ACTA's Must-Reads
« Gone fishing | Main | Sending in the bill »
Where there's smoke ...
As the Missouri state legislature prepares to vote on HB 213, Missouri State University has released a report that underlines the need for it. HB 213 would require Missouri's public universities to make a public accounting of the steps they are taking to ensure that intellectual diversity is encouraged and respected on campus -- it's a means of compelling schools to pay closer attention to a long-neglected issue while at the same time affording them freedom to determine how they define intellectual diversity, how they measure it, and how they assess it. Opponents of HB 213 have argued that there is no need for it because there is no problem; when confronted with the case of Emily Brooker, the Missouri State social work student who was first compelled to write a letter to the state legislature supporting gay adoption and then disciplined for refusing to sign it, HB 213 opponents suggest that this is an isolated case, and that there is no need for the state to become involved in the operations of the state university system.
To its great credit, Missouri State is itself putting an end to that argument. In a remarkably good faith gesture of public accountability, MSU not only commissioned an external audit of its social work program, but released the results.
"It is as negative a review of an academic program as I have ever seen, and I have been involved in University accreditation activities for more than 20 years as a site visitor for the American Psychological Association, an accreditation consultant, a commissioner of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and a reviewer for the Higher Learning Commission," MSU president Mike Nietzel writes. "As much as I am embarrassed by the report, I have decided it must be made public. The perceived problems in Social Work are too numerous and too serious to hide or diminish. I believe we owe it to ourselves and to our students to let the sun shine on what is very tempting to keep under the rug."
The News-Leader has the details:
Missouri State University's social work program could be terminated as a result of an external report that found the program operating in a "toxic environment" that includes bullying students, bias against them based on their faith and an incredible lack of faculty productivity.
MSU President Mike Nietzel issued that warning Thursday after he released a blistering external review of the program that found it had a "long history of inner conflict and dysfunction."
He called the report, conducted by Karen Sowers, dean of the College of Social Work at the University of Tennessee, and Michael Patchner, dean of the School of Social Work at Indiana University, "as negative a review of an academic program as I have ever seen."
The social work faculty has until May 1 to come up with a workable plan for restoring integrity to the program. If it can't, it faces dismantling.
Among other things, the report notes that the social work program tends to coerce students into accepting a particular belief system, discriminates against religious students, and misleads students in a range of ways. The report also found that the faculty are unproductive, meddlesome, and, in some cases, given to bullying. The report's final assessment is chilliing: "Neither of the reviewers have ever witnessed such a negative, hostile and mean work environment."
Currently, MSU is considering several stopgap measures, including postponing the social work program's accreditation review (which Nietzel acknowledges the program could not currently pass) and freezing tenure cases and hiring.
There should be no doubt now that Emily Brooker's case was hardly isolated; it was, in fact, symptomatic of larger systemic problems that had gone unacknowledged and unchecked to the point of doing enormous damage both to the educational experience of students and to the credibility of MSU.
It should be a wakeup call to the state legislature that the present system is not working and that something needs to be done.
Posted by acta online at April 7, 2007 10:58 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.goactablog.org/blog/mt-tb.cgi/330
Comments
Missouri is a good example of why I'm unenthusiastic about "intellectual diversity" legislation. University of Missouri appears to have gone hog wild over "Diversity". Instead of DOING something about this trend, which will have a real impact on MU, the legislature is goofing around with an "intellectual diversity" bill which will likely have little impact, but has a real potential for great mischief.
I watch in my state where the same dynamics is playing out. The Republicans -- forget the Democrats -- are feckless at stopping rampant "Diversity" schemes in the public universities here. Instead, they are making a quixotic attempt to pass an "intellectual diversity" bill. I guess it gives them something to feel good about.
Posted by: Mike at April 10, 2007 10:06 AM