The tone deaf make unpleasant noises

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     The Muslim community in this town should hire a good public relations professional, because, on their own, they’re just pissing everybody off. Shouting a guy down (the Israeli ambassador, Michael Oren), not letting him speak?
     Bad form, that. Clueless, stupid, counterproductive.
     It’s hard to know what to make of this latest development—the University’s reported decision to “ban” IVC’s Muslim Student Union for a year. On it’s face, it looks awful. How did it come to that? Is UCI trying to piss off the entire Muslim world?
     The latest: now, there is some question concerning the the nature of the action UCI officials took with regard to the MSU:

Muslim Student Union members shocked by suspension

     …Campus officials at UCI have banned the Muslim Student Union for one year and placed the organization on disciplinary probation for an additional year, according to the Jewish Federation Monday morning.
     Federation officials say they obtained documents from the university through the Freedom of Information Act, which show that the Muslim Student Union has been suspended on campus effective Sept. 1.
     MSU members said contrary to the federation's statements, the student group has not been officially suspended.
. . .
     The group has appealed the decision, according to Husam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Members also denies that the Oren disruptions were an officially sanctioned MSU activity and that the students acted on their own.
     Their attorney, Reem Salahi, said based on her understanding of the university's policies and procedures, what has been issued is not a "ban," but only a recommendation. The student group is waiting to meet with university officials.
     "That said, I don't agree with their actions at all," she said. "This is nothing but collective punishment. All Muslim students on campus have been punished for the actions of a few."
     So far, UCI has not released any information about this ban and does not plan on doing so, said Cathy Lawhon, director of media relations.
. . .
     Ayloush said he is disappointed by The Jewish Federation's decision to release information that was meant to be confidential.
     "I'm puzzled at their attempt to score political points at the expense of the privacy of the students and the process that is internal to UCI," he said.
. . .
     Ayloush called the university's actions "unprecedented, heavy-handed and draconian."
     "It appears to be politically motivated to silence any future peaceful and legitimate criticism of Israel's brutal practices," he said. "This was nothing but a peaceful and symbolic protest of the Israeli Ambassador at UCI. It was a reflection of a growing worldwide campaign by human rights activists to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and their racism toward the Palestinian people."
     The Muslim students did not engage in fraudulent, immoral or criminal behavior, Ayloush said.
     Shalom Elcott, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation Orange County, said he commends the university's decision to follow through on this issue.
     "The university's disciplinary action regarding the MSU establishes an important and appropriate precedent and sends a powerful message to other universities across the nation."
     Elcott said the federation along with other campus and local Jewish organizations have worked with the university to resolve this issue….

We used to make fun of them

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Sharron Angle is the 2010 Republican nominee for the United States Senate seat in Nevada held by the current Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. She's down on fluoridation.

From Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic, “Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.”

Ripper: Mandrake?

Mandrake: Yes, Jack?

Ripper: Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?

Mandrake: Well, I can’t say I have.

Ripper: Vodka, that’s what they drink, isn’t it? Never water?

Mandrake: Well, I-I believe that’s what they drink, Jack, yes.

Ripper: On no account will a Commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.

Mandrake: Oh, eh, yes. I, uhm, can’t quite see what you’re getting at, Jack.

Ripper: Water, that’s what I’m getting at, water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven-tenths of this earth’s surface is water. Why, do you realize that seventy percent of you is water?

Mandrake: Uh, uh, Good Lord!

Ripper: And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids.

Mandrake: Yes. (he begins to chuckle nervously)

Ripper: Are you beginning to understand?

Mandrake: Yes. (more laughter)

Ripper: Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure-grain alcohol?

Mandrake: Well, it did occur to me, Jack, yes.

Ripper: Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation. Fluoridation of water?

Mandrake: Uh? Yes, I-I have heard of that, Jack, yes. Yes.

Ripper: Well, do you know what it is?

Mandrake: No, no I don’t know what it is, no.

Ripper: Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?

UCI's Muslim Student Union banned for one year

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     Deep Bharath of the OC Reg reports a disconcerting announcement:

UCI bans Muslim Student Union (OC Reg)

