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Media & Public CommentaryQuick Links:
No Amount of Shouting Will
Silence IWF’s (Published in ex femina by The Independent Women’s Forum, April 2002) Free speech is alive and well in America—for some. Stanley Kurtz of National Review has championed two of the IWF’s National Advisory Board members, Christina Hoff Sommers and Candace de Russy, in their battles for free speech. Candace de Russy, a trustee of the State University of New York (SUNY) and fearless supporter of academic standards, recently criticized the African-American Studies department for its lack of real scholarship and its emphasis on "predetermined political conclusions." She suggests mainstreaming the department with traditional departments in order to avoid political bias and grade inflation, and also points out that the views of conservative black scholars are frequently ignored by professors. The faculty and staff union at SUNY responded to her critique by contriving a charge of racism and passing a resolution calling for de Russy’s dismissal. Similar voices have also attempted to silence Christina Hoff Sommers, renowned for her scholarship on and criticism of "gender feminism." In December, Sommers was invited by the Department of Health and Human Services to be a panelist at a conference discussing "Boy Talk," a program sponsored by the Center for Substance Abuse and Prevention (CSAP). In the course of her remarks, Sommers pointed out the absence of scientific evidence supporting gender-power programs such as "Girl Power" (a counterpart to "Boy Talk"). She was immediately cut off by a CSAP official who demanded that she drop the subject. The hostile crowd shouted obscenities at Sommers, forcing her to leave the conference. De Russy’s practical suggestions hardly qualify as racist, and Sommers’ questioning the efficacy of "Girl Power" does not threaten the well-being of young girls—but no matter. Nowadays, any criticism of such programs is met with slander instead of thoughtful debate. Candace de Russy and Christina Hoff Sommers are only two of a long line of free-speech casualties—scholars who have dared to challenge such programs and have been silenced, maligned, and "targeted for retaliation." Kurtz ob-serves that what is most troubling about this is the trend toward "intimidation launched against anyone who dares to demur at the demands of organized minorities." He’s right. (hotflash, published by The Independent Women’s Forum, February, 2002) Free speech in America is alive and well—unless you dare to speak freely about African American Studies. National Review Online’s Stanley Kurtz reports on a "false charge of racism" brought against Candace De Russy, a trustee of the State University of New York (SUNY) and a member of IWF’s National Advisory Board. De Russy recently criticized the African American Studies department for its lack of real scholarship and its emphasis on "predetermined political conclusions." The faculty and staff union at SUNY have responded to her critique in a typical manner—they have contrived a charge of racism and passed a resolution calling for De Russy's dismissal. De Russy contends that the African American Studies curriculum persistently focuses on historical injustices against blacks while failing to accentuate their many accomplishments and triumphs (not to mention the good works done by the rest of America). She does not suggest eliminating the department, but instead mainstreaming it with traditional departments in order to avoid political bias, grade inflation, and the propensity for classroom therapy sessions. She also points out that the views of conservative black scholars are frequently ignored by professors. This hardly seems to qualify as racist—but no matter. In today's touchy Ivory Tower, any criticism of programs such as ethnic and women's studies—which are segregated from the academic curriculum—are met with slander instead of thoughtful debate. De Russy is only one of a line of casualties—brave souls who have dared to challenge such programs and have been labeled racists and "targeted for retaliation" in return. Kurtz is right when he observes that what is most troubling is the trend toward "intimidation launched against anyone who dares to demur at the demands of organized minorities." Click here to read Stanley Kurtz's article. National Association of Scholars February 26,
2002 By Stephen Goode They came from small schools such as Ferrum College in Virginia and Assumption College in Massachusetts and from large schools including Yale and Emory universities. Many were independent scholars. What they all shared was disapproval of the left-liberal culture that dominates American campuses and a hope that this culture might be turned around. The occasion was the 10th National Conference of the National Association of Scholars (NAS), the first following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The theme, "Higher Education and Democracy in Peace and War," sounded fittingly academic and a bit abstract, but the often eloquent talks and sometimes heated discussions were not. For the nearly 300 academics and others who met at the Washington Marriott Hotel in June the questions at hand were serious ones worthy of their best efforts: What is patriotism? What is the responsibility of academics in the war on terrorism? Will our universities and colleges, as NAS Vice President Carol Iannone put it, learn that "the long mental holiday from truth is over" and that, "post-9/11, the old questions of good and evil, of what's noble and ignoble, and what are virtue, honor and self-sacrifice must be addressed." Those words did not fall on deaf ears. NAS set up shop 15 years ago at a small office in Princeton, N.J., in large part the brainchild of Stephen Balch, then a professor at John Jay College of the City University of New York. Insight covered its first national conference at New York City's Roosevelt Hotel in November 1988, and heard there the same unofficial NAS motto it heard at the 10th national conference — when the organization, with its very dedicated staff, has 4,300 dues-paying members