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University seeks rare bird: Conservative professor
washingtontimes.com ^ | February 17, 2013 | Valerie Richardson

Posted on 02/18/2013 3:10:08 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper

Coming soon to the University of Colorado at Boulder, what many had assumed was an extinct or at least endangered species: the conservative professor.

The famously left-wing university is on the cusp of selecting a “visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy,” a first-of-its-kind post aimed at embedding a prominent right-wing intellectual on campus as a conservative-in-residence for one or two years.

The idea is to increase intellectual diversity on campus, but the reaction from both sides of the political spectrum has been mixed. While liberals grumble about the wisdom of playing ideological favorites, conservatives worry that the program treats conservative scholars as some sort of exotic “freak show,” said Jon Caldara, president of the free-market Independence Institute in Golden, Colo.

“It’s distressing that a free-market conservative has to become a freak sideshow act at a college,” said Mr. Caldara, a CU graduate who lives in Boulder. “What this says is that it’s so difficult to find real intellectual diversity on a college campus that we have to go out and hunt somebody down.”

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: academia; cu; highereducation

1 posted on 02/18/2013 3:10:18 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
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To: Berlin_Freeper

If they’re looking for conservative professors, they should go poke around their own Business dept. My husband teaches Finance at a university in California, and most of the Business dept. profs are conservative to moderate ... in sharp contrast to the entire rest of the faculty!


2 posted on 02/18/2013 3:16:51 AM PST by Hetty_Fauxvert (FUBO, and the useful idiots you rode in on!)
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To: Berlin_Freeper
Good luck in finding one, if they are in fact serious (which I doubt), since most graduate schools drive out Conservative students long before they ever get close to earning their degrees.

Ultimately, they'll end up hiring a lib professor, who attempts to teach Conservative politics and thought from a left-wing perspective.

3 posted on 02/18/2013 3:18:18 AM PST by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

I’ll give ‘em a bird, and it ain’t too rare.


4 posted on 02/18/2013 3:20:38 AM PST by Safetgiver ( Islam makes barbarism look genteel.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

This is a lying joke and should be denounced as such. A visiting professor is usually on a 1-year appointment, two or three years at most and has no tenure, does not participate in faculty governance and so forth.

Exotic freak is right—they hire someone, seal him off hermetically so he can’t really influence anyone or anything and proudly proclaim how open toward conservatives they are.

No one in his right mind would want this position. So they’ll get someone out of his mind.

Meanwhile, what they should be doing is hiring a mix of conservatives and liberals in tenure-track positions so that the university has true diversity.

But they won’t. Never, ever. They cannot even conceive of the idea. Their imaginations do not expand that far.


5 posted on 02/18/2013 3:28:46 AM PST by Houghton M.
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To: Berlin_Freeper
At least they are identifying that they have a problem. Unfortunately, they completely ignore the reason why they have a problem.
6 posted on 02/18/2013 3:29:58 AM PST by Hoodat ("As for God, His way is perfect" - Psalm 18:30)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

left leaning schools. http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewGroups.asp?type=aca-i

Left leaning professors here http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/IndividualDesc.asp?type=aca

The Worst School in America (Santa Cruz) http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=28053


7 posted on 02/18/2013 3:42:03 AM PST by Haddit
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Wow! A whole whopping ONE conservative professor.

I’m stuned!


8 posted on 02/18/2013 3:55:37 AM PST by Right Wing Assault (Dick Obama is more inexperienced now than he was before he was elected.)
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To: Hetty_Fauxvert

With one exception, all of my Econ professors were liberal, yet they were fair. I had one engineering professor that was liberal. The rest were either apolitical or kept their opinions to themselves. The only conservative professors I had were the one Econ professor who was a former student of Milton Friedman, and a poly sci professor for a freshman course in government.


9 posted on 02/18/2013 3:57:50 AM PST by Hoodat ("As for God, His way is perfect" - Psalm 18:30)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Many professors in the hard sciences, medicine, and engineering are also conservative.


10 posted on 02/18/2013 4:16:21 AM PST by Neoliberalnot (Marxism works well only with the uneducated and the unarmed.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper
“visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy<

does not mean that the new hire will be politically, economically, or socially conservative, only that he studies "conservative thought." I am not so sure that an actual conservative could get past the personal revulsion of the interviewers, much less be in good conscience hired to expose impressionable students to such neanderthal thinking except to educate students about what they must strive to stamp out.pOr perhaps the University feels it needs a realistic target for Protest Training.

11 posted on 02/18/2013 4:22:50 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINE www.fee.org/library/books/economics-in-one-lesson)
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To: arthurus
I thought that the “Conservative Professors Bird” was extinct.
No wonder they are having a hard time finding one.
12 posted on 02/18/2013 4:37:00 AM PST by DaveA37
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To: Berlin_Freeper

The professor had better watch his back. There will be students planted in his class who will listen to every word and look for something they can get him on. They will ask his opinion on gay “marriage” or headchoppers and when he answers sincerely they will pretend to be offended.


13 posted on 02/18/2013 4:47:27 AM PST by I want the USA back
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To: Right Wing Assault

This is typical leftist diversity: 99% liberal and a 1% consrvative is balance - plus the liberals have tenure and they can just fire the conservatives or worse marginalize them.


14 posted on 02/18/2013 5:07:18 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: Hetty_Fauxvert

A professor that teaches finances and knows how to balance s checkbook is conservative. That speaks volumes...lol


15 posted on 02/18/2013 5:32:52 AM PST by jsanders2001
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