ACTA's Must-Reads

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Outcomes and outcries

The news that the University of Colorado has moved to fire Ward Churchill--and that Churchill has fired back by announcing his intent to sue--is hardly news. This was an expected outcome, created over the long course of more than a year of investigative work on Colorado's part and accusatory pronouncements on the part of Churchill. And it is a good, if expensive outcome, as far as it goes (so far, Churchill estimates, CU has spent over $250,000 of taxpayer money trying to fire him).

But it is not the only, or even the most important, outcome of the Churchill case. What should not be lost in the furious, mediagenic confrontation that will now ensue as Churchill fights the decision to fire him, is the report of Colorado's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. Specifically, what should not be forgotten is how much attention that report paid to the broader implications of the Churchill case, how concerned it was with how the loosely-knit structure of the academic system enables people like Churchill to thrive, and how much importance it placed on ensuring that individual faculty members are abiding by the conventions of scholarly integrity. As ACTA has already noted, these concerns and recommendations are the true meat of the report.

In addition to recommending serious penalties for Churchill himself, the report stresses the importance of using established institutional procedures, particularly those surrounding hiring, promotion, tenure, and post-tenure review, to make sure that faculty scholarship meets professional standards. The report notes that this is a daunting and difficult task, but also notes that it is an essential aspect of the peer evaluation that underwrites academic self-governance ("If there is hope of identifying misconduct sans a complaint, it lies in the unit level review conducted by peers of the individual. To be successful at this level, the reviews must be serious rather than cursory, must involve individuals with as much expertise as possible in the reviewed individual's area of inquiry, and most importantly should involve a careful reading of the individual's work, rather than a simple count of articles, chapters or books"). In this respect, the report amounts to a policy statement for best administrative practices, and its recommendations for how CU ought to become more accountable for faculty integrity are also recommendations for how any self-respecting college or university in the country should proceed.

The report also recommends that efforts be made to restore the reputations of those faculty and staff whose images were tarnished by their association with Churchill. This is an important point, and one closely tied to its other recommendations: An excellent way for any academic department or discipline to estabablish--or re-establish--its reputation is to show itself to be actively invested in maintaining its own scholarly and pedagogical integrity. This means not giving ideologues and frauds and plagiarists a free pass. In tolerating--and even elevating--Churchill, CU fell short on this one. But CU is not alone; the time-consuming, labor intensive process of assessing the integrity of scholarly work is widely short-changed in academe today, and as long as this is the case, what separates many cavalierly managed departments from CU's department of ethnic studies is luck alone.

ACTA has been widely criticized for asking how many Ward Churchills are out there. The question has offended academics who would distance themselves from Churchill by treating him as an isolated instance of a bad seed abusing an excellent system. But such defensiveness is as short-sighted as it is beside the point: The hard truth here is that an academe that does not regulate itself effectively is no better than its most corrupt members.

Posted by acta online on June 28, 2006 at 05:16 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

A "Faux Response" from Dartmouth

Frank Gado, a 1958 graduate of Dartmouth College, kindly forwarded to ACTA his thoughts on the Dartmouth Association of Alumni's response to ACTA's recent letter:

The Alumni Association's Executive Committee Issues a Faux Response to ACTA

On June 1, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) reproved the Executive Committee for its suspension of the scheduled October 15, 2006 election and "call[ed] upon the Association to reconsider this deeply troubling decision." Merle Adelman, writing for the Executive Committee, answered by attacking ACTA, a non-partisan organization dedicated to free speech and democratic practices in higher education, for launching a "media relations campaign" and using the issue "as a background in a political power struggle."

Although Adelman found fault with ACTA for not waiting for the Executive Committee to respond before making its condemnation public, Adelman's letter provides no facts or arguments not previously available to ACTA. She insists that, even though her own Executive Committee set the next Annual Meeting for October 2006, according to its own Guidelines, it has the right, not only to push the date months forward into 2007 but also to reinterpret the constitution's requirement for an annual meeting by defining "annual" not as a calendar year but as an academic year--making the elapsed time between annual meetings in this case potentially as much as 22 months. (In fact, historically reckoned, this recomputation would leave the Association one "Annual Meeting" short.)

To justify this unprecedented act, Adelman contends:

1. "It makes no sense to elect new Association officers and find out two weeks later that the whole organizational structure has been voided."

Rebuttal: If this were a legitimate reason, no new members should have been appointed to the Alumni Council at the end of May, given that the Council is no less an operating part of the "whole organizational structure ."

More important, there is no plausibility to the argument. If--perish the thought--the AGTF constitution passes, the current Executive Committee will be no more expert in dealing with the transition than a new Executive Committee. Indeed, one of the contentions of the AGTF is that the Association and its Executive Committee have no business to conduct other than to run elections for its own officers and to call meetings. If such experience is so valuable, let the current members stand for reelection and have the voters decide.

The real reason the Executive Committee wants to remain in office, of course, is to control, once again, the process by which yet another effort will be made to change the constitution should this AGTF-proposed constitution fail to be ratified.

2. To give "members of the Association the opportunity to focus on one set of issues at a time, and allows for a smooth transition to a new governance structure if the new constitution is passed."

Rebuttal: If Dartmouth alumni are unable to focus on more than one set of issues at a time, the AGTF constitution should be divided into its component political parts and voted upon seriatim. As for "transition," the task is certainly within the ken of whoever might hold the office--and as transition is a one-time thing, no incumbent would have the advantage over a neo-elect. Indeed, the present leadership has bungled their responsibilities so flagrantly, the claim of competence is risible.

The fact remains that the Executive Committee has exercised complete control over the scheduling of the vote on the proposed constitution as well as of the Annual Meeting. To "postpone" elections to solve a supposed problem of its own making is disingenuous.