nationwide. This slogan, "Resist the Zeitgeist," means "Stand against the times" — particularly when those times mean, as the NAS has claimed for 15 years, an era of sloppy, dishonest scholarship, of loud anti-Americanism and a politically correct attitude on many campuses so aggressive that it happily would suppress all opposition if it could. It is a time, too, when the academic world, according to many at the conference, has weakened higher standards it once set for itself and prefers triviality and self-absorption to the more serious matters once taken up by higher education. "We define this conference as debating 'Is higher education compatible with patriotism,'" quipped Gertrude Himmelfarb, the noted scholar of 19th-century England in introducing the panel discussion she chaired. But "there are some of us who believe a better question is, 'Is higher education today compatible with higher education?'" For Himmelfarb and many others at the meeting no recent event better summed up what defines the current crisis in academia than actress Goldie Hawn delivering the commencement address this year at American University in Washington (see "The College Cats Get Liberal Tongue," June 24). "Listen to the sounds of your own heart, the college of your own heart," Himmelfarb quoted Hawn as saying, then asked: "Is this not a thoroughly narcissistic statement?" Another participant in the conference later summed it up as a statement from "the university of me." Indeed, in his opening remarks NAS founder/President Balch warned about the dangers of political correctness and academic self-absorption in time of war. How educators teach — the spirit in which they communicate — the ideas and information they convey, he said, are of utmost importance. Professors can fortify "the overall health of society" by emphasizing "the heritage of understanding on which ... civil community — in our case a free and democratic society — is based," said Balch. Or they could undermine the health of that society. Sounding a theme taken up by other conference speakers, Balch warned that colleges and universities are not separate from the rest of America and certainly not morally superior to it — a presumption, he noted, held by many academics and conveyed to their students. Balch, who has a doctorate in political science from the University of California at Berkeley, proposed that instead of an attitude of "aristocratic hauteur" toward mainstream society it might be better to adopt an attitude of "republican humility." He declared: "We should fall into rank beside our fellow citizens and contribute with them whatever we can to the enterprise of our republic." According to Balch, "It is through example that we can most appropriately teach the rising young. More than guns, ships and aircraft, the future of democratic civilization depends on it." No one disagreed, least of all Todd Gitlin, probably the most left-wing of the speakers at the conference, who in the 1960s was a president of the radical Students for a Democratic Society — the infamous SDS. Gitlin now is an educator at New York University with the title of professor in the departments of culture and communication, journalism and sociology. This worthy argued that patriotism and higher education, far from being mutually exclusive, "are more than compatible." Their unity is necessary if we are to survive, he said, for "our country needs the best of our hearts and minds." Gitlin even praised conservatives: "It is conservatives who deserve credit for taking ideas seriously over the past 20 years," he noted. He was critical of his fellow leftists, denouncing "the intellectual slovenliness of much of the left" and its isolation from the rest of America. The left, he said, "does not consider that dialogue with conservatives matters — and they are wrong." Gitlin was very critical of universities today. "The shallowness of our academic life! The narrowness of it!" he exclaimed, citing rampant grade inflation and the mass abandonment of foreign-language requirements, regarded as undesirable "speed bumps on the way to get an education." But Gitlin argued that the universities should be allowed to reform themselves. "We don't need police," he said — a claim that surprised critics who wondered aloud how an academy in the terrible condition that Gitlin had described could reform itself. "How to, and How Not to, Study Other Cultures" was another big issue taken up at the conference, and perhaps the most immediately pressing. How do we learn to read other cultures well enough to anticipate terrorist attacks such as those of Sept. 11? How indeed? NAS Chairman Stanley Rothman (see "Picture Profile") pointed out that postmodern "culture studies" are useless because those who do them know the conclusions they want to reach at the outset and teach us nothing. Harvard University's great Russia/Soviet Union expert Richard Pipes warned against errors he believed Americans are very likely to make. One is to assume that human nature is everywhere and always the same. If that is true, Pipes asked, why study other cultures? Second, he said, never assume that "if something is different, it is inferior" because such an assumption will ensure that you're unable to read your opponent's strengths. China expert Arthur Waldron, Lauder Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, also spoke on misreading other cultures. China suffered a catastrophic famine in 1959-61 that was brought on by the excesses of communism, he noted. At least 40 million people died, perhaps as many as 80 million. But the ravages of that particular disaster went largely unremarked in the West because China "experts" in the United States and Europe didn't want to say anything bad about Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese communists or because those "experts" simply didn't have the wherewithal to understand what was happening. The few who interpreted the disaster correctly, Waldron noted, came at it with no ideological bias. They knew the Chinese language thoroughly and were able to detect all of its nuances. Middle East expert Daniel Pipes (the son of Russia expert Richard