Educational Consumerism vs Academic Freedom

[v***@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com]

Somehow, universities defend their right to offer telekinesic
basketweaving courses and to offer whatever oddities hit the faculty
capricious whims on the grounds of academic freedom. I thought the
minute you take federal money you lose your academic freedom: they are
forcing religious hospitals to do abortions. But with this worker
retraining funding, academia has really gone boondoggle. How many
times have you taken a course, not for credit, and have been
disappointed on what you were taught. They teach what they want, not
what you, the consumer wants. Once this guy was teaching "Financial
Engineering" and he told me he didn't believe in Sharpe's approach,
which is the standard on Wall Street. Somehow, his university billed
the pinko creep as having the most popular "financial engineering"
program. This is why we need to replace degrees with standardised
tests. I have argued repeatedly that when Ivy engineering grad-course
professors give mix-matched old exams for which there exists a black
market, we need to expand the GRE specialised exams (eg bio, eco, psy)
up to the doctoral qualifying level. James warned about this a
century ago in "Ph D Octopus".

Americas Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses - Dec
27th, 2005 - HERNDON, VA As tuition rates climb to an average of over
$21,000 per year, todays college students study prostitution, teeth
whitening, and Beavis and Butthead. The following Dirty Dozen
highlights the most bizarre and troubling instances of leftist
activism supplanting traditional scholarship in our nations colleges
and universities. Princeton Universitys The Cultural Production of
Early Modern Women examines prostitutes, cross-dressing, and same-sex
eroticism in 16th - and 17th - century England, France, Italy and
Spain.. At The John Hopkins University, students in the Sex, Drugs,
and Rock n Roll in Ancient Egypt class view slideshows of women in
ancient Egypt vomiting on each other, having intercourse, and fixing
their hair... Alfred Universitys Nip, Tuck, Perm, Pierce, and Tattoo:
Adventures with Embodied Culture, mostly made up of women, encourages
students to think about the meaning behind teeth whitening, tanning,
shaving, and hair dyeing..

- = -
Vasos-Peter John Panagiotopoulos II, Columbia'81+, Bio$trategist
BachMozart ReaganQuayle EvrytanoKastorian
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
Pataki+JebBush in 2008!

[aeropepe]

If I may offer one question in response to your thoughts, I would ask:
"What, exactly, is wrong with today's academics applying modern thought
to historic and social contexts?" It seems to me, in a time of war,
disease, overpopulation, terrorism, and the like, that perhaps looking
at history and at society through a different lens may help us, as a
world culture, to come to a greater understanding of a planet full of
differing values, opinions, political systems, and so on. Let's take
prostitution, for example, as it is mentioned a couple of times in your
post. When we take the position that it is morally wrong and an offense
against democratic society (as seems to be your assertion), then we
automatically undermine our ability to learn about our culture.
Prostitution, right or wrong, may not be a valued part of our society,
but it is an important part, and dismissing it as a topic that needs no
discussion does more of an injustice to a free society as a whole. You
may call it "leftist activism." I would be more inclined to call it an
attempt to actually seek understanding about a historically taboo topic
from a modern cultural perspective. Thanks for reading.