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Baruch disses freshman academic freedom

Baruch College, like many colleges in this country, builds a mandatory reading assignment into its freshman orientation activities. The idea is that all incoming freshmen will read a particular book the summer before coming to college, and that discussion of the book will form a major part of orientation and even, at some schools, of the first-year collegiate experience. The rationale is one of intellectual community; such assignments are becoming ever more common because, in an era of high attrition on the one hand and intense competition for students on the other, schools imagine that staging students' inaugural academic encounter offers a way to establish a warm but rigorous intellectual tone for the coming four years.

Such reading assignments have come under fire in recent years; in 2002, the University of North Carolina assigned Michael Sells' Approaching the Qu'ran: The Early Revelations--and got sued for its trouble. The following year, UNC assigned Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed--and again found itself in the midst of a scandal about the overtly lefty choices it was making in its decisions about how to introduce freshmen to college-level discourse. The basic take-away lesson for observers of UNC's unhappy experiences with its freshman reading program was that schools should be aware that the choices they make in these programs really do send a strong message and set a strong tone, and that schools should therefore be wary of continually choosing books that present the same basic perspective from one year to the next; the more nuanced take-away lesson was that while schools should not shy away from assigning controversial and even polemical readings, they should work hard to ensure that the handling of those readings by discussion leaders is fair and balanced.

Baruch College appears not to have taken this particular message on board. Yesterday's press release from ACTA explains:

BARUCH COLLEGE FRESHMEN FIND INDOCTRINATION, NOT ORIENTATION

NEW YORK, (August 30, 2006)--As first-year students arrive this week at Baruch College, they are getting their first lesson--in indoctrination, not orientation. Baruch's mandatory freshman reading program leaves them little room to disagree with the views of an author who claims the United States is "addicted to war." Baruch's president has ignored the request of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni to address the problem.

"Freshmen at Baruch are not getting what they deserve," noted ACTA president Anne D. Neal. "In their very first assignment, instead of teaching them how to think, Baruch is telling them what to think."

This year, all freshmen at Baruch are required to read the book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. The book's author, Chris Hedges, claims that the United States is "addicted to war." On an official website, Baruch supplies questions on which it encourages students and faculty to base their reading and discussion. Many include politicized statements and then call on students to explain why they agree--without giving them any chance to differ.

One weighted question, for example, asks students to describe what "distortions in our democracy have already taken place" since 9/11, requiring students to accept as settled truth that such "distortions" have occurred.

Another notes Hedges' discussion of humility and compassion. Students are then directed to list ways America has "moved away from these virtues in the past decade."

"It is standard procedure for professors to present a thought-provoking view in a question and then ask students to agree or disagree," Neal said. "But these questions leave students no room to disagree. The picture they paint of Baruch's freshman reading program is a troubling one indeed."

After receiving an inquiry from a concerned alumnus, ACTA wrote privately to Baruch president Kathleen M. Waldron on August 17, asking her to take immediate action to address these concerns. She has not responded, and the questions are still posted online.

As ACTA's letter points out, Baruch's use of such one-sided questions ignores its students' academic freedom. The American Association of University Professors' 1915 "Declaration of Principles" warns faculty against "taking unfair advantage of the student's immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher's own opinions before the student has had an opportunity fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters in question, and before he has sufficient knowledge and ripeness of judgment to be entitled to form any definitive opinion of his own."

"The AAUP's statement surely was written with college freshmen in mind," Neal concluded. "We hope Baruch will remember that academic freedom is not only a right, but also a responsibility."

Citing its report Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action, ACTA urged Baruch to live up to its academic obligations by taking a number of steps such as:

--A self-study of the political environment in the classroom;
--A public call for more balance in panels and lecture series;
--Review of hiring and promotion practices to ensure that quality of research and teaching--not ideological litmus tests--are the criteria for job security; and
--Inclusion of intellectual diversity concerns in faculty teaching guidelines and student course evaluation forms.

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 trustees and alumni around the country, including those from the City University of New York. ACTA has issued numerous reports on higher education including A Failure to Set High Standards: CUNY's General Education Requirements, 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.

Perhaps publicity will do what a polite, private appeal would not.

UPDATE: Baruch has silently altered its study questions. Sometimes victories are very quiet--but they are victories nonetheless.

Posted by acta online at August 31, 2006 08:49 AM

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