Saturday, November 17, 2007

When’s Duke’s Turn?

In yesterday’s New York Sun:

A weeklong hunger strike staged by five students at Columbia University could cost the institution $50 million.

Columbia officials said Wednesday night that, after a faculty committee grants approval, the university would spend the funds to pay for an expansion of the Office of Multicultural Affairs and a restructuring of Columbia College's core curriculum that would add faculty for courses on non-European civilizations.

The strikers are declaring the concessions by the Columbia administration as a partial victory, the fulfillment of a portion of their demands. . . .

Last week, five students started a water-and-Gatorade diet with a litany of demands on the administration. They asked for changes to what they said was a Eurocentric core curriculum, increased staff and funding for "ethnic studies" programs and more support on campus for minority students.

The students said they are also protesting the university's Harlem expansion plan, and a climate of "institutionalized racism" on campus.

In recent years, Columbia has amended its core curriculum to include a "Major Cultures" component, which requires students to take courses on Asian, African, and Latin American civilizations.

The strikers said the courses, which are held in lecture format, were marginalized because of the large class sizes, and that Major Cultures courses should be held in the same small seminar-style meetings awarded to courses on European history.

Calling the negotiations a victory for their cause, two of the strikers, a senior at Columbia, Bryan Mercer, 22, and a junior at Columbia, Emilie Rosenblatt, 22, yesterday ended their fast when health services threatened to place them on involuntary medical leave.

Two of the original strikers, who have been joined by a Barnard professor of political science, Dennis Dalton, and two more students said they would continue fasting until the university also made concessions on its Harlem expansion plans. . . .
You may be asking: How is Columbia going to justify this cave-in; and who’s going to be willing to pay for it?

The Sun tells us:
A task force on undergraduate education has been reviewing the core curriculum, officials said. The university, which is in the middle of a $4 billion capital campaign, has already earmarked $865 million to improve the undergraduate experience.

Spending $50 million on more faculty and resources for courses in "Major Cultures" was already accounted for in that fundraising goal, officials said
There’s more to the story including some students who object to the cave-in.

It’s all here.

Question: When’s Duke’s turn?

I don’t know, but I’m sure it will come very soon.

“Winning By Intimidation” is the college fight song of the Academic Left which dominates most campuses and routinely fleeces alumni and friends.

Duke’s alumni and friends, good people, are especially easy to fleece; and not just by faculty Leftists.

Have you watched the last year-and-a-half as Duke caved to Crystal Mangum’s and Mike Nifong’s lies so cravenly that its President, Richard Brodhead, proclaimed whatever the framed students did “was bad enough,” while refusing to say anything critical of Nifong even months after the NC State Bar launched an ethics investigation that led to Nifong’s disbarment?

Yet we’re told by Duke's Development Office that financial giving from alumni and friends is now higher than ever.

That’s why I say Duke alumni and friends are easy to fleece.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask Professors Houston Baker, Kim Curtis, Stanley Fish, Wahneema Lubiano and Charles Piot how easy it is to fleece Duke.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Am I the only one who's sick and bloody tired of all this "ethnic" crap? When my Swedish and Irish grandparents and my wife's Polish grandparents came over, they learned English and forgot the "Old Country." I don't feel in any way impoverished because of this. I suggest all the angry studies advocates start their own colleges and see how many takers are out there.

mac said...

I suspect that Liberty and other universities will be seeing a huge boost in their enrollment. More than that, schools like Liberty will be the beneficiaries of the change in giving patterns, as contributers are becoming sick of giving money (and property) to people who would just as soon see them dead in the street, and who would dismantle our Constitution because it was written by "dead white men." furthermore, there will be more and more educators clamoring to work there, as the hate-mill of the leftist studies groups gather steam.

I've already seen this happening: it is not a prediction.

People don't give to someone who plans to put an end to them; even liberal folks described in Tom Wolfe's "Radical Chic" had their focus shifted, their lenses adjusted.

Giving will be altered even more significantly when the economy loses steam.

Anonymous said...