     Campus officials at UCI have banned the Muslim Student Union for one year and placed the organization on disciplinary probation for an additional year, according to a statement released by the Jewish Federation Monday morning.
     Federation officials say they obtained documents from the university through the Freedom of Information Act, which show that the Muslim Student Union has been suspended on campus effective Sept.1.
     In what many say is an unprecedented act, the suspension is the result of a months-long internal review by the university following the arrest of 11 union students during Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's speech on campus. Oren was repeatedly interrupted by the union members.
     The students have appealed the decision, according to Husam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Their attorney, Reem Salahi, could not be reached Monday morning.
     So far, UCI has not released any information about this ban and does not plan on doing so, said Cathy Lawhon, director of media relations.
. . .
     [Senior executive director of Student Housing Lisa] Cornish's letter says the university's decision to suspend the union was based on Google Group e-mails, personal observations by university officials including the police chief, observations by other students and "the fact that all of the disruptors retained the same attorney to represent them in the student conduct process."
     Cornish's letter talks about how the Muslim Student Union held a meeting Feb. 3 prior to the ambassador's visit and methodically discussed how to disrupt the event. The students talked about sending "the speaker a message – our goal should be that he knows that he can't just go to a campus and say whatever he wants" and "pushing the envelope."
     They even voted on one method of action and said, "We all go through with this together insha Allah ta'ala, together as one MSU."
     Cornish's letter states that the students planned every detail of the disruption including scripting statements.
     The letter also goes into detail about what each one of the disruptors yelled out during Oren's speech.
     Cornish says in the letter that she has concluded based on her review that the Muslim Student Union and each of its authorized signers violated several university policies including "disorderly and lewd conduct, participation in a disturbance of peace or unlawful assembly, obstruction or disruption of teaching, research, administration, disciplinary procedures or other University activities and other forms of dishonesty including ... fabricating information, furnishing false information, or reporting a false emergency to the University."
     The letter orders the Muslim student union to cease operations from Sept. 1, a suspension that will be active until Aug. 31, 2011. After that date, the group will be placed on "disciplinary probation" for one more year. Any misconduct during that period could result in further action against the group or its members, Cornish's letter states. Also, group members must collectively complete 50 hours of community service, which also needs to be approved by the university.
. . .
     Ayloush called the university's actions "unprecedented, heavy-handed and draconian."….

For-profit colleges under scrutiny

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For-profit colleges draw attention from regulators and millions of students (Washington Post)

     A year ago, Joseph Carrillo Jr. had to fight to get into crowded classes here at the public American River College. He couldn't find a guidance counselor, and he felt lost. So he switched to the private University of Phoenix. There, everything fell into place – at 17 times the cost.
     Carrillo's move from the community college to the for-profit university shows the allure of a higher-education sector that is growing so fast the federal government wants to rein it in. The 24-year-old, who hopes to own a business someday, said he was impressed by the ease of course scheduling at his new school and unconcerned about future debt.
. . .
     For-profit schools may be offering an educational alternative, but that choice often comes with crushing student debt, some observers say.
     New federal rules, expected to be formally proposed in coming days, would tighten oversight of the industry. One much-debated proposal would cut federal aid to for-profit schools in certain cases if graduates spend more than 8 percent of their starting salaries to repay loans. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) also plans this month to begin hearings on the industry, examining recruiting practices and student loan default rates.
. . .
     Federal aid to for-profit colleges jumped to $26.5 billion in 2009, from $4.6 billion in 2000. Two-thirds of for-profit students receive federal Pell grants, which target low-income students and don't have to be repaid. Even so, more than half of bachelor-degree recipients in 2007 at for-profit schools fell into a "high debt" range of at least $30,000 in loans, a recent College Board study found.
     "These schools lay it all out for students with Pell grants and student loans," said Stan Jones, president of a nonprofit organization called Complete College America. Students, he said, "don't feel like they are paying for anything, but it's really just like a credit card for higher education."
     For-profit colleges rely more on federal aid than many other higher-education institutions. The aid helps offset tuition at for-profit schools, which averaged $14,174 in 2009, according to the College Board. The average for two-year state schools was $2,544.
     California is in the vanguard of a movement toward cooperation between overstretched community colleges and for-profit schools. Its community college system, with nearly 3 million students, has the nation's lowest tuition: $26 per credit. Carrillo's credits at an outlet of the University of Phoenix near here cost $450 apiece. But community colleges in this state are so crowded that officials don't discourage students from attending for-profit schools or enrolling in their online courses to satisfy degree requirements….

 California's Universities May Admit They Charge Tuition (LA Times)

     Official policy in California holds that the state provides public higher education without charging tuition, so required payments that in every other state are called "tuition" are instead called "fees" in California. But with fee levels rising – and with some federal benefits tied to tuition – there is some talk in California's higher education system of admitting that the universities actually have tuition, the Los Angeles Times reported....

