One of my former students has been attending freshman orientation at UNC Chapel Hill. He sent me a note yesterday all excited about getting push-polled and to tell me about a couple of offhand comments that the professors leading the discussions threw out there. The students had to read The Namesake, a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, in which the main character's name is an important plot point. Here is what my former student wrote me about that discusson:
Secondly, professor bias anecdotes (and this before classes have started). The first happened during our summer reading discussion. I enjoyed the faculty facilitator; he was enthusiastic and prone to excited outbursts such as declaring us all "flowers in the garden of humanity"....But our discussion about the significance of names began with a viewing of George Allen's "macaca" comment, which prompted the professor to declare "Go to hell George Allen. Makes me think of Nazis."
I know how you love Nazi references.
Then later today, at a Carolina Scholars meeting, a professor mentioned reporters who spoke with his class following the invasion of Iraq. He commended his political restraint and complimented himself for not saying "ill-fated." Both professors made their remarks offhandedly but clearly meaning to be heard.
Just think of a professor who refers to kids as "flowers in the garden of humanity." Blech. And then on the first day of orientation to jump in with the Nazi reference to George Allen. That takes the prize. George Allen has set himself up to be an endless supply of jokes and I guess he deserves it. But the Nazi reference betrays such a lack of perspective that this professor should be forced to go to the Holocaust Museum and learn what the Nazis did.
Then the gratuitous remark about not saying referring to the Iraq war as "ill-fated" is typical liberal self-congratulatory behavior. Look how noble I am by not telling you what I really was thinking while I make sure that you all know what I really think.
Remember, these are professors speaking to freshmen at a state university in North Carolina, a state that went for Bush over Kerry by 12 points. These professors have no idea of these kids' political persuasions, but the likelihood is that a significant segment of the students in that room come from families that supported Bush and are Republican. And, yet totally out of the context of the orientation discussions, these guys had to make such off-topic political statements. They're so sure of their own rectitude that they don't mind just throwing in a comment here and there to share their political views. It would be one thing if they were leading discussions about politics, but these were two totally off-topic comments. At least these orientation workshops didn't involve classes that kids receive grades in. But I can't imagine that professors who say these things on the first day of orientation keep mum all year long in their classrooms.
Can't these guys restrain themselves? I teach about politics every day in my classes and I constantly work to balance every anecdote about one party with one about the other and to seek to have the kids be the ones who are expressing their own political opinions, not me. And y'all know that I have definite political opinions, but I don't need to inflict them on my students. Sometimes, I have to bite my tongue sharply, but I would be so disgusted with myself if my students were going home and telling their families similar anecdotes about me that my former student just wrote me. I know this stuff goes on all the time, but it still really ticks me off. posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:34 PM
