SMU Endowment

[Ponymon]

NoCal Pony,
Why does your response not surprise given that you represent the People's Republic of Northern California! Can't refute my original thesis that tuition increases are nearly TRIPLE the inflation rate, can you???? There is ABSOLUTELY no justification for this! Everyone's costs are going up, but higher education's are totally out of control.

BTW who owns the NY Times, Wash Post, LA Times, Boston Globe? Most of the print media is DOMINATED by these clowns. Sinclair media is a very Small player in the market. If you dispute bias, I suggest you read this article.

Article Title: "Pie Beta Kappa "
Author:
Section: Issues & Insights
Date: 4/5/2005


It's been a rough couple of weeks for conservative speakers on college campuses. William Kristol, editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard and former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle, was greeted with a pie in the face during a speech at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind.

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter was greeted with demonstrators outside and hecklers inside when she tried to give a speech at the University of Kansas. The demonstrators were led by a 45-year-old Lawrence man dressed as a clown.

And commentator Pat Buchanan cut short an appearance at Western Michigan University when a free speech activist doused him with salad dressing.

We don't recall if anyone has ever thrown a pie at Ward Churchill, the Colorado professor and Cherokee wannabe famous for such non-controversial views as saying the victims of terrorism in the World Trade Center were "little Eichmanns" who had it coming. But Coulter's blasting the nation's judicial system for its handling of the Terri Schiavo case was obviously more than anyone could take.

Open and honest debate on the issues of our times is no longer common these days on American campuses. As we've noted, colleges more closely resemble liberal re-education camps where students are taught what to think, not how to reason.

Voltaire, famous for the statement "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is obviously not high on most collegiate lists of required reading.

The latest round of antics comes just as another study documents the extent of dominance of college faculties by left-wing zealots.

"You would expect the majority of English literature and sociology professors to be liberals," said Robert Lichter, communications professor at George Mason University, "but our survey found that 66% of those in physics and 64% of those in chemistry are liberals."

Lichter, along with political scientists Stanley Rothman of Smith College and Neil Nevitte of the University of Toronto, is the author of a study published in the March issue of the online political journal Forum.

Their findings show that 72% of those teaching at American colleges describe themselves as liberal and only 15% as conservative. And as even The Washington Post and The New York Times noted, the disparity is higher at the so-called elite schools. There, 87% of the faculty are liberal and 13% conservative.

Nor is religion a high priority for many faculty members. Fifty-one percent said they rarely or never attend church or synagogue.

To say that American academia is dominated by liberal secularists is not too far a stretch.

David Horowitz of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture has thoroughly documented campus bias and liberal dominance. He tells of a biology professor at a school in Pennsylvania who took time out to show his class Michael Moore's mock-umentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11."

He also tells of a Spanish professor at Bowling Green State University who reserves 20% of every class for what he calls "political parentheses." This amounts to a tirade against Republicans in general, George Bush in particular, the war in Iraq and virtually anything or anybody to the right of Karl Marx.

Obviously the biology and Spanish professors were not imparting knowledge in subjects they were credentialed to teach. No one knows what the physics and chemistry professors teach these days. Perhaps the value of pie.

[PlanoStang]

I'm not surprised to see Pomona. What is interesting to look at is the student to endowment ratio. Also, alumni to emdowment ratio.

Ponymon, your diatribe against the "socialist media" is sad at best. Most media outlets are hardly "socialist." Do you know anything about Sinclair Broadcasting? Or that NBC, now NBC/Universal is owned by GE? Yea, like GE is a company big into "socialism." Westinghouse owns CBS. ABC is a branch of Disney, which is hardly "socialist." Your statemnts have no grounding and have nothing to add to the points that our endownet ought to look a lot better.

Go Ponies!

I guess Rathergate during the Presidential election was a "vast right wing conspiracy", and the Newsweek bobble in the past week the same. Wake up, and smell the coffee.

[EastStang]

As one who went to SMU in the '70s, I can attest that our faculty (particularly in the humanities) was pretty far to the left of center and that the student body was more conservative as a whole (which of course drove the faculty crazy). Also, it is no secret that many in the hard sciences are not very enamoured with "conservative Christians". They view Christians with contempt and derision concerning creation vs. evolution. They then group themselves with others who are like-minded and wonder why they are tagged as liberals. Even the Perkins School of Theology is viewed as "liberal" by many inside of the United Methodist Church. It is this liberal bias in the faculty which helps feed the slow turn in our sports programs from the ridiculous post death penalty restrictions.

[NavyCrimson]

east', couldn't have said it any better.

i just wish we had a strong administration that would do what's right & do it!

if the faculty doesn't like it, there's a lot of schools that they can go it.

[BUS]

Please remember that the PYE model changed the power structure of this university. The pres. no longer has the control. The power is the Faculty Senate. Think of F.S. as the Supreme Court and that to change it takes time. Turners appointments are much more athletic friendly than the previous occupant.

I know that I will be called out for this post but things are getting better.

Not fast enough for me but better.

[NavyCrimson]

thx for the insight Bus -

anyway they can change it back / this set up is absurd -

especially with 'tenure' in play, there is no accountability or consequences for decisions made -

wow, i wish i could live my life that way!

[originaloverthehilltop1]

no cal pony--don't be so [deleted] ponymon. he recoginizes the irony that while those media outlets you name are profit makers, their editorial policies and advocacy often lean far to the left. kind of like the limousine liberals who want the rest of us to commute to work in epa mandated high milage econoboxes while they go in 8 mpg limos.

[EastStang]

I just got back from a drive up to the northern midwest. It was interesting to see your insights in play in real life. In Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota gas prices were around $1.95-2.03 for regular (hardly conservative states, but farmers rule). In the peoples republic of Wisconsin, it was $2.25. You have to know that difference is gasoline taxes. We also saw a wind energy field in Minnesota subsidized by our taxes.

[NavyCrimson]

oh east /

let me thro in a little here

i just paid $2.45 for cheap-charlie regular at a discount station this AM

[EastStang]

Ouch- Arnold hasn't taken his uzi after those gas prices?

[SWC2010]

If you want to talk about ultra-liberal biased professors, I'll mention Marth Satz from the english department. The first day of class she decribed herself something like a "single Jewish woman raising two adopted biracial children" and it was all down hill from there. Did you know the phone book covers are racist? Pretty much every fairy tale and/or children's book not written in the last 10 years and not summarized something like The great big multi-cultural book of white-male guilt is racist and/or sexist too.

For any students out there - I, like many, feel this woman is truly sexist against male students. Do not take her class unless you want a fight. I would have complained to someone if I thought it would have done any good.

Thanks for the report, Couch.
Perhaps if more come forward with their tales of 'tenured fools' @ SMU, those same Prof's will move to Berkley... or Austin!

[NavyCrimson]

LOL

[DallasDiehard]

If you want to debate this, fine. I might even join in. But not on the FOOTBALL board of PonyFans.com, huh? There are other boards out there for political and theological discussions.

[PK]

If you want to debate this, fine. I might even join in. But not on the FOOTBALL board of PonyFans.com, huh? There are other boards out there for political and theological discussions.

Careful now...you don't want to hurt anyones f...ing feelings.

[NavyCrimson]

LOL - PK

"feelings", that does make me feel all warm & fuzzy inside

thank you for caring