feedback from a public it doesn’t seem to know it serves. It stands atop its Perfect Rhetorical Fortress, ready to (mis)label anyone who disagrees with it."

---------------

They all serve the public, not the flavour of the day President or a government.

[ANNEE]

The non-indoctrinated kind.

And the fact that you don't know that says a lot.

It’s going to be one or the other. 

People are human. 

Guess we better start having robots teach.

[quintessentone]

It’s going to be one or the other. 

People are human. 

Guess we better start having robots teach.

Teach what? Indoctrination or non-indoctrination? Who decides that? I wonder if the Humanities students could hack into the teacher robots to make them do their bidding?

ETA: I'm leaving for a little bit but without my rose colored glasses on.

[ANNEE]

Liberal colleges are full of indoctrination/bias/hate.
That's their life blood.
There is ZERO 'creative independent thinking'.
Everyone has to follow the far left game plan and mantra
or they are abused and fail classes.

What about Pepperdine?  It’s in Malibu, CA.