Checkmate! Dorian, if you become a president of ANY university and implement this, the biggest fear of the activist faculty will come to fruition - higher education and research will work just fine (and will likely greatly improve) without the nonsense of non-merit-based metrics.
GPA and test scores alone are merit? And not, like, winning a science prize, making and selling an ap? Maintaining a good GPA and lettering in three sports? Starting a community service club that is recognized by the state legislature? Getting a story published in a magazine? Getting authorship on a Nature paper from a summer internship at the Cancer Center?
How do you know if discrimination in faculty hiring has occurred? What if you are looking for a developmental biologist, and you hire the developmental biologist with the best h-factor, but a structural biologist with a higher h-factor applied and did not get the job? Or you hire the developmental biologist with the second highest h-factor because the one with the highest h-factor insulted everyone, hit on an undergrad, and got outrageously drunk at dinner and barfed on the waiter? In other words-what are the metrics by which you are ranking faculty?
End all DEI programs? OK. A lot of people would be mostly down with that. I mean, some of the programs might have some value, and if that is the case they don't have to be DEI programs per se. They can just be good professional development programs. But no real argument here.
Regarding viewpoint diversity-we (academics, everywhere) really do need to take this on seriously. Part of the problem is that academia has become so unfriendly to those who espouse more conservative ideas that are just not a lot of conservative scholars who want anything to do with academia. That is a problem that has to be fixed, but it will take some time. It will also require something like affirmative action-making intentional hiring decisions to increase representation, rather than on whatever single or two quantitative metric you are employing to "end discrimination" above. Anyway, I'm generally in favor of such affirmative action as I think it is necessary to create more intellectual rigor and breadth. But a) of course only hire those prepared to succeed and b) acknowledge that it is a kind of affirmative action.
I've yet to meet a "vocal Trump supporter" that has appropriate critical reasoning faculties. I have met plenty of conservatives, many of whom are mildly tolerant of Trump as long as their preferred policy goals are within reach, who are impeccable scholars and who always manage to make me think more broadly than I normally have occasion to do. But they are not "vocal Trump supporters".
Establishing and enforcing reasonable restrictions on protest activity-100% agree. And be absolutely consistent in enforcement.
"I've yet to meet a 'vocal Trump supporter' that has appropriate critical reasoning faculties."
Of course you haven't met one, because they have either retired from universities or been chased out. Beyond academia, are you suggesting that none of the millions of Trump supporters and voters have "appropriate critical reasoning"? None of Trump's cabinet, all of those ex-governors?
For my part, I've never heard a vocal opponent of Trump, including most Democrats, who demonstrate "appropriate critical reasoning."
What do Americans and you, given that you are apparently Canadian, mean by "critical reasoning"? Aristotle arguably meant dialectic, given his thesis that, quote:
ARISTOTLE: "Dialectic is merely critical where philosophy claims to know ... " [Metaphysics Book IV, Ch. 2. 1004b lines 25 - 26].
Modern Americans seem to demonstrate Alan Bloom's thesis of closed minds rather than anything "critical" other than Karl Marx's ideas about "criticism". What do you mean? After all there was little of anything actually "critical" in Dr. Abbot's post, which was aptly demonstrated by Ms. Elle.
Being an eldery Canuck, from an irrelevant frozen wasteland with a dying economy, you really should pay attention to your own disaster unfolding right on your doorstep.
Your health care system is in ruins, thanks to your collective stupidity. Canada is doubling and tripling down on DEI and other woke nonsense, which has failed everywhere else. Canada cannot fulfill its treaty obligations. Canada can no longer provide housing for its residents, and has more immigrants and illegal immigrants than any other place on planet earth. Life in Canada is so miserable that most recent immigrants, legal and otherwise, are considering leaving. Canada has been proud to be run by known pedophiles and perverts that escape accountability. Canadian federal ministers have threatened nuclear war with its neighbor, the US. I can go on and on.
Canada is a disgrace, and yet you want to pick fights south of the 49th. At least the US is making an attempt to recover. It might succeed, or it might fail. Canada does not even seem to understand that it is in trouble.
You have more than your share of problems. Regurgitating half-understood quotes from undigested classics that you mangled your way through, while getting into massive bureaucratic battles up there in the frozen wastes just make you look like a clown. Do you understand how foolish you look?
Do you understand how the internet works, Kevvie? Do you have any CLUE what you are doing here?
