Well, ok, you were right about that. I don’t read those two sources and was not aware of that prior to this thread.
That topic might be worth researching. But to do research, it is by definition necessary that the researcher enter with an open mind. They must approach a question with a willingness to believe that the answer could be anything, and then let the results of the research or experiment lead them to the answer. There can be no research where the person has a dogma which dictates what the results must be before the research even begins. And the journals must be willing to publish the answer, regardless of what the answer is.
Gender, Place, and Culture and other such journals have a dogma: everything in America/Western Society, is racist, sexist, patriarchal, homophobic, ableist, etc… They will publish articles that agree with the dogma. They will not publish articles that contradict the dogma. So if ‘T. Lloro-Bidart’ had done an investigation into the language used by local media to to talk about squirrels and had failed to find any evidence of racism or sexism, her paper would not have been published.
Young scholars entering the field are surely smart enough to understand which way the wind is blowing and they act accordingly. They quickly realize that to have a career, they must publish papers, and to publish papers, they must get results that agree with the prevailing dogma. Thus they learn to find racism, sexism, and all the rest in anything, and to avoid any skepticism about it. That’s why what’s going on here is not real research. That was the entire point of the hoax: “grievance studies” journals will publish anything if and only if the agrees with the dogma.
Seems like small potatoes if you weigh it up in light of Voyager’s post above - 16% women in his class at MIT back in the day (70s?). My wife did her undergrad at Imperial College in the 90s and that was 25% women all in. Way, way back it was more like 1%.
I mean can you grasp what a colossal, criminal waste of intellectual capital that represented for the human race? Trying to push back the frontiers of science and thought at half strength?
It didn’t just magically correct itself, either - it took hard, proactive work that we’re far from the end of [gender balance is now healthy in a lot of STEM subjects even up to PhD level, but beyond that it drops precipitously]. But somehow one of the best universities in the US having a well-resourced diversity role is a source of aggravation for you?
Women now account for 55% of new college grads. In fields like Psychology men have almost been completely eradicated. And in the places where there are still more men than women, the pressure is on to reach 50/50 parity. I assume we aren’t going to do the same for the fields dominated by women.
Google just did a study on the pay gap between men and women, and discovered that it wad actually reversed - women at Google get paid more than men for doing the same jobs.
So can we just call it ‘mission accomplished’? Or are we going to keep going because as Hillary said, ‘The future is female.’?
Are you suggesting that engineering programs discriminate against women? My experience is that women are not applying in high numbers, but according to feminist dogma any time we see disparities between males and females the blame must fall on the patriarchy, or social construction, or bias against women. Hence, my company has announced that its hiring will be structured to achieve a 50/50 male/female balance among new engineers, despite the fact that only about 25% of engineering grads are women on average.
But Psychology is interesting, because not long ago the field was completely balanced. About 85% of under-35 psychologists are women, but older psychologists are closer to 50/50 men and women.
So either the field has changed in a way that discourages men, or there’s overt anti-male bias in the faculties, or there’s something else going on we don’t quite understand.
This is not just happening in psychology, but in college in general. Women now make up 55% of all college graduates, and that percentage is growing by the year. In some colleges, the number is well over 60%. So shouldn’t our equality programs now be focused on encouraging men and giving them welcoming spaces?
Did you read your cite? UC chancellors seem to be paid less than the nationwide average, though your cite is a bit old. A professor is not senior enough to handle this job, and the Chancellor might be an administrator but only in the same way a senior VP of a company is an administrator.
Consider that starting salaries for new PhDs in Silicon Valley are well into six figures now. Some new professors get six figures also. This might be a ton of money where you live, but around here, not so much.
Why a Chancellor? Maybe because the university wants to show they mean business.
Actually tuition at the UC system hasn’t gone up for five years, I believe, so now the Democrats are in full control they are trying to make the situation better.
If you can’t figure out what a diversity chancellor might be doing, that’s your problem. I can imagine some of the things she’ll be doing just fine. Deans don’t grade papers either. In most schools full professors don’t teach freshman math - and I don’t think too many people getting into Berkeley or UCLA need freshman algebra, given that they have high scores on the SAT math test.
I quite understand that you think diversity is a waste to spend money on. That’s your opinion. But your ignorance of how universities work is very obvious from your posts.
'69-‘73. In 1969 there was only one girls’ dorm, so you couldn’t admit more women. By the end of my time they had renovated a dorm into suites and made it co-ed, so I expect they percentage was going up. And it just shows that improving diversity takes more than a few talks by the university president.
Here are some numbers about psychology in college. Notice that the average starting salary of someone with a bachelors in psych in $12K less than the average for all fields. Maybe that explains the predominance of women. (This link doesn’t show breakdown by sex, but I’ll take your word for it.) I researched this when my daughter was graduating with a BS in psych, and there weren’t a lot of jobs out there, unlike in engineering. She got a Masters in International Business and so is doing okay.
As I understand it, the problem with engineering and CS is not the number of women who enter college or start jobs, but the number who leave because of various problems they face.
Nitpick, perhaps, but were you sure about that word “eradicated”? Not quite strong enough, given your fierce commitment. Did you consider “massacred” or even just “decimated”?
So, the soft guys with the wobbly bits are taking over? Is that really such a bad idea? We of the stinky and hairy gender have been running things for several thousands of years, have we done such a bang-up job? Perhaps they cannot do better, can they do worse? Is it likely, if even possible?
So, don’t they have a rather good point?
If we are relegated to lawn maintenance and auto repair, well, really, is that so bad? Think of how much time is freed up for fishing! Running naked through the forest peeing on trees! Overall, they appear to be quite fond of us, I think they will probably keep feeding us. Hope so.