Pipes) brought up academia's chief current misreading — perhaps in many cases a willful misreading — of another culture. The word jihad means "armed conflict," said Pipes. "It should be understood in a military context." But today most academics describe it in benevolent terms as meaning "self-improvement; becoming a better person." This "is a wholesale distortion of the concept of jihad" and a "corruption that goes to the very heart of the academic enterprise," he said. Such distortion also presents a danger to the United States since Americans are very unlikely to take it seriously if they're convinced it's some kind of course in how to win friends and influence people. At its national conferences NAS bestows awards on scholars whose contributions to higher education it regards as solid, traditional and of outstanding merit. One award this year went to University of Massachusetts at Amherst sociologist Paul Hollander, the author of such classic works as Political Pilgrims and Anti-Americanism. In bestowing the award, NAS President Balch said that it was when he came to the end of his first reading of Political Pilgrims, a book about intellectuals enthralled by communism, that he decided to found the NAS. Other awards went to Norman Fruman of the University of Minnesota and Macalaster College's Jeremiah Reedy. Harvey Mansfield of Harvard University, whose specialty is political thought, got this year's Sidney Hook Memorial Award — and supplied a couple of the conference's most memorable lines: "Diversity is the latest form of liberal permissiveness" and "Trendy people [such as those who pursue diversity and multiculturalism] tend to be weak." He wasn't the only wry commentator in town. Harvard's Richard Pipes wondered aloud, smiling: "I do not know why we can't say our culture is the best in the world!" After all, the Muslims say that about their culture and the Chinese say it, too. "But we in the West cannot." Of course Pipes wouldn't have hesitated to say it, nor would anyone else at the conference, but it was left to another speaker to offer reasons to prove the superiority of Western culture. Barry Smith, Julian Park Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a philosopher, offered this argument in favor of the West: First he noted that we in the West want people to do the right thing of their own free will. We don't want college professors, for example, doing good work under orders from others. We believe they do it better when they do it of their own free will. This shows that we put great value on freedom. Also, it is true that we in the West learned, said Smith, to look upon what people do on Earth to improve our earthly lives as having significance. We believe that we have the freedom to shape our lives into a nontrivial pattern that works and has meaning. As he put it, "You can plan a future which can be shaped by you." These beliefs in the significance of human freedom and in the opportunity of every man and woman to shape the future aren't shared by other civilizations, he argued. They are the West's alone, and that makes all the difference. Smith then offered two conclusions. First, that "the sum total of meaningful lives in the West is greater than elsewhere and is getting larger all the time. Second, that terrorist suicide always has been the product of non-Western societies that place no value on freedom or the ability to shape individual lives. Japanese kamikaze pilots; teen-aged Muslim suicide bombers. "All grew up outside of Western culture," said Smith. What to do about the education of the young to assure in them an understanding of the greatness of Western values and the importance of patriotism? In what may have been the conference's most eloquent speech, Diana J. Schaub, an associate professor and chairwoman of the department of political science at Maryland's Loyola College, urged that the young study the "basic American documents" — the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the nation's laws. Schaub drew the idea from Abraham Lincoln's famous 1838 "Address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Ill.," made when Lincoln himself was only 29. The future president of the United States made this recommendation as a way to teach young people American traditions at a time when the revolutionary fervor of the young nation long had since waned. And in what probably was the feistiest speech of the conference, State University of New York trustee Candace de Russy called for "uprooting the multicultural lie." De Russy described multiculturalism in time of war as "a clear and present danger" and said "we cannot afford to be silent in the face of ... indoctrination in multiculturalism" because it undermines national unity in a time of crisis. She urged Americans to support a national policy that would make "the acquisition of a common sense of nationhood [among all Americans] an urgent priority." Has NAS made a difference in academia? It is difficult to say. The hold the politically correct has on campuses still is strong. NAS members are far more likely to emphasize the difference the organization has made in their own lives than they are to cite changes it's made in academic culture as a whole. "To have NAS around was a shot of mental health for all of us," Evelyn Avery, an En-glish professor at Towson State University in Maryland tells Insight. This magazine had interviewed Avery at the first NAS national conference in 1988 when she had been new to the organization. "To be able to be around a group of like-minded people who share our own ideas has been so very important in all the madness that's passed through academia over the years," she said. What is genuine patriotism? It again was Lincoln who supplied the conference its best answer to that question. Quoting from Lincoln's "Eulogy on Henry Clay," delivered on July 6, 1852, American Enterprise Institute resident fellow Walter Berns caused many a head to nod in agreement. "Whatever he did, he did for the whole country," Lincoln said of Clay. "Feeling, as he did, and as the truth surely is, that the world's best hope depended on continued Union of these