At Pomona College, Critical Thinking Comes A Distant Second To Critical Diapering
Much of good writing is good critical thinking -- understanding how to formulate logical arguments and to put them down on a page so other people understand them.
To me, that's a substantial part of any assistance program to help people better their writing -- especially people in college.
Well, not so at Pomona College (one of the Claremont Colleges, in Claremont, California, near Los Angeles). Their Writing Center's mission used to be teaching writing but now it's heaping on ideology.
Jennifer Kabbany writes at The College Fix:
Steven Glick, editor-in-chief of the conservative-leaning student publication The Claremont Independent, has resigned from his campus job at Pomona College's Writing Center, saying he's been being continually harassed by its progressive staff to a point where he can no longer take it -- despite his love for the job.In a Feb. 28 piece posted on the Independent titled "I resign: The Writing Center's mission is to teach writing, not ideology," he states that while his aim was simply to help strengthen peers' writing, its leaders had other goals.
Glick explained in The Claremont Independent:
I had genuinely thought the purpose of the Writing Center was to teach writing. I hadn't realized the writing instruction would be delivered with a side of ideology and that the ideology was not only mandatory but also more important than the actual teaching of writing. I've learned this over the past few months, which is the reason for my resignation.First, Ms. Snell, the Writing Center Team Coordinator, asked me to meet with her. She accused me of being an obstacle preventing the Writing Center from being a "safe space." This came in response to a news article I had written that detailed a series of no-whites-allowed "safe spaces" at the Claremont Colleges. Ms. Snell specifically mentioned my article, and noted she was concerned that my involvement with both the Writing Center and the Claremont Independent would lead students to associate the organizations with one another. Obviously, many other Writing Fellows contribute to campus publications. But as a far as I'm aware, no one else has been told that's a problem.
My next meeting was with Professor Bromley. She told me she was worried that I was not doing enough to make the Writing Center a space where students feel welcome. To rectify that, she canceled my appointments that night and asked me to read three packets about identity politics instead. One of the readings states that teaching English to non-native English speakers is an attack on free speech. Another criticizes "the hegemonic feminist theory produced by academic women, most of whom were white." The third, titled "Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy," states that capitalism is racist. I read all three packets, as I had been told to do. I did not agree with the opinions presented in any of them, nor did I see any connection between these readings and my work at the Writing Center.
Ms. Snell then asked to meet with me again to talk about what I had read, and what role identity politics should play in the Writing Center's mission. My peers have proposed their ideas for a new Writing Center mission statement, noting that we should aspire to "provide a space for students to work through their ideas with fellows trained in a writing pedagogy that considers how race, gender, sexuality, language, national-origin, and socioeconomic status influences and affects those ideas," "educate ourselves so that we better understand oppression, liberation, and dynamics of difference and power as they manifest themselves in the Writing Center," and "acknowledge and interrogate the ways in which the Writing Center, Pomona College, and academia itself perpetuate and have perpetuated injustice and oppression." I told Ms. Snell that, in my opinion, the goal of the Writing Center should remain unchanged: to provide "students with a community of experienced readers and writers, offering free, one-on-one consultations at any stage of the writing process--from generating a thesis and structuring an argument to fine-tuning a draft."
I guess that was the wrong answer, since the next day I was placed on probation and informed that I needed to meet with Professor Bromley and Ms. Liu-Rojas, the Writing Center's administrative assistant, the following week. I was told the reason for my probation was that I had missed a mandatory meeting for Writing Fellows, but at my meeting with Professor Bromley and Ms. Liu-Rojas, we did not discuss that at all. Rather, we talked about my prior meeting with Ms. Snell. Apparently, "her feelings had been hurt" because of my "tone." Professor Bromley and Ms. Liu-Rojas told me that if I did anything else they deemed wrong, I would be fired.
...I wish I could continue to work at the Writing Center because I feel that it's important for all students, whether black or white, on financial aid or not, conservative or liberal, to have a place to review and strengthen their writing. Unfortunately, the Writing Center no longer seems to be that place. Until the Writing Center can return to its apolitical mission and forsake its acceptance and appeasement of political harassment, I regret that I must resign my position as a Writing Fellow.
I can see from his writing that he had something to teach the students who came to the Writing Center -- the stuff they need to know to be clear writers and logical thinkers. Unfortunate that he's no longer there for them.
Professor Bromley and Ms. Liu-Rojas told me that if I did anything else they deemed wrong, I would be fired.
As much as I would have liked to have said "fuck you both", the bit from Bismark about always being polite, even in a declaration of war, stays my tongue.
Going Spartan would reduce things to "I quit". Which is probably two words too many to waste on such people.
I R A Darth Aggie at March 1, 2016 7:21 AM
J'accuse. See how the humanities have degraded themselves. Today, professors of literature, languages, and philosophy should, without exception, be ashamed of what their profession has wrought. They have taken an important field, the human race's first attempt to develop methods of thought to understand ourselves and the universe, and they have vandalized it to the point of uselessness.
During the 20th century, the humanities developed an intense jealousy towards the arts of math and science and engineering, which were making unprecedented strides in improving the lot of the human race. To try to convince everyone that they too were scientists of a sort, they started to ape the externally visible behaviors of science, in the manner that children "play house" and ape the behaviors of adults that they see, without really understanding anything about love or sex relationships. Like a medieval mystery guild, they started tossing out strings of big, fancy-sounding words to try to impress the yokels. But like the random Latin mumbling of the guilds, the words and sentences were content-free -- they were only meant to sound impressive, not to communicate anything. Actual communication was precisely what they didn't want, lest the audience realize the emperor's state of dishabille.