Look Kevin, you do not really know what STEM is, Heterodox or otherwise. You never were really IN STEM, just being a dopey healthcare technician with barely any education at all. You certainly never contributed to STEM in any conceivable way. Your opinions are worthless and stupid, just like you.
Hold her there AnishSnodgrassBeExtremelyrude (a new tribe of native North Americans)!!! I was talking to a fellow elderly Canadian above. I asked him about "critical thinking" and you busted in with not only your usual "ad hominems", but additional, "ad country-ems".
Have you no mercy for a country who just elected a former Goldman Sachs employee --- the kind of Investment Banker which sold, according to Steve Carroll's character in THE BIG SHORT, 88 billion dollars worth of "dog doo-doo wrapped in cat doo-doo" --- otherwise known as collateralized debt obligations --- to genius Americans, which almost entirely collapsed America's banking system. Admittedly he came up to Canada from America almost immediately before his "trainees" at Goldman Sachs started selling the 88 billion dollars worth of cat and dog feces to dull-witted Americans. You Americans constantly send us your bad ideas while we send you American goofs our better scientists and technologists. We call it the brain drain.
The reason our health care is in ruins is because our doctors reneged on their Hippocratic Oaths and extremely intelligent laboratory technologists, such as yours truly, went back to University to study the lies of "sophists" --- most which were taught by American draft dodgers, who were not only stupid people but also unpatriotic cowards. We Canadians not only have the "brain drain" but we also have American sewer-brains infesting our Universities with things like American "thinkers" and their DEI "thoughts" --- which is your POX on our house, you AnishSNOBane "warrior".
I swear to your AnishSNOBane "god", Snodgrass, that if someone loaned you an entire wit, you'd still only be a half-wit in terms of an arguer.
Wow....I hate to bash you, but your posts are pure nonsense. Incredible bilge.
If you think you are so smart, go toe to toe with me and a few other Trump-supporting academic types. I guarantee we will mop the floor with you. You are so clueless it is comical.
And yes, athletics has corrupted the higher education system, long before this evil woke nonsense took hold.
By the way, I have read MANY of your posts across different parts of Substack. And if you were gifted with tremendous mental acuity and astounding awe-inspiring perspicacity, as you claim, then your posts would seem to argue against that.
Those who brag like you do, rarely have anything to brag about. And you would not be facing imminent dismissal, which you appear to be terrified of. Interesting...
This woman made no "claims", as in "according to your own claims". She "rose to the challenge" by saying "Threats are the mark of very smart people.", which was ironical. But you didn't even notice the irony despite threatening to "mop the floor" with her in "toe to toe" whatever. You "knew" she would "never rise to the challenge"!!!
You, you dummy, didn't even see her refutation of your bogus challenge. You are that "clueless", Mr. "threatener".
A good check list but I would add one more. Require that any faculty member advocating for DEI hires forfeit their position for said hire. If you think we need more black women....then you give up your position to create an opening for that search. If you won't give up your position, you don't get to weigh in on using "diversity" in hiring. (This is not discrimination on the basis of speech...it is personal accountability for the policies one advocates for.)
Exactly. Some state actually called the bluff of those who say they want to pay higher taxes by creating a fund that taxpayers could donate to if they wanted to pay their "fair" share. Amazingly they only got a few $1000 total. Talk is cheap...cash is not!
As another comment, which I might have mentioned before, let me notice something else odd. Heterodox STEM seems to be mainly about efforts to protect STEM from woke incursions and other nonsense. Yet, this part of Substack seems to constantly attract characters with the opposite agenda.
For example, people who want to slaughter every Jew on the planet, or threaten federal judges who do not want to house male rapists in female prisons, or are frantic to ban white males from all STEM activities and so on. People who argue against merit and competence. People who want to threaten lawsuits against those they disagree with or make other attacks. Why are they so emboldened? Why so unreasonable and irrational?
Decades ago, when I was starting down my R&D path, these fools would be laughed out of academia. They would have found NO purchase there, whatsoever.
I know there are lots of people like that in the world, and particularly in academia these days. In academia, they might constitute the vast majority of faculty and students and administrators at this point. This is a bad sign, admittedly.
However, I am perpetually astounded at how many of them seem to find their way to this tiny corner of the internet, Heterodox STEM. And how anxious they are to spew their nonsense to a disinterested audience. Wow.