Let’s NOT try opinion pieces such as the NYT piece you cite, as they’re generally too biased to be reliable and convincing. While I agree that increases in administrative costs are a factor in soaring college tuition costs, cuts to state funding are still by far the primary factor. And while the addition of the diversity courses and departments so loathe to those who see everything not ethnocentrically white as BS is undoubtedly a small part of the increase in administration, it’s very small. (BTW, I try to avoid Opinion pieces such as the NYT one you cite, as they’re generally too biased to be convincing.)
There’s plenty of evidence that state funding cuts is the major reason for increases in college tuition costs. Back in 2012, when the Great Recession was still upon us, the New York Office of the Federal Reserve Board noted
But-but-but what about all that bloat from administrators and fancy buildings? Much as I’d like to blame them, the evidence isn’t there.
Dump every diversity program, and college tuition wouldn’t drop appreciably.
As for private colleges, many people equate quality with price. As public university tuition has increased, private college tuition would have become relatively reasonable. (Private colleges tend to give out more in scholarships and student aid money.)
So yeah, state funding cuts ARE the primary reason for tuition hikes. I know that’s hard for conservatives to swallow, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
Ok, lets just say for argument sake a state DOES increase its funding. Just how much will student tuition drop? Barely any to none. It’s a blank check. Nearly ALL of it will go to administrator raises or hiring new staff or new furniture or whatnot.
Now what would be interesting is if colleges would help push a bill that would increase state funding and at the same time, PROMISE to cut tuition, I would vote for that bill. I will not if an increase is just another blank check to allow colleges to spend as they please.
Are you saying that WITHOUT programs for diversity that we would not be seeing the higher numbers of non white male students?
Do you READ your own cites? You said “My wife did her undergrad at Imperial College in the 90s and that was 25% women all in. Way, way back it was more like 1%.”
So YOU are saying the numbers were going up anyways even WITHOUT expensive diversity programs.
Oh maybe its helped - some. But look around. This isnt the 1950’s where you have white mobs standing at the gates of colleges stopping blacks. Good programs attract people - period.
And the other thing - the groups have achieved their goals. For example, women are in college at record numbers at 55% over men. Shouldnt we be seeing a scaleback of diversity programs? Nope. They are only getting bigger.
I respect your willingness to change your mind–with conditions, of course. I think there should be certain conditions and requirements within the legislation, though. Promises alone aren’t worth much.
One such requirement I’d want to see is fewer adjunct (which are primarily TA’s) and more full-time faculty. Full-time faculty costs more, which is why many public colleges and universities turned to adjunct instructors. Adjunct instructors have a role: sometimes enrollment is higher than expected. But experience counts. Or it should. Adjunct teaching pays so poorly, few stick at it long enough to gain much experience. If my own two kids weren’t done with college and grad school, I’d make the percentage of instructional staff that are full-time, permanent faculty a prime criteria for any school they were considering.
I’d be interested in her recollections. The first year I was there HoToGaMIT (How to Get Around MIT, the student issued orientation book) said horrible things about coeds. My dorm was next to McCormick, the women’s dorm, and we had lots of interaction with them, and my impression was that women at MIT then were on the average a lot smarter than us men.
On average, at state schools, including two-year schools. YMMV, especially at four-year schools and even more so at the flagship ones. At UVA, in-state tuition and fees increased from $4.3k to $15.7k 2000 to 2016, but state funding per pupil (overall in the entire state) only dropped $300. http://www.schev.edu/docs/default-source/Reports-and-Studies/2017/tuition-and-fees-report-2017-18d557ba50bece61aeb256ff000079de01.pdf https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/tuition-and-fees
Now maybe the decrease at UVA was much greater than elsewhere, and maybe it’s an outlier. But, like with the supposed student loan crisis, I think people tend to look more at the bigger name schools and forget about the cheaper options. Which is why some schools can get away with such steep increases.
It’s true at public two-years schools as well. I know an administrator at a two-year college, and they got hit hard, as in layoffs and salary cuts. Two-year schools also don’t have TA’s available.
If only it were a matter of people needing to look at lesser-known schools! Ask any kid going to a lesser-known state school. Or just click on the links in my previous posts.
As for UVA. I’m not sure where you’re getting this $300 figure. The second link you posted, which is to a graph in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. shows this in-state tuition and fees rose from 10,119 in the 1998-1999 academic year to 17, 564 for the 2018-2019 academic year.
The first link, which shows that funding for UVA has been a roller coaster since the 1990’s, has this to say on page 13(bolding mine):
The state share of the cost of education has been declining annually since FY2002 (the
year of the highest state cost share). The student share of the cost of education in FY2018
is estimated to be at 53% with the state contribution at 47%. This is 20 percentage points
lower than the target of 67% identified in the state’s tuition policy. Paragraph A of
Section 23.1-303 of the Higher Education Opportunity Act states that 67% of an
institution’s cost of education for Virginia students should be funded by the state
general fund. Further, the General Provisions of Chapter 836 of the 2017 Acts of the
Assembly, Item 4-2.01.b.3.b states that “the General Assembly shall seek to cover at
least 67% of educational costs.” Based on the current average instructional cost, it
would take more than $660 million in additional state support to reach the policy goal,
but it could result in average tuition amounts that could be as much as $2,700 lower
than current levels, or about 1/3 less per student on average.
That doesn’t sound like a slight drop. It’s a l43-page-long report, though, so if you’d point me to the page where you got this $300 drop in state funding, I’d appreciate it.