They invented sciences that they called the social sciences. They aped the methods of research and study that they saw the natural sciences engaging in. But when that research didn't produce the desired results, instead of correcting their ideas, they warped their process. They saw how, in math and the sciences, the process constantly produced results that overturned or amended previously accepted ideas. And it scared them. They decided that they wouldn't let that happen, that the truth as they understood it would be the truth for all time, and that the process must support this notion. To the outsider, it all looks the same. But in the natural sciences, research is a search for truth; in the social sciences, research is largely a propaganda tool for reinforcing received wisdom. This is what the humanities really mean when they say that truth is a social construct -- it's what they themselves do and see in their field, so they want everyone to believe that the same thing occurs in every field. But it doesn't.
Math is a harsh mistress. It makes no allowances for human fallacy or foible. And the universe runs on math. The universe is math. They only way to find legitimate truth, that is being practiced today, is to base the search on the way that mathematicians do it. The humanities originally developed these methods, but they have since abandoned them. Failure to understand the universe leads to peril and disaster. History has taught the human race this, many times. There's a widespread perception today that humans have reached a state in which we can afford to ignore the demands of the universe. But we can't. In many ways, we have left ourselves vulnerable. (And in some cases, this was because the humanities stood in the way of developing the means to mitigate the risks.) A sufficiently large volcanic explosion or asteroid strike could wipe out human civilization tomorrow. An outbreak of a virus like polio could leave a huge number of people unable to care for themselves, leading to a worldwide humanitarian disaster that would be just as devastating to civilized society. Or a meme could convince a large number of people to turn their backs on civilization and go forage for food, quickly leading to mass starvation. For issues like these, today's humanities not only don't have answers, but they don't even have any tools for addressing the question. They have failed the human race.
This is why I'm convinced that if the humanities are to be saved, it will have to be the STEM people (hopefully with help from the law people) who do it. The humanities people, by and large, are in an unrecoverable downward spiral. The situation will not correct itself without outside assistance. We STEM people will have to step up and be the deus ex machina, to employ a pun. Because who else is going to do it? Who else is there?
Cousin Dave at March 1, 2016 8:15 AM
I just started reading this, got a chill, and couldn't finish reading before commenting. I feel like Mr. Glick personifies the dying hope for a sane world, and if I were on that campus, I'd buy plenty of what he's selling.
This metaphor occurred to me: people (children) who are exposed to pathogens typically have stronger immune systems. Cleanliness weakens us. I think the same is true for our minds.
The true horror is being infected by that mind-controlling parasite, political correctness.
DaveG at March 1, 2016 9:37 AM
How is this conducive to creating an inclusive campus?
"The Motley sitting room will be open tonight from 6-10 only for people of color and allies that they invite. Please feel free to come and use the space for whatever you need – decompress, discuss, grieve, plan, support each other, etc. In solidarity."
"...and allies that they invite." What if one group invites someone and another group doesn't want them there?
"In solidarity." Well, if it's for solidarity, it must be okay.
I guess white people who need to decompress, discuss, grieve, plan or support each other are on their own - 'cause nothin' bad has ever happened when a depressed white person doesn't get any help.
Conan the Grammarian at March 1, 2016 10:07 AM
Anyone see "study" in there?
Conan the Grammarian at March 1, 2016 10:09 AM
Sounds like so much of the nonsense spouted by the regressives in Atlas Shrugged
Viewer from afar at March 1, 2016 10:40 AM
When a school of any sort enforces propaganda of any variety, that society is in trouble. Schools are gatekeepers. Some of these colleges are mandating a "diversity" course where white people have to admit their guilt, but most white people don't feel guilty and are not guilty. But you can't PROVE your lack of guilt because it has been assigned to you not by your behavior but by your skin color. The crime is no longer "discrimination" which is hard to prove and is irrelevant when applied to students who have no way to discriminate against anyone, to "racism" which can simply be assumed in a data free manner. Now imagine that a school was enforcing a religous-based chastity training, or a fiscal conservatism training. The media would go nuts.
When I was in college, the problems I saw around me were:
partying too hard
terrible study skills
can't get a date
missing classes
can't decide on a major
running out of money
with the rare case of someone with emotional issues. All this focus on oppression only breeds hypersensitivity and bad feelings all around. This is very dangerous.
Craig Loehle at March 1, 2016 10:48 AM
Anyone see "study" in there?
Good one, Conan. And of course you're right.
AFAIC college can be a good place to learn about literature, but it's a dreadful place to learn about writing; the Academic Style can breed habits that take years to break.
Amy, this was the phrase that jumped out at me:
...a quick Facebook search revealed that one of the students with whom I worked that night had dressed as “White Supremacy” for Halloween and appeared in photos with two other students who were dressed as “Steven Glick and his White Fragility,” yet she still chose to work with me as her tutor.
Can you imagine?
Kevin at March 1, 2016 12:19 PM
..a quick Facebook search revealed that one of the students with whom I worked that night had dressed as “White Supremacy” for Halloween and appeared in photos with two other students who were dressed as “Steven Glick and his White Fragility,” yet she still chose to work with me as her tutor.
Who is exactly harassing who? Outrageous that Glick is the one getting punished.
Shtetl G at March 1, 2016 12:57 PM
It's attitude toward literature is pretty abysmal, too. Too many deconstructionists sucking the joy out of reading.
Conan the Grammarian at March 1, 2016 4:03 PM
"Anyone see "study" in there?"
Racist!
Cousin Dave at March 1, 2016 7:32 PM
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