ACTA's Must-Reads
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Truth in advertising
ACTA's 2005 report Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action makes a number of common-sense, easy-to-implement suggestions for how colleges and universities can guarantee the free exchange of ideas on campus. Praised for how it balances respect for academic freedom against institutional responsibility to cultivate a genuinely open intellectual climate where a range of ideas can be aired and explored, ACTA's report is beginning to have a decisively positive impact.
Professors at South Dakota's public institutions, for example, must now notify students on syllabi that their "academic performance may be evaluated solely on an academic basis, not on opinions or conduct in matters unrelated to academic standards." This is in line with the suggestion in ACTA's report that universities "[i]nclude intellectual diversity concerns in university guidelines on teaching." Also of note, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives has asked the state's public universities to provide a report next year on the actions they have taken to guarantee the free exchange of ideas. This is precisely the idea behind the "sunlight" bills on intellectual diversity that legislators have introduced in states across the country. Both these positive developments occurred in late 2006.
Fast forward to the present, and there's even more good news to report. First, the City University of New York is taking ACTA's suggestion that schools should "seek a commitment to intellectual diversity" when hiring. Currently looking for a dean of science, CUNY notes that applicants "should be responsive to the needs of faculty and the diverse student body, and committed to cultural and intellectual diversity" (emphasis added). It's just a little change in wording--many academic job descriptions already contain language about how candidates should demonstrate a commitment to diversity, and this one simply adds a short phrase to that. But that little change in wording is also a huge philosophical and professional gesture. It marks an institutional recognition that diversity is not simply or even most importantly something that emerges from one's background. It's also something that transcends those categories, that rests in the realm of ideas, that recognizes the freedom of individuals to think for themselves, and that is essential for a healthy educational environment.
And there's more. One of the states in which an intellectual diversity bill was introduced--asking, once again, merely for a simple annual report on what the public universities are doing to ensure a vibrant marketplace of ideas--is seeing some positive results. This state is Missouri, where the University of Missouri system administrators have just announced a series of reforms. The folks who deserve the credit make up the University of Missouri Board of Curators--which has insisted that the campuses it oversees do what's right whether the legislature mandates it or not. And they've taken this step for good reason: In a poll commissioned by ACTA, 51 percent of the students surveyed at the state's two largest public campuses said they felt pressure to agree with professors' political or social views in order to get a good grade.
Missouri is doing South Dakota one better, putting statements on course syllabi and also establishing a new Web-based database where students can express concerns. The campuses have each designated an ombudsman to handle the complaints, and an annual report will also be compiled. As curator David Wasinger told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, this is a "great start"--one that meshes with several of the suggestions in ACTA's report.
Posted by acta online on October 09, 2007 at October 9, 2007 01:02 PM
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