Adelman repeatedly claims that the Executive Committee "first and foremost honors" the constitution and implies that the unprecedented suspension of the constitutionally mandated election in some way will abet delivery of "all-media voting"--i.e., extension of the franchise beyond the borders of Hanover. This is cynical nonsense. In fact, it is and has been the Executive Committee, through Guidelines of its own making which have never been submitted to a single vote by the members of the Association of Alumni, that has blocked every effort to rescind its own prohibition of all-media voting. The constitution does not give the Executive Committee the power to issue Guidelines or to control the election of the Executive Committee, nor is there any By-Law so empowering it. If, as Adelman maintains, this Executive Committee has been "duly elected," that election has been restricted to the tiniest fraction of the Association membership by artificially construed rules designed to perpetuate control of the Association by few.

Adelman sneers that ACTA "appears[s] to be trying to interfere with the lawful operation of this Association." Rubbish. ACTA no more interferes than the ACLU interferes with our courts or Common Cause interferes with our Congress. Adelman declares that the Executive Committee's execution of alumni governance "serves Dartmouth and those who love her," but this is akin to the husband who controls his wife by keeping her under lock and key and then defends his actions by asserting his love for her.

Thanks, Mr. Gado.

Posted by cmitchell on June 23, 2006 at 09:33 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

While the fur flies

One of the more remarkable aspects of debates about higher education is how quickly, and, seemingly, inevitably, they degenerate into some of the most anti-intellectual displays of mudslinging and name-calling around. ACTA has been at the center of some of the more heated exchanges of late, figuring largely, for example, in an InsideHigherEd op-ed by Pitzer College dean Alan Jones that misrepresents it as a pivotal figure in that favorite academic bugaboo, the vast right-wing conspiracy (ACTA president Anne Neal notes several of Jones' errors in the comments that follow). But while academics who are hostile to ACTA's work devote time and bandwidth to attempting to discrediting the organization, ACTA continues to defend the principles of free expression, accountability, and fair procedure in an academy that is all too ready to dispense with such things when they become inconvenient.

Consider the case of the Dartmouth Association of Alumni, which has busily been reworking procedures for how alumni may be elected to Dartmouth's board of trustees (so as to make it that much more difficult for dissenting dark horse candidates such as T.J. Rodgers, Todd Zywicki, and Peter Robinson to be elected), as well as for how the officers of the Association itself may circumvent its own rules, not to mention democratic process (by deferring the dates of elections for their own offices). ACTA has been actively involved in urging the Dartmouth alumni association to mend its ways, but to no avail. But while the Dartmouth Association of Alumni has been unimpressed by ACTA's arguments, others recognize what is at stake.

The Associated Press has begun to cover the story. And today, the New York Times takes up the case as well. Noting that Dartmouth, Colgate, and Hamilton have all been the scenes of recent controversies over the alumni role in governance, the Times quotes Anne Neal as saying that "What we're seeing at Dartmouth, Colgate and Hamilton are alumni who are profoundly troubled by the direction of those institutions .... It's time for those looking in from the outside to provide some input."

The "input" Neal mentions is what has ACTA's critics so exercised of late; loud and long have been the laments that what ACTA is really doing is attacking academic freedom. But that just isn't so, as the Dartmouth case ought to make clear. Issues of governance, institutional accountability, and procedural transparency are not left-right issues; these issues affect us all, no matter what our viewpoints. It is both distorting and self-defeating of those who dismiss ACTA's work as heavily partisan not to recognize the work that ACTA is doing to preserve the foundational principles of a vital and healthy academy.

ACTA's latest press release on the Dartmouth case is available here. Charles Mitchell has more at Phi Beta Cons, and Margaret Soltan takes the issue up as well at University Diaries.

UPDATE 6/22: KC Johnson has pronounced the discussion following Alan Jones' article to be damning evidence of academe's ideological blinders: "There seems to be an intent among some here to demonize ACTA," Johnson observes. "But if the ideas of Jones and his defenders are in any way representative of majority opinion in the contemporary academy, I fear that, if anything, ACTA might be underestimating our problems." Johnson develops his observations at Cliopatria.

Posted by acta online on June 21, 2006 at 02:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Farewell to Philip Merrill

The dedication reads, "To Philip Merrill, Enlightened Philanthropist." The book? ACTA's Intelligent Donor's Guide to College Giving.

Philip Merrill was a man of passions--and one of his passions was higher education. He had gone to Cornell and he was grateful for an education that prepared him both to make a living and to lead a life. In the succeeding years, he acknowledged that debt--as both a Cornell trustee and donor.

That's why in 1995, Phil signed on to ACTA's National Council, a group of distinguished individuals from around the country--including David Riesman, Lynne Cheney, Joseph Lieberman and Martin Peretz--who, like Phil, cared deeply about academic freedom, academic quality and accountability.

And that's why ACTA was also important to Phil. Both shared an undying affection for higher education, but both believed that informed input and scrutiny from the outside were important if American higher education were to remain the finest in the world. When others were focusing on access, diversity, and matters far from the heart of liberal education, Phil--and ACTA--were focusing on the need for a strong liberal arts education and ways to promote educational excellence, not mediocrity or political agendas.

With that in mind, Phil was a leader behind ACTA's Donors' Working Group, a group of higher education philanthropists who convened--in the wake of the failed Bass gift to Yale--to plan ways donors might have a greater beneficial influence on their colleges and universities. Because of that effort, ACTA published The Intelligent Donor's Guide--a guide dedicated to and supported by Phil--who believed, as he said in the book, that the "donor who just gives money and walks away is unlikely to achieve the best results."

Over the years, Phil was generous in terms of time and opinions. In thanks for that generosity, ACTA was indeed pleased last year to award a national prize dedicated to liberal arts education and to Phil, the inaugural Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts in Education.

The only award of its kind, the Merrill prize honors individuals who have made an extraordinary contribution to the advancement of liberal arts education, core curricula, and the teaching of Western civilization and American history--topics about which Phil felt passionately. It offers a unique tribute to those dedicated to the transmission of the great ideas and central values of our civilization and is presented to inspire others and provide public acknowledgment of the value of their endeavor.

While Phil is gone, the award remains--testimony to a distinguished public servant, publisher, entrepreneur, and philanthropist who tirelessly supported and affirmed the importance of academic excellence and a common core of learning in a free society.

