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The “Power” Elite
KimDuToit.com ^ | 7/09/2008 | Kim Du Toit

Posted on 07/11/2008 4:59:04 AM PDT by Oyarsa

The required reading for today’s class is, first, William Deresiewicz’s article about the transformation of our elite universities into high-priced trade schools:

Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers.

Next, you should read Mary Grabar’s bleak article about how the college curriculum itself is becoming less academic, and more like an Oprah Winfrey show:

Oprah is us. Course offerings on Oprah appear in college catalogs, while those on Milton disappear.

When you’re done with both, have swept up the broken glass and china, and repaired the bullet-holes in the walls, come back here and read the rest.

(Excerpt) Read more at kimdutoit.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: academia; college; education; highereducation; newbie

1 posted on 07/11/2008 4:59:04 AM PDT by Oyarsa
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To: Oyarsa
Masters Soros, Pickens, and Buffett are very old, so who's going to run their crude oil enriched empires after they leave us?
2 posted on 07/11/2008 5:09:58 AM PDT by kcm.org (I was paying $0.99/gal before dims stole Congress!!!)
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To: Oyarsa
My university no longer even has a regular history course on the Revolution/Constitution era; I "get" to teach Civil War History only in summer school, but we haven't taught Age of Jefferson/Jackson in a decade.

Environmental history, however, is taught every semester, as is womens' history, African-American history, and labor history.

3 posted on 07/11/2008 5:11:34 AM PDT by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of News)
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To: kcm.org

Absolutely— and very relevant to today’s headlines, these elite schools breed an elite of persons who get “second chances” and can’t be blamed for the wrongs they commit—he cites Ken Lay, Scooter Libby, Al Gore, John Kerry, etc., but I think the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mess falls squarely in this matrix...


4 posted on 07/11/2008 5:16:50 AM PDT by browniexyz
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To: Oyarsa

I knew it was over for GWU when they changed the Sports department to the Human Kinetics and Leisure Studies department.


5 posted on 07/11/2008 5:19:01 AM PDT by Thrownatbirth (.....Iraq Invasion fan since '91.)
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To: Oyarsa

Two very important steps toward integrating solialism/communism into any society is control of the media and the universities.

This has already been accomplished and our elementary schools are well on the path to a next step...indoctrination of the young...

America...I’m gonna miss ye.....


6 posted on 07/11/2008 5:21:57 AM PDT by Boonie
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To: Oyarsa
From the article:

We should not be surprised, therefore, when a young, inexperienced Presidential candidate uses as his platform a vacuous belief in soft, unattainable (and unprovable) concepts such as “hope” and “change”. We should likewise be unsurprised when this vacuity finds strong support from a bloc of youthful idealists who have been schooled only in similar terms, as well as the intellectually-lazy older group of voters who believe that Oprah Winfrey has actually contributed anything of value to the social and political worlds.

There ya have it.

C.S. Lewis was right (as I'm sure you of all people know).

7 posted on 07/11/2008 5:22:29 AM PDT by AnAmericanMother (Ministrix of Ye Chase, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment))
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To: LS

It is much easier to control an illiterate society than an educated society.....


8 posted on 07/11/2008 5:23:17 AM PDT by Boonie
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To: LS

What’s your U?


9 posted on 07/11/2008 6:03:08 AM PDT by Mrs.Z ("...you're a Democrat. You're expected to complain and offer no solutions." Denny Crane)
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To: LS

that’s it. you nailed it.

when the new left demanded in the late 1960s that universities relax their curriculum requirements, the fuzzy stuff began to replace the serious courses.

the college of arts and sciences requirements were rigorous once.

math, science, disciplined english and history, latin, greek, etc sidelined.

i had friends that were taking old church slavonic, others sanskrit, and i took egyptian hieroglyphics, coptic, hieratic, demotic, and classical greek as an undergrad. we worked into the late morning hours.

most of these courses are gone now, and their stead the touchy-feely stuff and environmentalism.

oh yes, and feminism—the oppressed people. not to forget the new racism courses, sorry.


10 posted on 07/11/2008 6:42:32 AM PDT by ken21 ( people die + you never hear from them again.)
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