The culture is sick. And it will take a long time to heal it, if ever.
The problem is that they try to exterminate us, but we never try to exterminate them. If they play to win and we play for fairness, the result is certain. They'll keep winning and even when they're losing it will be from a position of massive advantage.
Play the game by the actual rules, not the rules you wish you could have in a world you wish this were.
What's the matter Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass? Can't you handle a little heterodox debate, from "unreasonable and irrational" people? Heterodox actually means that all sorts of opinions are allowed. No reasonable or irrational person minds debating the "unreasonable and/or irrational". You know what your problem is Snodgrass?
You went to school in the pre-woke era, where everybody regurgitated the prof to get "marks". Then when that generation became "profs" they simply could not stand anyone who questioned the increasing nonsense they were "teaching". So they began to cancel their critics because they were incompetent at debate --- very much like yourself.
Yes, you think that YOU, as a pitiful caricature of what a STEM professional is, gets to define any and all terms, and even what the purpose of this forum is or should be.
Let's be honest. At best you were only ever a third rate technician with a marginal undergraduate degree from an obscure 4th rate school on the tundra. And that was when you were in your prime, which was many decades ago.
I think dementia has set in, Byrne. Time for MAiD. Want me to make a recommendation? I have plenty of connections there.
You really are indigenous and really did only get a "modern" education. The best you have in "argument" is the ad hominem followed by a desire to "tomahawk" or "Maid" your adversary. Let me guess --- Mohawk? Probably not. Those guys do high level steel work. How about those Canadian fraud artists like Murray Sinclair with his B.S. truth and reconciliation commission. What kind of Indian is he? There is a lot of them because they artfully dodged the Haudenosaunee being cowards and bullies but not real warriors. Right! They were Anishinaabe, Is that what you are "little blue amoeba" also known as Snot/snake-in-the-grass?
Ooh, ooh, ooh. It is so fun to count coups on you.
Also, these characters who show some woke inclinations seem to think that the ONLY problem with STEM is that it is not woke enough. Not yet. If only we could just follow the simple formula that has destroyed the humanities, everything would be perfect.
No more truth. No more evidence. No more proofs in mathematics. No more data. No more experiments. No more theories. Everything just turned into one huge incompetent slurry of nonsense.
This is a great mission you have embarked upon. I am currently initiating the Tom Swift Academy, a training ground for gentleman scientists, thinkers operating beyond the narrow confines of academia. I would be happy to collaborate with your project. If you are curious, read more here:
Dorian, do you really think that universities can and will reform themselves? That institutions that are true believers of the Woke Religion could see the light of Enlightenment academic goals and true liberal procedures of merit hiring, funding, promotions, and awards, and the beauty and efficacy of intellectual diversity? And that they would give up the rewards of Hamas celebrations and Jew-hunting? In my view, there is no possibility of internal reform. The rot is too deep. My own field of anthropology has been totally destroyed as a serious academic subject. Only external intervention, which has begun to happen in some Republican states, can lead to serious change. I would suggest that what is needed is not scalpels, or even chain saws, but bulldozers.
The above is not a "plan" that you "outlined here". It is a bit of a hypothetical joke. So it's good to see that you see your hypothetical "plan" as improbable.
I largely agree with the aims, but am concerned about the methods in point 2 - part of the reason hiring is lopsided is different base rates. Even if it's through particular interests, isn't this just a mirror of these departments only hiring through indigenous studies?
The base rates are different to a large degree because conservatives don't think they have a shot in academia and don't pursue it. That would change if there were jobs for them.
The president has a right to define areas of interest and build centers around them. He started a center in Climate Systems Engineering recently, for example. Here he would just be defining important areas of intellectual investigation that we currently are not covering well.
I agree with your first point, but the change would be gradual, not immediate. I'm okay with that - I see it as a temperamentally conservative option.
For the latter point - certainly, but what is the limiting principle here? I can see and approve of it, but you can only go so far so fast. Otherwise, this sets a precendent for any future president to act on his or her whims in this respect instead of exerciding restraint, leading to lack of focus and administrative bloat.
You want to prevent this situation from happening in the first place. But it's happened, so something needs to be done. Do you have proposals for how to fix the problem? Want to write a post on it? I'm very open to better ideas if they are out there.
I am indigenous. But I guarantee that my political views would lead to me NEVER being considered, since I do not follow the standard nonsense that is currently preached.