We will forever be grateful for Phil's enlightened philanthropy.

Anne D. Neal, President

Posted by aneal on June 20, 2006 at 10:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Correcting the Record

On Friday, Inside Higher Ed ran an op-ed entitled "Connecting the Dots" by Alan Jones. Jones' piece contains many errors, but I will only correct those that directly pertain to ACTA.

Contrary to Jones' assertions otherwise, ACTA (under an earlier name) was founded in 1995, not 1994--and not by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which had an alumni effort of its own, called the Forum for University Stewardship Project. And ACTA is bipartisan, as documents clearly show. Its National Council includes New Republic publisher Martin Peretz, Carter Administration official Hans Mark, and former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm, all certifiable Democrats, not to mention the fact that Senator Joseph Lieberman also helped launch the organization.

That Jones is a college dean, whose decisions influence whether his campus invites a diversity of views, is not reassuring.

Posted by aneal on June 20, 2006 at 09:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Smith goes back to basics

ACTA is congratulating Smith College on its important decision to require all students to demonstrate basic mathematical competence. The change comes in the wake of numerous alumnae complaints that Smith graduated them without ensuring that they had the quantitative skills they would need in the modern workplace:

ACTA PRAISES SMITH COLLEGE FOR CURRICULAR REFORM

Alumnae Promote Academic Quality

WASHINGTON, DC (June 15, 2006)--Responding to plans by Smith College to introduce a mathematics-based requirement for all graduates, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni praised the liberal arts college for listening to alumnae input on curricular reform.

"Alumni and trustees know and understand that if our institutions of higher learning wish to remain competitive, they must give students the broad-based knowledge and skills necessary in our global marketplace," ACTA president Anne D. Neal noted. "Smith deserves praise for taking the lead in reviewing and improving its general education curriculum."

Carol T. Christ, president of Smith, told reporters that she had received many e-mails and letters from alumnae about what the college could do better, particularly in regards to understanding and applying numerical information. Various alumnae, in fields ranging from government operations to journalism to non-profit leadership, had reported they had little knowledge in statistics, logic and reasoning.

"There are no careers where you don't need to use quantitative reasoning anymore," Christ told the media in discussing Smith's planned curricular change.

In a study entitled The Hollow Core: The Failure of the General Education Curriculum, ACTA surveyed the Big 10, Big 12, Ivy League, Seven Sisters (including Smith), and several other major institutions and found that students could graduate without taking core subjects such as math, science, composition, literature, economics, American history or government. The schools were graded on the basis of their course requirements; Smith received an "F" since students currently can graduate without taking mathematics, literature, language, American government or history, economics, or science. For example, only 38 percent of the institutions surveyed required students to take a mathematics course, and not one required a course in economics.

"Too many colleges have abdicated their responsibility to direct their students--especially freshmen and sophomores--to the most important subjects," said Neal. "Smith deserves praise for beginning to address the problem."

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is a national nonprofit dedicated to academic freedom, academic standards and accountability in higher education. ACTA works with college and university alumni across the country as well as hundreds of trustees representing more than a million students.

Smith has had an open curriculum for 35 years. In deciding to establish a math requirement, Smith joins a number of schools that have made similarly pragmatic decisions in recent years, including Yale, Penn, Wellesley and Carleton.

Posted by acta online on June 16, 2006 at 08:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Cleaning house in Colorado

The University of Colorado's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct has reviewed the results of the Ward Churchill investigation, and has unanimously determined that Churchill did, indeed, deliberately and repeatedly violate the standards of scholarly conduct. Six committee members recommended firing Churchill; three recommended extended suspension without pay. The SCRM's review will now go before Interim Provost Susan Avery and Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who will decide Churchill's fate -- and who will also be charged with reviewing the SCRM's additional recommendations about institutional procedure, accountability, and self-regulation.

In a press release issued yesterday, ACTA praised the SCRM for taking a crucial longer view:

LATEST CHURCHILL NEWS IS A VICTORY FOR ACADEMIC STANDARDS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

ACTA Calls on Colleges and Universities to Declare War on Faculty Malfeasance

WASHINGTON, DC (June 14, 2006)--The majority on a University of Colorado panel has rightly recommended the firing of ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill for research misconduct. But, according to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the committee did something even more important in calling for major reform of the way CU hires professors.

"It should be no surprise that, after a full and fair review, the majority of this new committee thinks Ward Churchill’s record of gross fabrications and plagiarism merits his dismissal," ACTA president Anne Neal said. "What is truly remarkable is the committee's call for broader reform, which is needed not just at CU but nationwide. The reason: Too many on our faculties are, like Churchill, propagandists first and professors second."

In addition to addressing Churchill's case, the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct called on CU to ensure that existing internal procedures adequately identify violations of accepted scholarly standards at both the hiring and performance review levels.

"The panel should be commended," said Neal, "for realizing the important institutional need to assess much more closely and systematically than they have yet done whether professors are teaching and researching responsibly."

Just last month, ACTA issued a report entitled How Many Ward Churchills?, placing Ward Churchill in context. Using publications and websites available to students, parents and taxpayers, the study concludes that "throughout American higher education, professors are using their classrooms to push political agendas in the name of teaching students to think critically."

The ACTA report calls on colleges and universities to "take steps to guarantee a proper balance between students' academic freedom to learn and professors' academic freedom to teach, research, and publish" and to demand that "colleges and universities amend their questionable practices and begin fulfilling their professional obligations."

"Academic freedom is not insulation from oversight or accountability," said Neal. "It does not license professors to ignore their duties to teach and research responsibly and it most certainly does not mean institutions or individuals are exempt from scrutiny and judgment."

ACTA's study offers a variety of concrete steps institutions can undertake to ensure a vibrant learning environment including: faculty post-tenure review; a self-study to assess the atmosphere in the classrooms; review of hiring and promotion practices to ensure that scholarship and teaching--not ideological litmus tests--are the foundation for lifelong job security; and hiring of administrators who are committed to intellectual diversity and then evaluated according to that commitment.

