To the editor: The purpose of foreign language education is not to become fluent in a language, which you note but seem to ignore in your final argumentation. Rather, basic language education is meant to teach students who will work in an increasingly global world other ways of being. When we teach basic language courses, … Continue reading “The goal of a foreign language requirement isn’t fluency”
To the editor: A response to Robert Weissberg: It might have been a failure of good intentions, but it was more likely to have been living so high up in an ivory tower as to be unable to see the ground. I lost interest in college about three quarters of the way through my first … Continue reading “The importance of demanding performance before promotion”
To the editor: I have read Robert Weissberg’s excellent article “How the Best of Intentions Created Today’s Academic Disasters.” This important article captures the often unspoken and infrequently discussed concerns harbored by many of us in academia and the business community. Too often, we have compromised our standards and values on behalf of diversity and our … Continue reading “Compromising our values undermines our educational system”
To the editor: I was pleasantly surprised by Douglas King’s “A Defense of the ‘Ungrading’ Movement” (July 13, 2022). This article was very good, I thought, at uncovering the intentionality inherent in the assignment of grades. The process of grading pupils and students serves the system — not learning. As an unintended consequence, King’s crucial admission/realization begins … Continue reading “Grading students serves the system – not learning”
To the editor: Prof. King chases the Ungrading Grail, believing it to be the Answer. He explains: “faced with this systemic and perennial predicament (that different teachers have different expectations and varying standards), a student’s orientation becomes transactional: Give each teacher what he or she wants, so to acquire the grade one needs.” The student, … Continue reading “Is “ungrading” better than traditional methods of assessment?”
To the editor: How disappointing to have read Professor Lowery’s article on the abject failure of UT leadership. As the saying goes: “no good deed goes unpunished…”. In this case it is “no good idea goes unpunished”. How long will it be until Associate Professor Richard Lowery will find himself looking for a job in … Continue reading “Liberty Institute’s failure to launch”
You are intelligent, logical, well-educated people, and yet you can’t stop the most absurdly overt bigots from being given leadership positions so they can implement programs to end bigotry. This isn’t a slight, I just think you’re in a fixed fight and might not see it. I’m worried you’ve been lured into it so you … Continue reading “Genuine idealist”
To the editor: Prof. Weissberg seems a bit baffled by the Loyalty Oaths required by the New Red Guard. He asks, “Is there anything that suggests that this latest effort will finally be successful?” Silly wabbit. Lucky for him he’s retired, otherwise I’m afraid he’d be compelled to public confessions followed by some sort of … Continue reading “The Diversity bureaucracy will always be “successful,” despite failures”
To the editor: While I think Peter Bonilla is spot on in his article “The Biggest Threat to Academic Freedom? We Don’t Teach It.”, I think a more macro view reveals how uncontained the problem is to academia and that what is threatened is all Human thought; what is threatened is Humanity. When it becomes … Continue reading “How academia can be saved from within”
To the editor: Dear Editor: Stevens far superior to Yeats? Writer of this might know conservatism but among poets, poetry academe, etc. Yeats is second only to Shakespeare, if he is second at all. You have to throw in Gerard Manley Hopkins here as well, who is second to none. And then there’s John Donne. … Continue reading “Conservative poetry”