I'd leave out 2(f). Why promise to stop when we've reached a tie? They played to kill, we should rebound and make them lose. We can always relent later, which is more grace than they've ever shown.
(1) spurred by competition from other organizations,
(2) through encouragement by governmental entities and donors, and
(3) associated with the loss of the perceived brand value of these institutions. If students and prospective hires no longer see these brands as desirable, then this might create some additional pressure for rectification.
Of course, those making the decisions, the administrators who have a death grip on these institutions currently, will be in MASSIVE denial for a considerable period of time. That is my 2 cent prediction.
I only have to recall my conversations with assorted bureaucratic administrative types at various institutions. It was like speaking to a rock or yelling down a dry well.
Back before the Ark, Harvard and co. had a problem. All the top performers from all over coming together meant most of them were now mediocre or even bottom of their class for the first time in their lives. Result? Suicides of bright people.
So, they decided to admit medium normies who expected to get Cs and maybe even a D on a course they could repeat.
Isn't the last bit literally just affirmative action in the other direction? If you remove the incentives for misbehaviour, things will fall into place on their own
How will things fall into place? The faculty, staff, and administration of just about every university are chock full of far left, Marxist radicals, reverse sexists, and reverse racists. They will all of a sudden see reason, become moderate, adopt once again the Enlightenment model of research and education?
Checkmate! Dorian, if you become a president of ANY university and implement this, the biggest fear of the activist faculty will come to fruition - higher education and research will work just fine (and will likely greatly improve) without the nonsense of non-merit-based metrics.
Amen Brother Abbot!
GPA and test scores alone are merit? And not, like, winning a science prize, making and selling an ap? Maintaining a good GPA and lettering in three sports? Starting a community service club that is recognized by the state legislature? Getting a story published in a magazine? Getting authorship on a Nature paper from a summer internship at the Cancer Center?
How do you know if discrimination in faculty hiring has occurred? What if you are looking for a developmental biologist, and you hire the developmental biologist with the best h-factor, but a structural biologist with a higher h-factor applied and did not get the job? Or you hire the developmental biologist with the second highest h-factor because the one with the highest h-factor insulted everyone, hit on an undergrad, and got outrageously drunk at dinner and barfed on the waiter? In other words-what are the metrics by which you are ranking faculty?
End all DEI programs? OK. A lot of people would be mostly down with that. I mean, some of the programs might have some value, and if that is the case they don't have to be DEI programs per se. They can just be good professional development programs. But no real argument here.
Regarding viewpoint diversity-we (academics, everywhere) really do need to take this on seriously. Part of the problem is that academia has become so unfriendly to those who espouse more conservative ideas that are just not a lot of conservative scholars who want anything to do with academia. That is a problem that has to be fixed, but it will take some time. It will also require something like affirmative action-making intentional hiring decisions to increase representation, rather than on whatever single or two quantitative metric you are employing to "end discrimination" above. Anyway, I'm generally in favor of such affirmative action as I think it is necessary to create more intellectual rigor and breadth. But a) of course only hire those prepared to succeed and b) acknowledge that it is a kind of affirmative action.
I've yet to meet a "vocal Trump supporter" that has appropriate critical reasoning faculties. I have met plenty of conservatives, many of whom are mildly tolerant of Trump as long as their preferred policy goals are within reach, who are impeccable scholars and who always manage to make me think more broadly than I normally have occasion to do. But they are not "vocal Trump supporters".
Establishing and enforcing reasonable restrictions on protest activity-100% agree. And be absolutely consistent in enforcement.
"I've yet to meet a 'vocal Trump supporter' that has appropriate critical reasoning faculties."
Of course you haven't met one, because they have either retired from universities or been chased out. Beyond academia, are you suggesting that none of the millions of Trump supporters and voters have "appropriate critical reasoning"? None of Trump's cabinet, all of those ex-governors?
For my part, I've never heard a vocal opponent of Trump, including most Democrats, who demonstrate "appropriate critical reasoning."
What do Americans and you, given that you are apparently Canadian, mean by "critical reasoning"? Aristotle arguably meant dialectic, given his thesis that, quote:
ARISTOTLE: "Dialectic is merely critical where philosophy claims to know ... " [Metaphysics Book IV, Ch. 2. 1004b lines 25 - 26].