The report calls on "students, parents, alumni and trustees ... to demand better information about what is happening in classrooms across America and more accountability from the colleges and universities they support."

ACTA is a national education nonprofit dedicated to academic freedom, academic excellence and accountability. For more information, contact ACTA at 202-467-6787.

What the SCRM recommends--greater attention to existing procedure, more careful and more regular peer review, compliance with institutional and professional standards and a willingness to recognize that not everyone complies--is very much along the lines of what ACTA has been recommending for some time now. There are those who continue to confuse ACTA's work with the work of advocating outside regulation of colleges and universities--but those who do so either fail to differentiate ACTA's work from the work of other higher education watchdogs or confuse criticism with interference.

ACTA's work is in fact devoted to helping colleges and universities ensure that they continue to enjoy--and to deserve--the privileges of academic freedom and self-governance. Two reports published by ACTA during the last year--Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action and How Many Ward Churchills?--make this abundantly clear.

Colorado has had a major public relations disaster on its hands with the Churchill scandal. But if the university takes seriously the wakeup call that Churchill's case is, it could become a leader in helping establish a more accountable and more credible system of higher education.

Posted by acta online on June 15, 2006 at 07:44 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Letterbox

Another letter ACTA received from a reader of How Many Ward Churchills?:

Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 11:40 AM
To: info@goacta.org
Subject: are you all CRAZY?!?

most of the classes you attack in your little witch hunt manifesto look fascinating and awesome!!! i wish we had more classes like that back when i attended stanford in '89-93 and that i had had the slack to take them! i am appalled by your report. what next, are you going to take to evaluating websites for their "correctness"? i took years of social studies in public schools and i never saw nor heard of Columbus' dark side, nor did I hear about the millions of native americans the whites killed in their conquest of this continent, nor about the systematic oppression of minorities that has passed for government and economic development in this country. that is a shame - and it is only fitting that academics do their part to involve students in the shady truths behind the current social structure. i spit on your report. i am a graduate student right now, and i will do everything in my considerable power to ridicule your report and your organization until you provide me more information; maybe i am reading this wrong, but i am stoked that these classes exist (although admittedly "joining an activist theater group" as a course requirement is a bit much...)

in general, history and literature as it is currently taught is pathetically undiverse and deceptive and classes like this give me hope that there exist academics who are willing to buck the trend of homogenization of our common academic base. these people are INNOVATORS; furthermore, none of them is precluding any of you from teaching whatever twisted courses you want to teach! is there anything i could possibly say to reconfigure your puny minds? or do you still believe that Columbus was a good person and deny the American Holocaust of Native Americans? what greatness this country has achieved has nothing to do with oppressing minorities - it is ABSOLUTELY GREAT that universities continue to promote professors willing to speak of these matters!!!

What's most remarkable about this missive is not its tone (that, unfortunately, is all too typical of debates about higher education) but that its writer clearly agrees with ACTA that undergraduate education is not only deeply politicized, but that it is intentionally so.

What angers this writer is not a conviction that ACTA's report is wrong about particular courses, or that it misrepresents the academy, as others have argued. What angers this writer is that ACTA sees the academy for what it is and dares to criticize what it sees. Beyond the belligerent tone of this email lies a profound confession, one that other, cagier respondents to ACTA's report have been careful to avoid: that activist pedagogy has strong roots in the academy, and that this pegagogy wilfully seeks, in its most ideologically corrupt forms, to use the classroom to proselytize rather than to teach.

It's worth noting that the correspondent is a graduate student. One wonders whether this individual simply has not received pedagogical training (many graduate students don't), or whether s/he is being trained to approach teaching as a form of activism.

Posted by acta online on June 14, 2006 at 08:18 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

AAUP Watch; or Round and round

The AAUP's new study on the American people's impressions of higher education has drawn quite a bit of criticism. At InsideHigherEd.Com, commenters dissect both the study and Roger Bowen's interpretation of it; at Cliopatria, KC Johnson analyzes how the study spins results. And at Phi Beta Cons, ACTA president Anne Neal weighs in with her take:

At a panel Friday morning entitled "The Faculty, the Press, and the Public," the AAUP unveiled a working paper entitled "American' Views of Political Bias In the Academy and Academic Freedom." Based on a survey of 1000 Americans, the report attempts "to assess the extent to which conservative critiques of the professoriate inform American public opinion, as well as to understand how Americans feel about academic freedom and tenure."

Noting that only 8.2% of people surveyed believe that "political bias" is the biggest problem in higher education, the AAUP claims that proves the American public's broad confidence in higher education. But close examination of the survey results reveals that this claim amounts to sheer spin. In fact, the AAUP's report suffers from the same sort of "echo chamber" insularity and self-absorption that has become characteristic of the modern academy. The survey results, combined with the unwarranted optimism of the report, amount to a remarkable indictment of the academy. Together, they prove that the studies of curricular disarray and pervasive classroom politics done by ACTA and other organizations are truly making their way into the public consciousness; they also prove how resistant the AAUP is to this realization.

Let me highlight just a few of the poll's more disturbing findings.

--58.4% of the American public has only some or no confidence in American colleges and universities (12.8% of this number is composed of liberals and moderates).

--23.4% says quality of teaching and learning is the biggest problem facing higher education, second only to concerns about cost (within this group, 10.2% say the greatest problem in higher education is low educational standards, 8.2% say it is political bias, and 5% say it is incompetent professors).

--45.7% says political bias is either a very serious problem or the biggest problem facing higher ed (26.9% of this group identifies as Democrat).

--60.2% believes higher ed is suffering from low educational standards.

--61.8% says professors are distracted by disputes over such issues as sexual harassment or the politics of ethnic groups.

--82% wants to modify or eliminate tenure altogether.

Rather than grapple with this disturbing information, the AAUP concentrates on the question of whether critics of political bias in academe are merely stirring up "a tempest in a teapot." Observing that confidence in higher education is high among everyone but the elderly, the uneducated, conservatives, and Republicans (all groups whose opinions, it is implied, matter less than those of everyone else), the AAUP concludes that there is neither a serious problem with higher education's public image nor that this problem may have something to do with real problems in the higher education system.