States, he was ever jealous of, and watchful for, whatever might have the slightest tendency to separate them." The echoes of that statement, now 150 years old, were clear to everyone present: Academic fads such as multiculturalism and diversity separate Americans from one another as deeply as did the question of slavery, and are as dangerous to the future of the country. Stephen Goode is a senior writer for Insight. The New York Times December 21, 1998, Monday Standards Are a Calling For Bold SUNY Trustee By KAREN W. ARENSON When Candace de Russy taught a course called ''America and Historical Decline'' a few years ago at the New School for Social Research, her favorite author was the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset. She was taken with his lament over the decline of European civilization, the decline of standards and the lack of leadership by the passive elite. She, too, is preoccupied with the decline of standards, but she is anything but passive. She was an architect of the core curriculum that the State University of New York adopted last week. And as a SUNY trustee, she has become one of the most outspoken and powerful voices nationally in reshaping higher education. ''She is willing to walk through fire and take hectoring and ridicule that most people don't have the stomach for,'' said Thomas W. Carroll, president of Change New York, a conservative advocacy group. ''I really can't think of any comparable person around the country, and I've looked.'' To the dismay of critics, who accuse Dr. de Russy (her name is pronounced duh-RUE-see) of micromanaging SUNY and trampling on academic freedom, there is little on SUNY's 64 campuses that escapes her attention. When she found out that a women's studies conference at SUNY New Paltz last year included sessions on sadomasochism and sex toys, for example, she drew national attention to the meeting, calling it ''academically beyond the pale and an irresponsible use of public funds.'' And she has been pressing for a variety of changes at SUNY -- from the adoption of a core curriculum to stronger accountability for college presidents. Not content just to shape SUNY, Dr. de Russy, 55, has reached beyond New York by writing a stream of newspaper articles and delivering speeches at national conferences. ''I do not, to say the least, perceive myself to be the font of all wisdom,'' she said. ''But I was appointed and explicitly exhorted by the Governor to exercise my best judgment in those fiscal and academic matters entrusted to me. I believe that broad, essentially discipline-based general education serves the best interest of students and society.'' ''I believe this to be right,'' she added. ''And I am obliged in my heart and mind to do what is right.'' Such activism is unusual for a college trustee, said Jerry L. Martin, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a conservative interest group of which Dr. de Russy is a member. ''The typical higher education maxim is, 'Don't rock the boat,' '' he said. ''But she's making waves.'' Not everyone is cheering. Assemblyman Edward C. Sullivan, a Democrat of Manhattan who is chairman of the Assembly's higher education committee, said such heavy oversight may hurt SUNY. ''You cannot run a modern university with political appointees harassing the professors as to what and how they teach,'' he said, alluding to her actions against SUNY New Paltz. ''Good professors and administrators will not come if that is allowed.'' Arnold B. Gardner, another SUNY trustee, said Dr. de Russy has provoked discussion, ''but she's done some injury to the reputation of the university by suggesting they never heard of standards before.'' With some 370,000 students on 64 campuses, SUNY is one of the largest public university systems in the country, but none of its campuses has ever had the cachet of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor or the University of California at Berkeley. And under Gov. George E. Pataki, it was ripe for change. Many of Dr. de Russy's fellow board members, also appointed by the Governor, share her views on education, and together they control the 15-member board. While she offers passion and an agenda, Thomas F. Egan, the board chairman, and other trustees provide the political skills to turn ideas into policy. Unlike most of the other trustees whose jobs limit their time, Dr. de Russy has virtually made SUNY a full-time career. She is a Westchester County resident married to Cortes de Russy, a banking executive, and although she said she had considered running for office, she concluded that her family life was more important and said that she was ''more interested in issues than politics.'' She devotes hours to writing articles, book reviews and memos. She is frequently in touch with others focused on education, including reporters, not hesitating to call again and again to make sure she explains her positions thoroughly. ''Others might work 60 to 80 hours a week at a job -- she has this,'' said Mr. Carroll of Change New York. ''This is her passion, and she also has the luxury of time.'' Dr. de Russy is an elegant woman, with a deep, melodious voice, carefully trimmed blond hair and a love for silk scarves and other rich fabrics (she wore a red velvet smoking jacket to last week's board meeting). But she is willing to act tough. When SUNY's provost, Peter D. Salins, failed to complete a survey on core courses last month, she lashed out at him during a meeting. It did not matter that he was usually her ally, or that she supported him for the job. She was impatient to move ahead. ''Peeeterrrr,'' she said, drawing out his name slowly and reprovingly, ''you said you would report to us.'' Dr. de Russy's vision grew out of her own upbringing in Baton Rouge, La. Her father, a city judge, passed on to her his love for the classics. Dr. de Russy recalled listening to the Socratic dialogues on the phonograph. And at St. Mary's Dominican College in New Orleans, her studies were filled with the classics, religion and philosophy. ''I will be forever grateful for the strong liberal arts foundation I was given,'' she said, ''and I want to bring