Teaching Can Be Dangerous
Cross-posted from NAS.org, “An Unsuccessful Education Can Ruin You“:
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article, “Course Reminds Budding Ph.D.’s of the Damage They Can Do,” about a seminar taught at the CUNY Graduate Center on the ethics of teaching. Steven M. Cahn teaches the class, and he seeks to dispel the notion that all education is innocuous:
“People often think that education works either to improve you or to leave you as you were,” Mr. Cahn says. “But that’s not right. An unsuccessful education can ruin you. It can kill your interest in a topic. It can make you a less-good thinker. It can leave you less open to rational argument. So we do good and bad as teachers—it’s not just good or nothing.”
Cahn discusses with his small class the meaning of academic freedom 
(“How free should instructors be to proclaim their beliefs in the classroom? And how sensitive should they be to their students’ personal commitments?”) and the question of university neutrality (“Do colleges have an institutional duty to stay out of certain public debates? Or is that kind of neutrality actually undesirable or impossible?”). His students enjoy tackling these issues; as future professors, the subjects they consider in Cahn’s seminar will soon become very real for them.
This course covers the very same fundamental higher education debates in which the National Association of Scholars has found a voice for the last twenty-two years. These are conversations well worth having – they ponder “What does it mean to be a university of integrity?” The existence of the CUNY seminar is encouraging. Now if only all faculty members and administrators took this course, perhaps we’d have a better foundation for teaching the next generation.
Speaking of politicization, I have a friend who is applying to a PhD program at Berkeley. He sent me the “personal history statement” that is required from all applicants:
“Please describe how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include information on how you have overcome barriers to access in higher education, evidence of how you have come to understand the barriers faced by others, evidence of your academic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities, and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, evidence of your research focusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality, or evidence of your leadership among such groups.”
This is apparently part of the general Berkeley graduate school application; i.e., it’s not just for political departments like social work. So if you want to be a graduate researcher on, say, the biology of sponges, you have to explain how your research focuses on underserved populations. (I suppose sponges don’t get nearly enough attention.)
If this question isn’t a political loyalty oath I don’t know what would be. I hope NAS will look into this and see if it indeed is a required part of every Berkeley graduate application in every subject.
I would add that an unsuccessful education can rob you of your cultural heritage and the gifts of the amassed human knowledge of the past two millenniums. At worst, you become culturally illiterate; at best, you make judgments based on the bizarre mishmash of historical half-truths you have picked up through the years.
By that standard, the millennial generation — or whatever you want to call us — has been intellectually mugged. It’s high time someone started talking about the stakes.
@Friend — A “loyalty oath” like that may raise eyebrows, but it should not cause surprise. NAS and CampusReform.org, where I write, have covered previously the insertion of new types of requirements into faculty job descriptions (see http://bit.ly/2BF170).
Lehigh, for example, wants to hire a 17th Century Brit Lit prof “whose scholarship and teaching in early modern and seventeenth-century British literature will augment our department’s focus on literature and social justice.”
Hi friend. Yes, I just looked up the Berkeley graduate application for admission and the general form includes the essay question you mention. It is indeed a political loyalty oath.
UCSF requires a similar statement: “The University of California, San Francisco is committed to a diverse and inclusive graduate student population. Diversity refers to the variety of experiences and perspectives that arise from differences in race, culture, religion, mental or physical capabilities, heritage, age, gender, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. UCSF values diversity because it enhances the educational experience, the workplace, and services to the public provided by this campus. Discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, cultural, economic, family or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey.”