AAUP General Secretary Roger Bowen deepened the demographically dismissive quality of the survey in an op-ed published Friday in Inside Higher Ed. Glossing over the troubling numbers cited above, Bowen used the poll's breakdown of opinion by age, education, and political affiliation to declare that all is well in higher education, and that only the geriatrically, intellectually, and ideologically challenged will be persuaded by studies such as ACTA's "How Many Ward Churchills?": "ACTA's message, according to our survey results, will appeal primarily to the elderly, those with low levels of educational attainment, conservatives, and Republicans," he writes; "'Churchill,' as metaphor, resonates, then, with unreconstructed Cold Warriors, with conservatives, Republicans, and people who have not attended college or university." Bowen concludes that "the public generally likes the professoriate as it is" and that the work of organizations such as ACTA will not resonate with it. But Bowen can only make such claims by ignoring what the AAUP poll actually shows.

Spinning and whitewashing and defining issues away, the AAUP is missing a point that ACTA has been making for a decade: It is not the public's job to intuit the special worth of colleges and universities. The AAUP poll shows that, far from affirming higher education, the American people are saying "Enough." Unless our colleges and universities take immediate steps to become publicly accountable, and unless they renew their commitment to rigorous academic standards and academic freedom for all, they risk losing the public support and special protections that they now take as a given.

The academy can't afford to keep overlooking those basic truths. And the AAUP can't afford to keep encouraging the academy to overlook them.

The text of the AAUP study makes it quite clear that the survey was primarily motivated not by a genuine desire to find out how Americans see higher education, or even by a genuine desire to assess how the academy might improve public understanding of its work, but to find out whether the "American professoriate" should be concerned about "attacks" from "conservative
commentators and activists." That about says it all--rather than engaging with the pointed and serious criticisms of the academy that have come largely, but not at all exclusively, from more conservative thinkers and organizations, the AAUP is devoting its resources to determining whether it can afford to ignore that criticism entirely.

Posted by acta online on June 12, 2006 at 02:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Letterbox

A letter from a reader of ACTA's latest report, How Many Ward Churchills?:

I have received the "HOW MANY WARD CHURCHILLS? A Study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni" report.

As I was working my way through it, I encountered this:

"An anthropology course at the University of Illinois asks, 'Are racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and other stereotypical ideologies of 'the Other' inevitable and universal, or do they have local histories and alternatives?' The course description informs students that the purpose of the class is to 'challenge you to interrogate the cultural and historical foundations of the widespread ideologies that define 'other' populations," which are "groups defined by ethnicity, 'race,' gender, health, religion, and sexual orientation.' (The professor's use of scare quotes around the word 'race' is itself a political statement, a common shorthand for indicating that race does not exist except as a social fiction."

And I thought, "what is so bad about this?" Is it not a good idea to take a look at all xenophobias worldwide, so students can have some sense of perspective? Is it not a good idea to see how "All people are brothers and sisters" and "Only my people are truly human" interact all over the world and throughout human history? And what alternatives exist or are possible?

If the course were to say that the U.S. is the most racist country in the world, or that there is nothing but hatred everywhere, that would be wrong (because it's false). But that is not in the course description, and I am not going to presume it. So perhaps it is not a bad idea to ask oneself (politely) to reexamine one's assumptions.

As for "race" in quotes, it has been known for a fairly long time (at least sinse the 40s) that there is no biological foundation for the concept of race. This is now commonly accepted among all related scientists (anthropologists, biologists, etc.). I agree, and my agreeing does not make me into a radical left fanatic. It is strange that this knowledge has not made it down to the general population, and it is about time it does. (This is not very different from the situation around Darwinian evolution). I am ready to discuss the matter, if you would like to.

And then I read more, and I thought, "so what?" Yes, there are many quotes here that put me to sleep, there are many assumptions inside course descriptions that promote views that strike me as wrong. And there are many that do not. So perhaps instead of attacking it all, it is better to concentrate on truly blatant cases, about which we can all agree.

I am not saying that there are no Ward Churchills on campuses. I was a student of anthropology, and I saw too many of them. However, the report seems to throw the baby away with the bath water. There is still a lot of worthwhile stuff in anthropology, and much of it is expressed in compex jargon accessible only to the "initiated" (i.e. only to those who took the time and effort to understand it). It seems to me that the truly worthy goal would be to separate what is important and profound from two-penny ideas hiding behind complex jargon. And also to subject Ward Churchill and other biased professors to what they preach: to ask them to question their own assumptions.

But before you can do that, you must ask yourself, "Have I, perhaps, made some erroneous assumptions and generalizations here?" Perhaps the course at the University of Illinois would show that the U.S. is currently among the least racist and hate-filled societies around, and that this country has done a terrific job ameliorating ethnocentric drive and creating relative harmony.

Please, re-examine your assumptions.

And Anne Neal's response:

Thank you for taking the time to read ACTA's report, "How Many Ward Churchills?" Our reports are meant to encourage the public to learn about the state of higher education, to debate the issues that presently define it, and to take a proprietary interest in its future. We are always pleased to hear from those who have been moved to respond to our work, and we do our best to respond in kind.

Your response focuses on a particular course description, that of University of Illinois Anthropology 268 (Images of the Other). Your message suggests that you don't see anything about the course description that is troublesome. Let me explain why we included the course.

We chose to include Anthropology 268 in our report because it exemplifies certain anti-intellectual politicized trends that have come to characterize research, teaching, and scholarship in the social sciences and humanities over the past twenty to twenty-five years. While you are certainly correct to point out that we can't know what actually happened in the classroom when this course was taught, I do wish respectfully to disagree that there is nothing worrisome in the language used to describe the course for prospective students.

The language of the course description is highly tendentious (students are advised that they will be "challenged" to "interrogate" implicitly Western "ideologies") and it is oriented around what has become an almost cliched exercise in educating students' political sensitivities--after students "interrogate" Western "ideologies" of the "Other" (itself an ideologically marked term), they will "reverse" their "gaze" to "look at Western social traditions as 'Other' when seen from the perspective of non-Western groups."