Modern Americans seem to demonstrate Alan Bloom's thesis of closed minds rather than anything "critical" other than Karl Marx's ideas about "criticism". What do you mean? After all there was little of anything actually "critical" in Dr. Abbot's post, which was aptly demonstrated by Ms. Elle.
Being an eldery Canuck, from an irrelevant frozen wasteland with a dying economy, you really should pay attention to your own disaster unfolding right on your doorstep.
Your health care system is in ruins, thanks to your collective stupidity. Canada is doubling and tripling down on DEI and other woke nonsense, which has failed everywhere else. Canada cannot fulfill its treaty obligations. Canada can no longer provide housing for its residents, and has more immigrants and illegal immigrants than any other place on planet earth. Life in Canada is so miserable that most recent immigrants, legal and otherwise, are considering leaving. Canada has been proud to be run by known pedophiles and perverts that escape accountability. Canadian federal ministers have threatened nuclear war with its neighbor, the US. I can go on and on.
Canada is a disgrace, and yet you want to pick fights south of the 49th. At least the US is making an attempt to recover. It might succeed, or it might fail. Canada does not even seem to understand that it is in trouble.
You have more than your share of problems. Regurgitating half-understood quotes from undigested classics that you mangled your way through, while getting into massive bureaucratic battles up there in the frozen wastes just make you look like a clown. Do you understand how foolish you look?
Do you understand how the internet works, Kevvie? Do you have any CLUE what you are doing here?
Look Kevin, you do not really know what STEM is, Heterodox or otherwise. You never were really IN STEM, just being a dopey healthcare technician with barely any education at all. You certainly never contributed to STEM in any conceivable way. Your opinions are worthless and stupid, just like you.
Hold her there AnishSnodgrassBeExtremelyrude (a new tribe of native North Americans)!!! I was talking to a fellow elderly Canadian above. I asked him about "critical thinking" and you busted in with not only your usual "ad hominems", but additional, "ad country-ems".
Have you no mercy for a country who just elected a former Goldman Sachs employee --- the kind of Investment Banker which sold, according to Steve Carroll's character in THE BIG SHORT, 88 billion dollars worth of "dog doo-doo wrapped in cat doo-doo" --- otherwise known as collateralized debt obligations --- to genius Americans, which almost entirely collapsed America's banking system. Admittedly he came up to Canada from America almost immediately before his "trainees" at Goldman Sachs started selling the 88 billion dollars worth of cat and dog feces to dull-witted Americans. You Americans constantly send us your bad ideas while we send you American goofs our better scientists and technologists. We call it the brain drain.
The reason our health care is in ruins is because our doctors reneged on their Hippocratic Oaths and extremely intelligent laboratory technologists, such as yours truly, went back to University to study the lies of "sophists" --- most which were taught by American draft dodgers, who were not only stupid people but also unpatriotic cowards. We Canadians not only have the "brain drain" but we also have American sewer-brains infesting our Universities with things like American "thinkers" and their DEI "thoughts" --- which is your POX on our house, you AnishSNOBane "warrior".
I swear to your AnishSNOBane "god", Snodgrass, that if someone loaned you an entire wit, you'd still only be a half-wit in terms of an arguer.
Your Canadian-Celtic Coups-Counting-Colleague
Kevin
I’ll grant that there might be one or two out there, but they are most definitely not members of his cabinet 😂😂😂
You do not like "burn-it-down" content? And you are an "institutionalist"? Well, I suspect there are some unpleasant surprises waiting for you.
Unpleasant, yes. Surprises, no.
Do not be too sure about that. Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.
Wow....I hate to bash you, but your posts are pure nonsense. Incredible bilge.
If you think you are so smart, go toe to toe with me and a few other Trump-supporting academic types. I guarantee we will mop the floor with you. You are so clueless it is comical.
And yes, athletics has corrupted the higher education system, long before this evil woke nonsense took hold.
What was the nonsense? She seems clueful and actually funny when laughing at her own joke about Trump's cabinet.
Threats are the mark of very smart people.
By the way, I have read MANY of your posts across different parts of Substack. And if you were gifted with tremendous mental acuity and astounding awe-inspiring perspicacity, as you claim, then your posts would seem to argue against that.
Those who brag like you do, rarely have anything to brag about. And you would not be facing imminent dismissal, which you appear to be terrified of. Interesting...
Where did this woman make any "claims" about her mental acuity? Where did she "brag"?