Most adolescents go to the best school they can get into and the parents can afford. No one is "brainwashing" these kids. If it were that easy, we would all have straight A students and no teenage rebellion in the home. The students are not that interested. From the stats I have read, AA Studies, etc attracts very few students. What is it at Duke - fifteen full time students to thirty three Professors. Takes more than that to conquer a University or Country. Even the Soviets could only manage that for seventy years. No drinking and smoking at Liberty whick only atracts a certain type of student and parent.

mac said...

7:24
Not saying that Liberty is for everyone; there are other schools, too, which haven't abandoned rational thought, reason and fair play. Lots of them. And, like Liberty, they are more affordable, some are improving as they have more resources (including teaching resources) - while the likes of Duke and Cornell and others are likely to primp themselves into extinction at the hands of Farred and Lubiano.

Good example:
RMWC blew itself out of the water, attracting mainly students with "broken wings," self-annointed victims etc, and became so unattractive that they had to offer sweet tuition deals 10% better than their competitors. In their pursuit of multiculturalism and diversity, they gave free rides to people who could literally buy the school. Now it is Randolph College, and even that may not survive, mainly because the bitter holdovers keep suing. Like leftists (and some liberals) everywhere, they can't understand that bad decisions made in the past have consequences.

That's right: consequences. It's a bad word in some corners, but there is such a thing. And RMWC spent itself into oblivion in pursuit of PC madness and "take back the night" victimhood.

And the consequences of universities and colleges sleeping with ultra-leftist, racialist, multiculturalist, PC indoctinators are going to be felt, sure as sunshine.

Consequences. That's a word that you don't hear enough of, eh?

Anonymous said...

"Winning by Intimidation" worked out really well for liberal Antioch College, too.

Anonymous said...

John:

I think the time is right for a Duke alumni to set up a trust fund for alumni contibutions.

The funds would be held in escrow pending a change in Duke's political direction.

Withholding money is the only thing that will change this corrupt institution.

Ken
Dallas

Anonymous said...

John,
working(paperwork) late at night.Went to the ND-Duke game earlier today.I think we needed the winmore than you.Now,a favor.I was reading this AM in the Detroit papers about a "noose incident at Central Michigan"-a school in Mt Pleasant.The school's nickname is the Chippewas,because there is a large contingent of Chippewa Indians historically from the area.
There were earlier incidents this year with fliersshoved under the doors of Islamic and Indian(Amerindian) students.No one has been identified as the perps.The president of CMU has been quoted as being upset with this behavior,a state civil rights or Diversity officail has chimed in and a state sen fromDetroit has visited and condemned this and claimed it showeed "an undercurrent of racism at campuses all across this country."
Ssince there's no evidence as yo whom planted the 4 nooses,why does anyone assume it's racists and not people eager to manufacture a counterfeit victimhood if none,in fact exists.Could you ask your readers to point me towards doocumented cases where students have engaged in falsely planting hateful messages to make themselves seem victimized.
I believe there was a case at Bradley a few years ago,and a teacher at a school who claimed her car was defaced and later found to have done so.I intend to write a letter to the school (and Detroit ) paper and would like documentation.Anrd it's nteresting you're writing about Columbia,beacuse I believe they've had a recent "Noose incident" they've been stonewalling
Best wishes,Corwin

Anonymous said...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/beware_hate_crime_hoaxes.html

This is a Clarence Page article from Real Clear Politics.

I put in "hate crime hoaxes" and found plenty of articles, sites, etc.

There is also a current news story about a assistant professor from Case Western Reserve University sentenced to 6 months and liable for $66,000 for falsely reporting she received racially charged hate mail (she sent herself).

Anonymous said...

I find it very, very hard to believe that alumnae giving is up at Duke-they must include the most recent Gates contribution in those #s. They certtainly need for it to be up considering the millions they've already shelled out in settlements and the millions they will be shelling out to the rest of the team and to Pressler. And they most likely feel they need to contribute to the millions Durham will be shelling out since they can't afford for Durham to go to trial either.

Anonymous said...

I don't believe it was "winning by intimidation." I think it was the administration using student activism as an excuse to do what it already wanted to.

For all we know, the administration put them up to it, assuring them of success before they even started.