According to the professor's description, the course centers on teaching students two mutually contradictory ways of finding fault with the West-- first by "interrogating" (not studying, not examining, not exploring) Western modes of thought that are automatically presumed to be unworthy of anything but harsh and aggressive treatment; and second by then employing those same implicitly oppressive "ideologies" in order to "other" Western culture itself. At no point does the course description suggest that it might be worth "interrogating" the manner in which non-Westerners view the West; at no point does it suggest that there might be subtleties, accuracies, and even mutually beneficial aspects to how Westerners have historically interacted with and understood non-Westerners. As far as the course description for Anthro 268 is concerned, the course will be an exercise in how to bash the West.

The reading list deepens this impression: William O'Barr's Culture and the Ad focuses on how racially insensitive the (implicitly white) advertising industry is; George Frederickson's Racism: A Short History focuses solely on Western racism, as if only Westerners can be racists; Keith Basso's Portraits of the Whiteman celebrates the manner in which the Apache Indians have built a humorous culture of resistance out of jokes about "The Whiteman." Together, these books draw a distinctly lopsided and selective portrait of Western culture as the scene of systemic, institutionalized racism against non-whites; they also suggest that the kinds of stereotypical racial thinking that are unacceptable in white westerners are positive attributes in minority cultures.

I hope this explanation clarifies our thinking about this course, and about the many like it that are being offered in anthropology departments across the country.

Thank you again for writing.

Sincerely yours,

Anne D. Neal
President
American Council of Trustees and Alumni

Civility is as civility does. This exchange exemplifies the sort of measured, searching, mutually respectful tone that discussion of controversial issues in higher education ought to take.

Posted by acta online on June 11, 2006 at 10:18 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

NCATE concession not enough

ACTA has issued a statement praising the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) for removing the language of social justice from its grading guidelines and urging the Department of Education not to settle for what is ultimately a very minor cosmetic concession:

ONE SKIRMISH AGAINST ED SCHOOL INDOCTRINATION IS WON

But A Long War Remains, ACTA Notes

WASHINGTON, DC (June 6, 2006)--The recent decision by the primary accreditor of education schools to eliminate sensitivity to "social justice" as a part of its published grading guidelines is a major victory for forces opposed to politicization of the college classroom. The action by NCATE--the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education--comes in the wake of a campaign by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and others opposing "disposition" assessments of prospective teachers as unconstitutional political litmus tests.

"It is indeed fortunate that an agency endorsed by the U.S. government is no longer encouraging universities to meddle with their students' consciences in this way," ACTA president Anne Neal said. "However, the fight is far from over. Huge problems remain in teacher education and education school accreditation."

Neal testified yesterday before the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which makes recommendations to the Secretary of Education regarding the federal certification of accrediting agencies. She recommended that the certification of NCATE not be renewed until it ceased encouraging education schools to judge students' commitment to politicized concepts such as "social justice" and "diversity" via evaluations of their "dispositions." These evaluations came to public attention earlier this year in the wake of controversies at Brooklyn College and Washington State University, where student Ed Swan was nearly expelled for espousing the "wrong" political and religious views.

"The Department of Education should demand clearly defined principles which relate directly to a prospective teacher's future success--namely skills and subject matter knowledge--not feelings, values and 'dispositions,'" Neal said.

At the Committee meeting, NCATE president Arthur Wise announced that his organization was removing the term "social justice" from its materials. However, NCATE materials still contain the word "diversity," which prompted the row at Washington State. Moreover, as outlined in Neal's testimony, many universities' policies have already adopted objectionable language due to the former materials.

"It is remarkably short-sighted to think that eliminating a few words eliminates the problem of education school politicization," Neal said. "As ACTA has been pointing out for years, our education schools are failing our children. NCATE's decision yesterday is a step forward, but only that. ACTA will continue to fight for real reform."

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is a national education nonprofit dedicated to academic freedom, academic quality, and accountability. ACTA has a network of alumni and trustees around the country. One of ACTA's  programs, Trustees for Better Teachers, focuses specifically on the ways trustees can help reform teacher education. ACTA has issued numerous reports on higher education including How Many Ward Churchills?, Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action, The Hollow Core, and Losing America's Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century. For further information, contact ACTA at (202) 467-6787.

Neal's point that many education schools have incorporated NCATE's emphasis on disposition, social justice, and diversity into their own evaluative mechanisms is huge. NCATE's decision to stop mentioning social justice rings a bit hollow when one considers that this does nothing to urge schools themselves to rethink their own policies. As Neal noted in her testimony,

By focusing on dispositions, NCATE is clearly highlighting--if not promoting--adoption of what can be political viewpoint tests for students seeking teacher certification. And that is surely borne out by even a perfunctory examination of accredited education programs where one can find "disposition toward social justice" has taken a firm hold, even though it has never been mandatory.

The Penn State College of Education has as one of its goals "to enhance the continuing commitment of faculty, staff and students to diversity [and] social justice."

In a job description, Penn State Capitol College's School of Behavioral Sciences and Education requires that the position of professor and associate director have a "willingness to advocate for social justice."

Adelphi University's NCATE-accredited Education School states on its website that "Social justice is a core value ... as reflected in the basic social and philosophical courses offered to our students. ... we remain steadfast in engaging students in dialogue about the economic, social, political, gender, and ethnic inequalities that exist in today's society. ... We teach students to challenge the conventional ways of thinking about mathematics, science, history, English, and language arts. ... Students who are imaginative and empowered become teachers keenly aware of the social injustices of our world, willing to explore ways to alleviate those inequalities."

In a professors' syllabus, at Oswego State University, we find the following description: "The School of Education (SOE) at Oswego State University has recently adopted a conceptual framework that includes a commitment to teaching for social justice in order to 'prepare individuals who will continually strive for personal growth and become socially conscious catalysts for change' (SOE, 2000). ... This new initiative is an indication that there are some recognised (sic) sites of social injustices that need to be challenged ...'"