The Very Angry Tea Party By [philosopher] J.M. BERNSTEIN (New York Times)

…My hypothesis is that what all the events precipitating the Tea Party movement share is that they demonstrated, emphatically and unconditionally, the depths of the absolute dependence of us all on government action, and in so doing they undermined the deeply held fiction of individual autonomy and self-sufficiency that are intrinsic parts of Americans’ collective self-understanding.
. . .
This is the rage and anger I hear in the Tea Party movement; it is the sound of jilted lovers furious that the other — the anonymous blob called simply “government” — has suddenly let them down, suddenly made clear that they are dependent and limited beings, suddenly revealed them as vulnerable. And just as in love, the one-sided reminder of dependence is experienced as an injury. All the rhetoric of self-sufficiency, all the grand talk of wanting to be left alone is just the hollow insistence of the bereft lover that she can and will survive without her beloved. However, in political life, unlike love, there are no second marriages; we have only the one partner, and although we can rework our relationship, nothing can remove the actuality of dependence. That is permanent.
. . .
In truth, there is nothing that the Tea Party movement wants; terrifyingly, it wants nothing. Lilla calls the Tea Party “Jacobins”; I would urge that they are nihilists. To date, the Tea Party has committed only the minor, almost atmospheric violences of propagating falsehoods, calumny and the disruption of the occasions for political speech — the last already to great and distorting effect. But if their nihilistic rage is deprived of interrupting political meetings as an outlet, where might it now go? With such rage driving the Tea Party, might we anticipate this atmospheric violence becoming actual violence, becoming what Hegel called, referring to the original Jacobins’ fantasy of total freedom, “a fury of destruction”? There is indeed something not just disturbing, but frightening, in the anger of the Tea Party.

Shared governance endangered?

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Speakers See Threats to the Concept of Shared Governance (Chronicle of Higher Education)

     The concept of shared governance is in serious jeopardy at American colleges and universities, four scholars said Friday during a panel discussion here at the annual meeting of the American Association of University Professors.
. . .
     The panel was organized by the right-of-center American Council of Trustees and Alumni, an organization that rarely sees eye to eye with the AAUP (though the two organizations have collaborated recently on efforts to oppose speech codes on college campuses).
     One central problem with shared academic governance, the panelists said, is that few people agree about exactly what the concept means. In 1966 the AAUP, the American Council on Education, and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges produced a joint statement on tripartite governance, but Friday's speakers argued that the concept has not been put into practice in consistent ways in the last 44 years.
     "When I was in government, I saw that when competing groups had trouble reaching compromise, they would sometimes write legislation with vague words that allowed each side to claim victory," said Hank Brown, a former U.S. senator who served as president of the University of Colorado from 2005 to 2008. "That's what I'm afraid has happened with this term 'shared governance.' It means different things to different people, and those different understandings give rise to frustration."
. . .
     Michael B. Poliakoff, the council's policy director, said faculty members "tend to see trustees as bottom-line-oriented micromanagers, and trustees see the faculty as obstinately resistant to change. The result is a sad and unnecessary stalemate. We need to work collaboratively and constructively to address questions of cost and quality."
     A decade from now, for better or worse, trustees will generally have much more control over academic programs than they do today, said Donald L. Drakeman, who is a visiting lecturer in politics at Princeton University and a member of Drew University's Board of Trustees.
     "Many factors outside of anyone's control will drive that change," Mr. Drakeman said. Among other things, he cited state laws that are giving college trustees stronger fiduciary responsibilities, the shorter terms that most college presidents are serving. and the decline in the proportion of faculty members who are tenured.
     "I'm not advocating this change, and I'm not opposing it," Mr. Drakeman said. "I'm just saying that it's going to happen."
     Mr. Drakeman said that he feared that programs in the humanities and social sciences would suffer as trustees throw resources toward career-oriented academic programs in business and medicine. But he said that if faculty members want to preserve humanities programs, they should make sure the programs are not politically monochromatic.
     If humanities programs seem to be purely left-wing, Mr. Drakeman said, "trustees will legitimately wonder whether students are being exposed to the full range of arguments about human flourishing." Mr. Drakeman has helped to finance a high-profile effort to promote conservative scholarship on an Ivy League campus, the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton, and he is chairman of its board of advisers.
. . .
     The panel's most combative speaker was Mark S. Schneider, a former commissioner of the U.S. Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics who taught political science at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Mr. Schneider, who is now a vice president at the American Institutes for Research, said that emerging technologies will make many present-day faculty roles obsolete. An example of such technologies that he cited are online courses like those developed by Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative.
     The medieval system in which all students were mentored by individual scholars cannot survive, Mr. Schneider said. "Higher education has worked on a craft model for hundreds of years," he said. "But when handicrafts meet mass production, handicrafts almost always lose."
. . .
     And in a final toast to his audience, Mr. Schneider said, "I want you to know that I have no use for the concept of tenure. None whatsoever."
     After all of those provocations, the question-and-answer period was civil. But most members of the audience were clearly unpersuaded by many of the arguments they had heard. The erosion of tenure and the decline in the proportion of tenure-track faculty are central to any understanding of struggles over academic governance, several people said. Two audience members pointed to spiraling administrative costs as the real reason for declines in the effectiveness of colleges' instruction.
     But several people in the room also thanked the panelists for opening up the conversation. "There are enough problems here that we can place blame on every single stakeholder in education," said Annette E. Craven, an associate professor of management at the University of the Incarnate Word.