ACLU zeal misguided on UNR GPA
The American Civil Liberties Union may be the greatest organization in America. It fights for the civil rights of individuals and groups it detests as well as those it lauds. Conservatives are just as important to the ACLU as liberals when in comes to civil liberties.
It backed the right of the American Nazi Party to march in the heavily Jewish city of Skokie, Ill., in 1979. For defending that rancid group, the ACLU lost 60,000 members--many of them outraged Jews--and $500,000.
But sometimes the ACLU carries its noble civil liberties battles out the window, abandoning even a semblance of common sense. Example: its support for the Supreme Court doctrine that money is speech. Example: its support for commercial speech like tobacco advertising whose products kill 450,000 Americans annually.
The ACLU of Nevada also goes too far by urging a delay in the proposed increase in the admission standard for the University of Nevada, Reno. (The Board of Regents has mandated an increase from 2.75 to 3.0 [B] for admission next fall.)
The ACLU motives are pure. It is fearful that the higher standard would reduce black and Latino enrollment. Possibly true. But the ACLU forgets that a university is an elitist institution. It is based on meritocracy.
University education is not an entitlement. Nor is everyone qualified to be a university student. Standards must be kept high. The media may dumb down its content but universities never should. Higher education calls for intense study, concentration and disciple. Not everyone is capable of that.
The solution for any potential enrollment loss has been obvious for decades: Truckee Meadows Community College.
It is no disgrace to go there. Indeed, some of the brightest and best at UNR have gone to TMCC, bringing themselves up to university standards.
UNR President Milton Glick said earlier this year that if minority enrollment declines he would ask the Regents to rescind the higher standard. His great concern for diversity is heart-felt. But he of all people should realize that academia is not for everyone. High standards must be maintained.
Glick has established great rapport with UNR faculty, doing much to wipe away the stain of the horrible John Lilley era. But Glick needs to discard the royal we. He told an interviewer a year ago: “We haven’t stopped running since we arrived.”
Packing heat on campus
One of the zaniest ideas to surface in Nevada recently is a proposal by Regent Stavros Anthony, Las Vegas police captain, to allow college professors to carry guns in the classroom.
He is justifiedly concerned about mass killings on college campuses. But profs are concerned with student minds. They are not cops and never should be.
(Regents rejected the proposal, 8-5. It’s amazing that five cretins, including Anthony, backed the idea.)
Academic buzzword
Critical thinking has been the academic buzzword for more than a decade. A former journalism dean at UNR inserted 75 pages in a reaccreditation report dealing exclusively with critical thinking.
Overkill? Sure. Seventy pages of it. But that’s what reaccreditors wanted to hear.
A recent article on higher education in the New York Review of Books rightly called critical thinking the reigning banality of college education.
If college professors really believed in critical thinking all of them would be atheists and 90 percent socialists. But that is hardly the case.
Faculty meetings detestable
Faculty meetings are the one great drawback to Nirvana for university professors. They waste time. They go on too long. Some professors love to hear the sound of their voices. The talk is often aimless, endless and boring.
Which reminds me of a story. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, still on the Supreme Court at 90, frequently dozed during oral arguments. One day he woke up with a start to find the attorney still arguing his case. Holmes muttered: “Jesus Christ! Is he still speaking?”
A 900-pound bunny
The Barry Flanagan bronze sculpture, “Large, Left-handed Drummer,” is starring at the Nevada Museum of Art. It’s a wonderful adornment on the museum roof which offers such fine views of Rose, Slide and Peavine.
The drumming rabbit is alert, erect and pointy-eared. A museum wall board says Flanagan, British sculptor, “has crafted monumental bronzes of animals that exude dynamic energy and take on the traits of humans.” The work is magically human.
Email: jake@unr.edu
It backed the right of the American Nazi Party to march in the heavily Jewish city of Skokie, Ill., in 1979. For defending that rancid group, the ACLU lost 60,000 members--many of them outraged Jews--and $500,000.
But sometimes the ACLU carries its noble civil liberties battles out the window, abandoning even a semblance of common sense. Example: its support for the Supreme Court doctrine that money is speech. Example: its support for commercial speech like tobacco advertising whose products kill 450,000 Americans annually.
The ACLU of Nevada also goes too far by urging a delay in the proposed increase in the admission standard for the University of Nevada, Reno. (The Board of Regents has mandated an increase from 2.75 to 3.0 [B] for admission next fall.)
The ACLU motives are pure. It is fearful that the higher standard would reduce black and Latino enrollment. Possibly true. But the ACLU forgets that a university is an elitist institution. It is based on meritocracy.
University education is not an entitlement. Nor is everyone qualified to be a university student. Standards must be kept high. The media may dumb down its content but universities never should. Higher education calls for intense study, concentration and disciple. Not everyone is capable of that.
The solution for any potential enrollment loss has been obvious for decades: Truckee Meadows Community College.
It is no disgrace to go there. Indeed, some of the brightest and best at UNR have gone to TMCC, bringing themselves up to university standards.
UNR President Milton Glick said earlier this year that if minority enrollment declines he would ask the Regents to rescind the higher standard. His great concern for diversity is heart-felt. But he of all people should realize that academia is not for everyone. High standards must be maintained.
Glick has established great rapport with UNR faculty, doing much to wipe away the stain of the horrible John Lilley era. But Glick needs to discard the royal we. He told an interviewer a year ago: “We haven’t stopped running since we arrived.”
Packing heat on campus
One of the zaniest ideas to surface in Nevada recently is a proposal by Regent Stavros Anthony, Las Vegas police captain, to allow college professors to carry guns in the classroom.
He is justifiedly concerned about mass killings on college campuses. But profs are concerned with student minds. They are not cops and never should be.
(Regents rejected the proposal, 8-5. It’s amazing that five cretins, including Anthony, backed the idea.)
Academic buzzword
Critical thinking has been the academic buzzword for more than a decade. A former journalism dean at UNR inserted 75 pages in a reaccreditation report dealing exclusively with critical thinking.
Overkill? Sure. Seventy pages of it. But that’s what reaccreditors wanted to hear.
A recent article on higher education in the New York Review of Books rightly called critical thinking the reigning banality of college education.
If college professors really believed in critical thinking all of them would be atheists and 90 percent socialists. But that is hardly the case.
Faculty meetings detestable
Faculty meetings are the one great drawback to Nirvana for university professors. They waste time. They go on too long. Some professors love to hear the sound of their voices. The talk is often aimless, endless and boring.
Which reminds me of a story. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, still on the Supreme Court at 90, frequently dozed during oral arguments. One day he woke up with a start to find the attorney still arguing his case. Holmes muttered: “Jesus Christ! Is he still speaking?”
A 900-pound bunny
The Barry Flanagan bronze sculpture, “Large, Left-handed Drummer,” is starring at the Nevada Museum of Art. It’s a wonderful adornment on the museum roof which offers such fine views of Rose, Slide and Peavine.
The drumming rabbit is alert, erect and pointy-eared. A museum wall board says Flanagan, British sculptor, “has crafted monumental bronzes of animals that exude dynamic energy and take on the traits of humans.” The work is magically human.
Email: jake@unr.edu
posted by Jake Highton | 11:45 AM
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