According to the University of Alabama Education School website: the "College of Education is committed to honoring diversity, respecting differences and promoting social justice..."

What does "social justice" mean? According to the University of Alabama's own description: The College of Education is "committed to preparing individuals to promote social justice, to be change agents, and to recognize individual and institutional racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism. ... It includes educating individuals to break silences about these issues, propose solutions, provide leadership, and develop anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-sexist community and alliances."

Excuse me. Have these schools ever heard about reading, writing and 'rithmetic? The privilege of academic freedom and considerable autonomy that the public grants to higher education presumes that academic life will be governed by professional norms of scholarly inquiry and education, not advocacy.

But as these verbatim descriptions show, taxpayer funded ed schools--using the amorphous guidelines of NCATE approved by the U.S. Department of Education--are viewing themselves as activist institutions and are confusing social engineering with their job of preparing the next generation of teachers.

Words to live by, to teach by -- and to make policy by.

Posted by acta online on June 07, 2006 at 02:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Well-disposed

Yesterday the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) announced that it would drop the language of social justice from its description of how prospective teachers' "dispositions" should be evaluated. The decision was a long time in coming -- but as ACTA president Anne Neal notes, it is not enough.

The National Association of Scholars, ACTA, and FIRE have all argued that NCATE violates students' First Amendment rights when it attempts to hold them to a standard that amounts to a political litmus test. KC Johnson has explained in elegant detail exactly how the language of social justice has assimilated and attempted to normalize a series of highly tendentious ideological assumptions. The chilling effect this creates has shown itself in stark relief in cases at Le Moyne College, Brooklyn College, and Washington State, where dispositions requirements have been used both to silence criticism and to persecute prospective teachers whose beliefs were not in line with those the institution expected to be able to impose.

When Arthur Wise, NCATE's president, appeared yesterday before the Education Department's National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, he attempted to defuse criticisms of dispositions theory by pre-emptively announcing that NCATE would no longer use the language of social justice because "the term is susceptible to a variety of definitions." "I categorically deny the assertion that NCATE has a mandatory 'social justice' standard," Wise said. "We don't endorse political and social ideologies. We endorse academic freedom, and we base our standards on knowledge, skills and professional disposition." The Committee then voted to extend NCATE's recognition for another five years and also agreed to expand its accreditory powers to include distance education programs.

FIRE president Greg Lukianoff, who was in Washington yesterday to testify about NCATE's unconstitutional imposition of a political hurdle on new teachers, praised Wise's unexpected remarks: "I applaud what NCATE has done today; it's a step in the right direction." Lukianoff is right -- but ACTA president Anne Neal qualified NCATE's announcement in important ways when she noted that NCATE shouldn't be dealing in disposition assessment at all. Neal told InsideHigherEd that dropping the term "social justice" "will make absolutely no difference" in how NCATE and its affiliates act. "Removing social justice doesn't eliminate the issue of imposing disposition on teacher candidates." Neal is right to warn that NCATE's cosmetic revision of its language does not address the larger problem of dispositions assessment, and that it may in fact simply drive it underground.

Margaret Soltan agrees.

Posted by acta online on June 06, 2006 at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dartmouth alumni association violates own policies

Last year, two dark-horse independent alumni candidates won surprise spots on Dartmouth's board of trustees. Todd Zywicki and Peter Robinson ran on platforms that championed free speech, administrative accountability, and a return to a strong, liberal arts curriculum. Though their victory was hailed as a triumph of democratic process at Dartmouth, this year Dartmouth's alumni association has gone to great lengths to ensure that similar triumphs won't have the chance to occur again.

This spring, Dartmouth's Alumni Governance Task Force revised its constitution in such a way as to ensure that candidates such as Zywicki and Robinson will have a much harder time even getting onto the ballot, let alone getting elected. Now Dartmouth's Association of Alumni is digging itself into an even deeper hole: Its leaders have just announced an arbitrary and unconstitutional decision to postpone the annual elections for their own offices.

ACTA wrote to the alumni association about this problem last week. Today ACTA follows up with a hard-hitting press release:

DARTMOUTH INSIDERS CIRCLE THE WAGONS

Attempt to Block Reforms by Concerned Alumni

HANOVER, N.H. (June 5, 2006)--In defiance of the group's own bylaws, the leaders of Dartmouth College's Association of Alumni have arbitrarily "postponed" the annual elections for their own offices. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) is calling upon the Association to reconsider this deeply troubling decision.

"The Hanover establishment has been searching for months to find ways to prevent more reformers from winning election to the Dartmouth Board of Trustees," said ACTA president Anne D. Neal. "Postponing the election is the latest in their transparent effort to shut out constructive input from concerned alumni."

In a June 1 letter to the president of the Association of Alumni, ACTA called on the Dartmouth group to hold the election as scheduled. This was in response to a May 24 letter from one of the leaders of the Association saying that the group's scheduled October 15 annual meeting and election had been "postponed" until some indefinite time in "the first half of calendar year 2007." The current alumni leaders were elected in October 2005, when they were required to establish when the next election would be held.

The minutes of that meeting show that the next election was set for October 15, 2006. There are no provisions whatsoever in the group's constitution or bylaws for arbitrarily changing the date of the election.

The insiders' decision to "postpone" their own date of accountability to voters is especially striking in light of current events at Dartmouth. A new and highly controversial constitution for alumni governance will be up for an all-alumni vote until October 30. As ACTA and many Dartmouth alumni have noted, some provisions in the new constitution would emasculate the current process for electing trustees by petition.

Three alumni--T.J. Rodgers in 2004 and Todd Zywicki and Peter Robinson in 2005--have recently won election to the Board of Trustees as outsider candidates, all on platforms dedicated to reform, freedom of speech, and greater accountability on the part of the college administration. Their bids by petition drew the staunch opposition of the Dartmouth establishment.

"The powers that be at Dartmouth are trying to make sure that no one can follow in the footsteps of T.J. Rodgers, Todd Zywicki, and Peter Robinson," Neal noted. "The new constitution requires an impossible task: making petition candidates get 250 signatures from other alumni, in 30 days, before the establishment has even said who its candidates are. This is unconscionable."