You would know, being the world's greatest genius, according to your own claims. Absolutely incredible in every sense of the word.
I knew you would never rise to the challenge. And if you think that is a threat, then...you really are a clown.
This woman made no "claims", as in "according to your own claims". She "rose to the challenge" by saying "Threats are the mark of very smart people.", which was ironical. But you didn't even notice the irony despite threatening to "mop the floor" with her in "toe to toe" whatever. You "knew" she would "never rise to the challenge"!!!
You, you dummy, didn't even see her refutation of your bogus challenge. You are that "clueless", Mr. "threatener".
Kevin
A good check list but I would add one more. Require that any faculty member advocating for DEI hires forfeit their position for said hire. If you think we need more black women....then you give up your position to create an opening for that search. If you won't give up your position, you don't get to weigh in on using "diversity" in hiring. (This is not discrimination on the basis of speech...it is personal accountability for the policies one advocates for.)
I would say, if anyone advocates for reparations, take their own salary to zero. And zero their retirement accounts as well.
Exactly. Some state actually called the bluff of those who say they want to pay higher taxes by creating a fund that taxpayers could donate to if they wanted to pay their "fair" share. Amazingly they only got a few $1000 total. Talk is cheap...cash is not!
Amen!
As another comment, which I might have mentioned before, let me notice something else odd. Heterodox STEM seems to be mainly about efforts to protect STEM from woke incursions and other nonsense. Yet, this part of Substack seems to constantly attract characters with the opposite agenda.
For example, people who want to slaughter every Jew on the planet, or threaten federal judges who do not want to house male rapists in female prisons, or are frantic to ban white males from all STEM activities and so on. People who argue against merit and competence. People who want to threaten lawsuits against those they disagree with or make other attacks. Why are they so emboldened? Why so unreasonable and irrational?
Decades ago, when I was starting down my R&D path, these fools would be laughed out of academia. They would have found NO purchase there, whatsoever.
I know there are lots of people like that in the world, and particularly in academia these days. In academia, they might constitute the vast majority of faculty and students and administrators at this point. This is a bad sign, admittedly.
However, I am perpetually astounded at how many of them seem to find their way to this tiny corner of the internet, Heterodox STEM. And how anxious they are to spew their nonsense to a disinterested audience. Wow.
The culture is sick. And it will take a long time to heal it, if ever.
The problem is that they try to exterminate us, but we never try to exterminate them. If they play to win and we play for fairness, the result is certain. They'll keep winning and even when they're losing it will be from a position of massive advantage.
Play the game by the actual rules, not the rules you wish you could have in a world you wish this were.
Yes, this is a brilliant observation.
What's the matter Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass? Can't you handle a little heterodox debate, from "unreasonable and irrational" people? Heterodox actually means that all sorts of opinions are allowed. No reasonable or irrational person minds debating the "unreasonable and/or irrational". You know what your problem is Snodgrass?
You went to school in the pre-woke era, where everybody regurgitated the prof to get "marks". Then when that generation became "profs" they simply could not stand anyone who questioned the increasing nonsense they were "teaching". So they began to cancel their critics because they were incompetent at debate --- very much like yourself.
Kevin James "Joseph" Byrne
Yes, you think that YOU, as a pitiful caricature of what a STEM professional is, gets to define any and all terms, and even what the purpose of this forum is or should be.
Let's be honest. At best you were only ever a third rate technician with a marginal undergraduate degree from an obscure 4th rate school on the tundra. And that was when you were in your prime, which was many decades ago.
I think dementia has set in, Byrne. Time for MAiD. Want me to make a recommendation? I have plenty of connections there.
You really are indigenous and really did only get a "modern" education. The best you have in "argument" is the ad hominem followed by a desire to "tomahawk" or "Maid" your adversary. Let me guess --- Mohawk? Probably not. Those guys do high level steel work. How about those Canadian fraud artists like Murray Sinclair with his B.S. truth and reconciliation commission. What kind of Indian is he? There is a lot of them because they artfully dodged the Haudenosaunee being cowards and bullies but not real warriors. Right! They were Anishinaabe, Is that what you are "little blue amoeba" also known as Snot/snake-in-the-grass?
Ooh, ooh, ooh. It is so fun to count coups on you.
Your Canadian-Irish-Celt-non-senile, friend,
Kevin
Also, these characters who show some woke inclinations seem to think that the ONLY problem with STEM is that it is not woke enough. Not yet. If only we could just follow the simple formula that has destroyed the humanities, everything would be perfect.
No more truth. No more evidence. No more proofs in mathematics. No more data. No more experiments. No more theories. Everything just turned into one huge incompetent slurry of nonsense.
This is a great mission you have embarked upon. I am currently initiating the Tom Swift Academy, a training ground for gentleman scientists, thinkers operating beyond the narrow confines of academia. I would be happy to collaborate with your project. If you are curious, read more here:
https://swiftenterprises.substack.com/p/tom-swift-is-on-the-move
Dorian, do you really think that universities can and will reform themselves? That institutions that are true believers of the Woke Religion could see the light of Enlightenment academic goals and true liberal procedures of merit hiring, funding, promotions, and awards, and the beauty and efficacy of intellectual diversity? And that they would give up the rewards of Hamas celebrations and Jew-hunting? In my view, there is no possibility of internal reform. The rot is too deep. My own field of anthropology has been totally destroyed as a serious academic subject. Only external intervention, which has begun to happen in some Republican states, can lead to serious change. I would suggest that what is needed is not scalpels, or even chain saws, but bulldozers.
I wouldn't assign a high probability to a plan like I outlined here be adopted.
The above is not a "plan" that you "outlined here". It is a bit of a hypothetical joke. So it's good to see that you see your hypothetical "plan" as improbable.
Kevin
I largely agree with the aims, but am concerned about the methods in point 2 - part of the reason hiring is lopsided is different base rates. Even if it's through particular interests, isn't this just a mirror of these departments only hiring through indigenous studies?
The base rates are different to a large degree because conservatives don't think they have a shot in academia and don't pursue it. That would change if there were jobs for them.
The president has a right to define areas of interest and build centers around them. He started a center in Climate Systems Engineering recently, for example. Here he would just be defining important areas of intellectual investigation that we currently are not covering well.
This is good. I’d suggest military history as one of those areas. Unfortunately the study of war (and terrorism) is more relevant than ever.
added it!
I agree with your first point, but the change would be gradual, not immediate. I'm okay with that - I see it as a temperamentally conservative option.
For the latter point - certainly, but what is the limiting principle here? I can see and approve of it, but you can only go so far so fast. Otherwise, this sets a precendent for any future president to act on his or her whims in this respect instead of exerciding restraint, leading to lack of focus and administrative bloat.
You want to prevent this situation from happening in the first place. But it's happened, so something needs to be done. Do you have proposals for how to fix the problem? Want to write a post on it? I'm very open to better ideas if they are out there.
I'd love to suggest another approach. This is a difficult matter though, so I'll need more time to flesh out my thoughts.
Good. The more ideas, the better.
I am indigenous. But I guarantee that my political views would lead to me NEVER being considered, since I do not follow the standard nonsense that is currently preached.
I'd leave out 2(f). Why promise to stop when we've reached a tie? They played to kill, we should rebound and make them lose. We can always relent later, which is more grace than they've ever shown.
I think most reform, if it does happen, will be
(1) spurred by competition from other organizations,
(2) through encouragement by governmental entities and donors, and
(3) associated with the loss of the perceived brand value of these institutions. If students and prospective hires no longer see these brands as desirable, then this might create some additional pressure for rectification.
Of course, those making the decisions, the administrators who have a death grip on these institutions currently, will be in MASSIVE denial for a considerable period of time. That is my 2 cent prediction.
I only have to recall my conversations with assorted bureaucratic administrative types at various institutions. It was like speaking to a rock or yelling down a dry well.
Back before the Ark, Harvard and co. had a problem. All the top performers from all over coming together meant most of them were now mediocre or even bottom of their class for the first time in their lives. Result? Suicides of bright people.
So, they decided to admit medium normies who expected to get Cs and maybe even a D on a course they could repeat.
Which is why your ide a won't work.
Isn't the last bit literally just affirmative action in the other direction? If you remove the incentives for misbehaviour, things will fall into place on their own
Unfortunately there is serious discrimination going on that would prevent that: https://www.newsweek.com/we-have-data-prove-it-universities-are-hostile-conservatives-opinion-1573551
How will things fall into place? The faculty, staff, and administration of just about every university are chock full of far left, Marxist radicals, reverse sexists, and reverse racists. They will all of a sudden see reason, become moderate, adopt once again the Enlightenment model of research and education?