that great advantage to students today.'' After studying Jean Genet at the Sorbonne and earning a doctorate in French literature at Tulane University, she headed north with her husband and began teaching European languages and literature at small Catholic colleges. But she always has been interested in public affairs and causes, from efforts on behalf of Vietnamese boat people and Cuban prisoners to the Westchester branch of Change New York, an anti-tax group. She was an early supporter of Mr. Pataki for governor. As her two children entered school, Dr. de Russy also began writing and speaking on education. She was distressed by what she saw as a lack of educational standards. And she believed that a critical solution was to require rigorous courses that would give students basic knowledge about subjects like history and literature and skills like writing.Five years ago, she was named to the board of Westchester Community College, and in 1995, Governor Pataki promoted her to SUNY's board, where she quickly offered her own agenda. Last week, she delightedly declared victory when the core curriculum was approved by her fellow trustees, and said she hoped that governing boards across the country would take similar action. She also expressed excitement on Friday about the state's new provisions that would allow SUNY to issue charters for autonomous public schools, which she said ''will present SUNY with an exciting opportunity to contribute at the cutting edge to the improvement of K-through-12 education in the state.'' And she was already turning her attention to the issues she said she wanted to press next: grading policies, teacher education, admissions standards and measures of what students have learned. TAPS FOR HIGHER ED REFORM? Abstract:
L egislative leaders yesterday promised to deep-six Gov. Pataki's effort to encourage college students to graduate on time. This is too bad - but it comes as no surprise. State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Rensselaer) had this to say about the plan, which would cut off Tuition Assistance Program grants to students after four years: "We're not going to do that." Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) said pretty much the same thing - which means, in all likelihood, that professional students working their way toward earning a B.A. at around the same time as they qualify for Social Security will continue to get up to $4,125 per year from the state's taxpayers - up to 90 percent of their tuition costs. The governor doesn't believe studying should be a lifetime occupation. He wants to restructure the TAP program to favor full- time students. Instead of paying just 10 percent of their tuition, students would pay 25 percent. The carrot, however, is that if they graduated within four years, the state would refund the 25 percent. A reasonable proposal, one would think. Especially since only 12.6 percent of New York students earn an associate's degree in two years and just 39 percent complete a bachelor's degree in four years. If the governor's plan is approved, it would slice the TAP program by $133 million annually. Sounds like a big chunk, doesn't it? But consider: TAP would still be funded at a rate of $500 million per year, which is nearly twice as much as the next most generous state - Illinois at $280 million - in terms of need-based aid to students. New York would scarcely be "shortchanging" its students. And besides, what are the taxpayers getting for their money? At Hostos Community College in The Bronx just three years ago, recall, students could graduate without being able to speak English. How does that help the New York state economy (or the graduates), pray tell? One of the major reasons businesses avoid locating in New York is its high-cost, substandard education system. But when brave people like CUNY Board of Trustees Vice Chairman Herman Badillo and SUNY Trustee Candace de Russy try to do something about this sorry state of affairs, they get precious little encouragement. Assembly Higher Education Committee Chairman Edward Sullivan (D- Manhattan) says that the TAP proposal reflects Gov. Pataki's "bizarre fascination" with on-time graduation. But the only bizarre aspect of the governor's plan is the opposition it has generated. Where is it written that the taxpayers have an open-ended obligation to support folks who make careers out of being students? DON'T CROSS THE PROFS Abstract:
SUNY trustee Candace de Russy takes her job seriously. For this, she's being branded a neo-racist. Indeed, SUNY's faculty union, the United University Professors, wants de Russy ousted for her criticism of some black studies programs. The union's president says she "embarrasses" the school. And you thought professors stood for academic freedom, intellectual debate and freedom of speech. Silly you. That only applies to those deemed politically correct by . . . professors. Yet trustees, like faculty, must be able to speak, and criticize, freely. Particularly those at public universities. They need to operate independently to assure that the best interests of the institution are pursued. So what horrible, "racist" thing did de Russy say? She charged that black studies have "become therapeutic in nature, and the goal [has become] consciousness-raising as opposed to conveying solid scholarship." In other words, black studies programs tend to focus on blacks' historical roles as "victims" in a racist nation. She also told Newsday that "black studies and other area studies should not be so biased as to ignore, or negate the very vast positive cultural legacy of the United States and the West" - as they too often do. It's a legitimate point - worthy, at the very least, of debate. The fact is, black studies programs - and their professors - vary in quality. Harvard has a generally well-respected program led by Henry Louis Gates. On the other hand, City College's program provided a platform for the hateful cosmologies of pretend-professor Leonard Jeffries. De Russy feels that there is room for constructive criticism at SUNY. And that it is her right - indeed, her duty - to criticize what she sees as weaknesses in the curriculum. Without being tarred a racist. She's right, of course. De Russy, by the way, has a record of speaking up - and it has nothing to do with racism. She voted three years ago to mandate a "core curriculum," limiting the number of electives a student might take. And she's been outspoken about women's programs as well. She took on SUNY/New Paltz, for example, for its women's studies conference, "Revolting Behavior: The Challenges of Women's Sexual Freedom." The conference featured simulated sex acts, sadomasochistic images and various sex devices - with children present. De Russy insisted this wasn't appropriate material for a publicly funded institution of higher learning. She was the first to call for the resignation of SUNY/New Paltz's president, Roger Bowen. Bowen took a hike last year. De Russy is doing her job - forcing SUNY to examine itself and its programs. That's a good thing. How ironic that an academic elite that always screams about the need for intellectual freedom won't tolerate any criticism of its own practices. SUNY'S FACULTY HATES STANDARDS Abstract:
Leaders of SUNY's faculty are up in arms, demanding that their colleagues sign a declaration of "no confidence" in SUNY's board. The trustees' crime? Adopting a mandatory core curriculum that would enable SUNY students to "acquire knowledge and skills that are useful and important for all educated persons, regardless of their profession." Horrors. Actually, the resolution says a great deal about why New Yorkers should be less than confident of SUNY's faculty. It also suggests strongly that Gov. Pataki's appointees to the board of trustees are on the right track. The two-page document, which reportedly has been adopted by faculty senates on more than half of SUNY's 34 campuses, has ulterior motives. With its complaints about funding and the system's move to remove teaching hospitals from its jurisdiction, it sounds like a lot of union posturing on the eve of new contract negotiations. But its most significant clauses attack the trustees' "dysfunctional and destructive actions" on the core curriculum - by alle-gedly "allowing ideological views to dictate the academic direction of the University." By "ideology," the faculty senate means the trustees' emphasis on basic academic skills in such fields as math, science, writing, American history and Western civilization. It seems these zealous guardians of academic standards prefer such "non-ideological" endeavors as "Revolting Behavior," the debauched and anti-Semitic radical-feminist symposium sponsored by SUNY-New Paltz. The faculty members are also complaining that they weren't consulted on the makeup of the core curriculum. Actually, they were - and the trustees, in their wisdom, chose not to accept the faculty's suggestions. Meanwhile, SUNY's reputation is on the rise: Freshman enrollment is at a four-year high and funding is up an average of 4.3 percent at each of its campuses. The trustees vow to continue focusing on what trustee Candace de Russy calls their primary task: "raising academic standards and ensuring accountability for the citizens of New York." For that, they deserve a rousing vote of confidence. SUNY: LET US TEACH CITY'S
TEACHERS Abstract:
ALBANY - The State University of New York is moving to create a special urban teacher-preparation center aimed at the needs of New York City, The Post has learned. "The hope is [the center will be] a laboratory for enhancing the effectiveness of teacher preparation for urban schools," said trustee Candace de Russy, chairwoman of SUNY's academic standards committee. She said it will "promote increased service to the urban schools by SUNY." Most teachers trained by SUNY find work upstate, in suburban school districts or out of state. Most New York City teachers are trained in the CUNY system. The system doesn't produce enough teachers - the Board of Education is struggling to fill teaching jobs. Under the SUNY proposal, teachers would no longer major simply in education programs that often focus more on teaching techniques. Instead, prospective high-school teachers would have to concentrate on the field they plan to make their specialty, such as history, math or science. Elementary-school teachers would concentrate on traditional subjects, such as math and English. Most of their teaching credentials would be earned in graduate school. De Russy said grade-school students are "very much lacking in the basics," and added, "Teachers involved should be well-grounded in the subject matter they will teach these students." Ron Davis, spokesman for the city teachers union, said the proposal "sounds like a great idea." But Assembly Higher Education Committee Chairman Ed Sullivan questioned SUNY's expertise in urban education. "What urban schools need are more money and smaller classes," Sullivan said. "I don't know what SUNY will do that is so different." The plan is part of an overall strategy by SUNY to revamp how its teaching colleges, which service 6,000 students on 16 campuses, operate. SUNY would also hold its 16 teaching colleges more accountable for how their graduates perform once in the classrooms, she said. De Russy said it hasn't yet been determined where the center would be located, or when it would become operational. A PLUS FOR CITY SCHOOLS Abstract:
Score one for the State University of New York - and the public- school children of New York City. Tuesday, Candace de Russy, a SUNY trustee and chairwoman of that body's academic standards committee, announced plans to create an urban teacher-preparation center, specifically focused on training teachers for service in the city's public schools. And not a moment too soon. Will an urban-teacher preparation center solve all of the problems facing the NYC public-school system? Of course not. Miracles are in short supply these days. The bulk of the city's public-school teachers come from the City University system - which, for all its recent progress, isn't putting up wholly encouraging numbers. So why not call on SUNY? Ed Sullivan, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee (and ventriloquist's dummy for the public-school unions) says: "What urban schools need are more money and smaller classes." Thank you, Randi Weingarten. Actually, this school-improvement strategy has been in place for some time now. Funding for New York City's public schools rose 37 percent over the last four years to a projected $13 billion in 2001. As for Sullivan's other argument, in that same four-year timespan, student-to-teacher ratio has dropped 15 percent, from 13.4-to-1 to 11.4-to-1. But reading scores have increased only marginally. Time for a new tack? The de Russy plan may not solve the problem, but it won't do any harm. FREE SPEECH FOR THE LEFT AT
COLUMBIA Abstract:
'Tolerance" and "diversity" may be the watchwords of Columbia University, as they are for most of the rest of American academia these days - but only up to a point. This much became clear on Saturday, as Columbia demonstrated that tolerance for diversity has limits after all - when it comes to conservative viewpoints. Accuracy in Academia, a Washington-based organization that seeks to ensure that conservative views are heard on the nation's campuses, had arranged with Columbia's administration to hold a conference in Faculty House on its campus. The organization had paid Columbia's fee. Last Friday night, the conference opened with a talk by Ward Connerly, who led the effort to pass the anti-quota California Civil Rights Initiative in 1996. Connerly, who is black, is a unique hate figure on the political left and they showed up outside to demonstrate (loudly, but peacefully) against his presence. That was apparently enough to rattle Columbia, however, which restricted the next day's activities to an outdoor area in Morningside Park. Speakers were forced to address the assembled crowd in the cold without benefit of sound equipment. Dozens of members of the local Loony Left showed up to heckle and shout them down. The speakers included SUNY trustee Candace De Russy, U.S. News and World Report columnist John Leo and Dinesh D'Souza, best-selling author of "The End of Racism." Though the speakers and attendees gamely carried on, there was no question that Saturday was one of Columbia's sadder days. Would a greater effort have been made to protect their rights if had it been left/liberals under threat? The university, by its conduct, ended up making the conference organizers' point for them. Sad to say. October 23, 2000, Monday METROPOLITAN DESK After Charter School, Charter College? By KAREN W. ARENSON (NYT) 854 words With charter schools -- public schools managed by private entities -- firmly established and multiplying, some of their advocates are floating a new idea: charter colleges. The aim, they say, is to free public colleges from excess regulation and to encourage innovation. Although officials in Massachusetts, Virginia and Colorado who have weighed the idea have encountered opposition, some conservative groups -- including the National Association of Scholars and the Empire Foundation -- are calling on New York to apply the concept to the State University of New York and the City University of New York. ''Based on experience with charter schools, I strongly believe that a move toward charter colleges would unleash academic and administrative innovation and boost educational quality,'' said Thomas W. Carroll, president of the Empire Foundation and of Change-New York, a conservative advocacy group that backed Gov. George E. Pataki. More than 140 people, including presidents of a number of SUNY and CUNY campuses and some trustees and administrators, have signed up to attend a forum on charter colleges the foundation is sponsoring today at the University Club in New York City. How charter colleges might operate is unclear, since there are no formal proposals yet. But if they operated like charter schools, they would receive public money but hire their own managers, determine their own curriculums and even set their own faculty contracts, possibly abandoning tenure. The example cited most often as evidence that charter colleges can work is St. Mary's College in Maryland, a small, public, honors college that operates separately from the University of Maryland. Robert O. Berdahl, a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland College of Education who has studied St. Mary's, says part of what has allowed it to work is its small size, its specialized mission and its strong leadership. But, he cautions in a chapter in ''Seeking Excellence Through Independence: Liberating Colleges and Universities from Excessive Regulation,'' by Terrence J. MacTaggart & Associates (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998), the approach may not work everywhere. Still, charter college proponents like Stephen H. Balch, president of the National Association of Scholars, would like to try the concept on some other campuses. Mr. Balch, who will speak in favor of charter colleges at the forum today, suggests groups of faculty members at SUNY or CUNY could be granted charters to offer programs like teacher education or a more rigorous liberal arts curriculum, and be permitted to use existing college facilities while remaining outside of those colleges administratively. ''They would get a share of the college's budget and facilities based on their success in drawing students,'' Mr. Balch said. ''We wouldn't have to make any new capital expenditures here. As an experiment, it is something worth trying.'' Thomas F. Egan, SUNY's chairman, said he might be interested. While SUNY's trustees have made some progress in increasing administrative autonomy and accountability for their campuses, he said, charter colleges may help further those goals. Candace de Russy, a SUNY trustee who heads the academic affairs committee, also favors the idea. But the idea is alarming to some administrators and professors at CUNY. Both CUNY's chancellor, Matthew Goldstein, and its chairman, Herman Badillo, rejected the idea of charter colleges for CUNY. ''I understand the need for accountability, and we've been setting up procedures for greater accountability,'' said Mr. Badillo, who has been sympathetic to other proposals put forward by conservative interest groups. ''At least at City University, I don't think the idea of charter colleges is in any way relevant.'' CUNY's faculty and staff union also opposes the concept, which it says is a way to privatize public education, subvert public control, limit public investment and end tenure. ''At one level, this proposal is pure union busting,'' said Barbara Bowen, the president of the union, the Professional Staff Congress. And Assemblyman Edward C. Sullivan of Manhattan, who is chairman of the Assembly's higher education committee, called charter colleges ''a crazy idea'' offered by people who want to cut taxes and shrink government. ''If they want to start a new college, who's stopping them?'' he asked. ''What they want to do is steal a college.'' Some education analysts say higher education already offers far more variety than primary and secondary systems where charter schools are now operating. ''The rationale given for charter schools was to increase choice,'' said Carl Carlucci, an expert on higher education policy and a former CUNY and SUNY professor and administrator who is serving as first deputy comptroller for New York State. ''But higher education in New York does not suffer from a lack of choice.'' Even the governor's office seemed to be distancing itself. A spokesman for Mr. Pataki said no one from his administration planned to attend the forum. ''Governor Pataki believes that New York has the finest public and private institutions of higher education in the United States,'' said the spokesman, Joseph Conway. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company REVIEW & OUTLOOK (Editorial) For years now the trustees of many colleges and universities have rolled over as academics and administrators within the institutions they're supposed to govern have run amok. While trustees turn a blind eye, faculty and administrators have politicized and dumbed down the curriculum, instituted draconian speech and sexual-conduct codes that they've then enforced with all the liberalism of the Court of the Star Chamber, and instituted an immoral and often unconstitutional system of admissions apartheid. As Linda Chavez noted on this page last week, a black applicant to the University of Michigan is 174 times more likely to be admitted than a white applicant with identical grades and test scores. Some people have tried to reverse the trend. University of California regent Ward Connerly led successful drives to end race-based admissions in California and Washington. And Yale alumnus Lee Bass withdrew a $20 million grant for the endowment of a concentrated program in Western Civilization -- a gift Yale had accepted with much fanfare but then somehow never got around to producing. Unable to fathom what had happened to the program and the money, unable to get answers from Yale administrators over a lengthy period of time, Mr. Bass decided to revoke his gift and move on. Now comes the anti-backlash backlash. Exhibit One is the innocuous sounding Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges' (www.agb.org) and its draft statement decrying "External Influences." The AGB, whose members include some 1,150 public and private institutions, is the academic establishment. An even better way to describe it would be as the establishment organ of college presidents, who often sign up their schools and leave their trustees largely unaware of AGB's existence. Not surprisingly, college presidents aren't too happy about anyone, trustees included, taking too active an oversight role. Excessive political influence, especially at public institutions, may sometimes be a real danger, as AGB President Richard T. Ingram tells us. But we can't quite concur with Mr. Ingram when he says of Ward Connerly's work: "An academic institution really should control its admissions policies; if that becomes a political decision mandated by state law then we're on very dangerous footing." Or that in cases such as the Bass grant fiasco, it's fine for alumni to make their concerns known but not fair of them to "play hardball" or act in "very irresponsible ways." If there was irresponsibility in that case, we'd say it was with Yale President Richard Levin and the members of the Yale Corporation, who didn't allow any physical copies of their report on the matter to leave the room in which it was discussed. Nope, nothing to hide there. In fact, although the AGB statement ostensibly is aimed at protecting the rights of trustees to vote their consciences, a closer reading suggests it's more about shielding them and the schools they govern from any public accountability at all -- at least when they hold the "right" views. Mr. Connerly, of whose work some within AGB seem to disapprove, is, after all, a trustee. Jerry Martin, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, calls the AGB statement "a bunch of gobbledygook . . . intellectually dishonest . . . they won't come out and say what they really mean, and that's because it wouldn't sound so good. What they're trying to do is to protect universities from real oversight." Mr. Connerly adds that "one of the main problems facing American higher education is that the fiduciaries are often nothing more than a rubber stamp for the administrators." State University of New York trustee Candace de Russy , another advocate of active trusteeship, also agrees. Rather than defending some abstract notion of independence, AGB "should instead be explaining trustees' statutory responsibility to protect their institutions." So to those who want reform in higher education, we say turn up the heat. Maybe then we'll get more trustees who take seriously the responsibility with which they've been entrusted and fewer of the rubber-stamp kind who see the job merely as a good line on their resumes. Meanwhile, interested folks might log on and go to the trouble of slogging through the AGB statement. It's still accepting comment. (See related letter: "Letters to the Editor: Trustees Must Protect Their Universities" -- WSJ March 6, 2001) Copyright © 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Candace de Russy, Ph. D.
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