However, as Neal concluded her letter to the Association of Alumni, "No matter what one thinks of the proposed new constitution, all reasonable people should agree that whatever constitution is in place ought to be honored." ACTA has therefore requested that the Association honor its constitution and bylaws by reinstating the October 15 election immediately.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is a national education nonprofit dedicated to academic freedom, academic quality, and accountability. ACTA has a network of alumni and trustees around the country including those from Dartmouth. ACTA has issued numerous reports on higher education including How Many Ward Churchills?, Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action, The Hollow Core, and Losing America's Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century. For further information, contact ACTA at (202) 467-6787.

Pressure is what will force the Association of Alumni to act. Readers who would like to exert some may obtain contact information for the Association's officers here and for Dartmouth's Board of Trustees here.

For ongoing coverage, see Joe Malchow's Dartblog.

UPDATE: Joe Malchow has more here.

Posted by acta online on June 05, 2006 at 03:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Pope Center weighs in on ACTA report

Writing for the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, George Leef takes up the issue of Ward Churchill, politicized classes, and the resistance of academics to criticism and change:

Many, many courses revolve around the same set of topics: race, class, gender, sexuality, the oppressive nature of capitalism and western civilization, and so on. It seems evident that professors in a wide range of disciplines, all of whom have absorbed the litany of leftist complaints about America during their own educations, have decided that they must act as "change agents" and try to get students to see the world the same way they do. One of the tenets of the leftist thought-world is that everything is political, so it's not surprising to find that courses taught by leftists are saturated with ideology.

If ACTA's researchers had looked at the ACC schools, they would have found examples in this part of the country. Last December, the Pope Center awarded its "Course of the Month" to a pair of sociology courses at North Carolina State where the readings were exclusively far-left and success on the exams required students to regurgitate the views of the writers on multiple choice exams. The courses were preaching, not teaching.

Former Duke University professor Stanley Fish was right on the mark when he wrote in a Chronicle of Higher Education article entitled "Save the World on Your Own Time," "Teachers should teach their subjects. They should not teach peace or war or freedom or obedience or diversity or uniformity or nationalism or antinationalism or any other agenda that might properly be taught by a political leader or a talk-show host." The trouble is that many professors insist on trying to "save the world" by dragooning their students into various "movements."

It isn't an attack on academic freedom for college and university administrators to rein in egregiously political professors by reminding them that their job description calls for them to present the knowledge of academic disciplines to their students, not to harangue them into political or social activism.

Whether the Ward Churchill phenomenon is extremely rare (as some contend) or is widespread should be beside the point. If it's a good rule that professors should just teach their subjects and not devote their classes to political activism or proselytizing, then schools should enforce it.

ACTA suggests that colleges and universities should conduct self-studies "to assess the atmosphere in their classrooms" and review their personnel policies "to ensure that scholarship and teaching - not ideological litmus tests - are the foundation for lifelong job security." That is sound advice, but any president or chancellor who is thinking about taking that step should be forewarned: If you try to take political indoctrination out of the classroom, some of your professors will react just as a 3-year old would if you took away his favorite toy.

It's good to see the message getting out -- and good, too, to see the petulance with which some academics respond to legitimate criticism named for what it is. That behavior is at once symptomatic of the larger problem and indicative of academics' refusal to take seriously their obligations to regulate themselves effectively. As such, it's a form of large-scale professional suicide. You don't defend academic freedom by publicly behaving as though you cannot be trusted with it. But this basic tenet of professionalism does not seem to be as widely held as it should be.

Posted by acta online on June 02, 2006 at 01:34 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Witch hunt at California Institute of Integral Studies

Debates surrounding ACTA's recent report, How Many Ward Churchills?, have turned in part on the question of whether there really is a problem with political bias in the academy. Amassing examples of instances in which such bias is demonstrated--through the defunding of conservative and Christian student groups, or the disinviting of controversial conservative speakers, or the reworking of the curriculum to accommodate the ideology of social justice, or the persecution of conservative students and professors for their speech, and so on--has not been enough to convince some interested observers (many of whom are comfortably ensconced academics who have quite transparent reasons for defending the status quo) that there is a problem. But there is a problem, and it is systemic, and it's just plain nuts to pretend otherwise.

One example of a systemic imposition of left-oriented ideology on an entire university is presently unfolding at the University of Oregon, where the new Diversity Plan amounts to a brief for imposing a highly tendentious multiculturalist vision on every aspect of the university. It includes diversity training at freshmen orientation, regular diversity training for faculty, strong pressure for faculty to incorporate diversity issues into their courses, and a strong overall emphasis on ensuring that every member of the Oregon community becomes "culturally competent" in precisely the ways that the university--in patent disregard for individual conscience, values, and belief--defines that term.

Another example is to be found at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where a student-initiated witch hunt against a professor who assigned an article that offended them has resulted in a university-led investigation of whether this professor has, in assigning the article, committed "institutional racism." FIRE is defending the professor, and has all the hair-raising details.

Both the Oregon and the CIIS case involve institution-wide attempts to impose orthodoxy on faculty and students. In the one case, this is being pursued via a "plan" for how the university may systematically impose both a worldview and an institutional agenda that embodies that view; in the other, it is being pursued via McCarthyesque tactics that, in pandering to aggrieved students (who, it's worth mentioning, took their complaint the CIIS' "Diversity Action Team") and making a scapegoat of a single professor who dared to assign a controversial article, are chilling and censorious in the extreme.

Both schools are sacrificing academic freedom in the attempt to promote their diversity agendas (Oregon is actually imposing a loyalty oath by requiring job candidates to subscribe to its definition of diversity). Both schools are pretending this is not a problem; both schools are wrong. These are issues--and cases--that should concern all academics, even those who are in favor of diversity as an institutional agenda. That agenda is not friendly to academic freedom and self-governance, and even though it emerges from the existing liberal campus culture, it's going to eat that culture alive if faculties don't do something to stop it.

Posted by acta online on June 01, 2006 at 12:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack