… comes the sort of information about politics and the university you should worry about (as opposed to what Stanley Fish thinks you should worry about).
Les Gara’s a New York Jew with a Harvard degree who somehow got dropped down into Alaska, where he’s a Democrat in the Alaska House. He reports on a recent hearing:
The University of Alaska is this state’s greatest potential economic engine in the short term – for producing research, jobs, workers and opportunity. Well, last Tuesday University President Mark Hamilton came to the House Finance Committee to present his case for legislative funds. For 15 minutes he took questions from three of my GOP colleagues about why the students at the University were so, uh, politically misguided…
Some of the discussion by legislators went as follows:
“If I ask university staff, the people who are educating our future leaders, if they support the Chukchi Sea development, the Red Dog Mine or the Pebble Mine or any type of industry along those lines, a stereotypical response is they are in opposition . . .”
And
“I found it amazing there was a large disconnect in where the dollars for the state of Alaska come from on a regular basis as far as production of oil on the North Slope goes, and how it is turned into revenue for the state of Alaska and in turn is invested in the university system,” she said.
And
“How should I advocate more funding for an entire group that doesn’t want to see development going forward.”
The tenor of this hearing was troubling for many reasons.
First, there is no “right” or “wrong” view on the Pebble Mine, or offshore development, and lumping students with divergent views in one camp is easier than it is accurate. I don’t find students to be of one mind on these issues, and I find them more than able to justify their divergent views.
Second, universities are for teaching students to learn and explore policy solutions. It isn’t my business whether a student agrees or disagrees with me on these points – I only care that they are interested enough to form their opinions and do some thinking about them. Thinking students can come to conclusions on these issues across the spectrum and I’m glad when they do.
And, finally, if the point is that students should stand up for policies that bring the state money, so we can fund the university – then maybe the students weren’t misguided at all. The “liberal” students stereotyped at the Finance Committee hearing would presumably have voted for the oil tax reform bill we passed last year – which will likely bring in over $30 billion in additional revenue while including oil production incentives to promote development. So, if we’re going to rate these students on how much money they’d bring into the state with their “views”, they, I believe, did a better job for the state than those who voted against the November, 2007 oil reform law we passed. And since offshore oil development on federal lands and mining bring in relatively little state money, it’s not clear how a student’s views on those projects has much bearing on bringing in state revenue to fund the University…
Yes, Gara needs to cool it on the quotation marks.
But he’s on to the real tenured radicals scandal: In states like Alaska, some legislators are politicizing the academy.
February 11th, 2009 at 12:53PM
i wanted to know why being a ny jew was relevant here and so i assumed that the link would take me to an article where gara characterizes himself in that fashion, but whoops it took me to an article about safe sex.
on the topic, we are over the crest of the wave of $140 oil and on our way to $25 oil, and the state of alaska is going to have to find alternative ways to make revenue real fast now so diverse opinions ought to be seen as a strength even by the most narrow minded pols.
February 11th, 2009 at 1:12PM
Whoops – Did I get the link wrong? Thanks. I’ll fix it.
February 11th, 2009 at 3:32PM
One thing I like about Alaska is that whatever identity labels one used elsewhere don’t carry much weight up here. Origin, religion, education credentials–all pale beside the essential question: What can you do?
State legislative skepticism of the value of public universities has been around since, oh, at least 1964, when Mario Savio stood atop that police cruiser in Sproul Plaza. The politicizing of campuses is a lot easier for those who work there than it is for legislators who spend x percent of their time thinking about university appropriations.
Look around the room; it doesn’t matter if you’re Rush Limbaugh or Al Gore, we are surrounded by wood, metals, and products derived from hydrocarbons, while our fridges and pantries contain food. Resource industries are absolutely fundamental. Grow it, catch it, kill it, cut it down, dig it up: not a person on earth does not participate in those processes, even if by proxy, and we must regardless of political ideology. Funny how the antidevelopment sentiment of youth changes when they start paying utility bills.
February 11th, 2009 at 4:09PM
The other thing that seems to pale, which you don’t list, is morality. Having in mind your Ted Stevens in particular.
The thing about thoughtful college students is that many of them remain serious about morality, not merely about what you can do.
February 11th, 2009 at 4:35PM
Don’t know if you already know this, but yesterday at 5:20 (when most faculty and students have already left for the day) the University of Minnesota announced it was eliminating its graduate school in an email.
No one, including the departmental DsGS knew anything like this was coming. Here’s the piece in the Daily: http://www.mndaily.com/2009/02/09/graduate-school-restructuring-largely-surprise#comment-6843
It’s astonishing. No community discussion of the elimination of an institution that has existed over a century. None. Just the iron hand of the president.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:41PM
V.: I didn’t know. Thanks for the link. I’m opening it now.
UD
February 12th, 2009 at 7:40AM
The article isn’t clear, but this seems to be the closure of a separate administrative entity, not actual graduate programs.
Perhaps Minnesota had a world-beating graduate administrative staff, in which case this is a pity, but at my graduate school, the graduate administration consisted of two individuals actually doing something and five others camping around a coffee pot and chatting.
February 12th, 2009 at 7:54AM
Reading down further in the Gara thingie, I note that he is excoriating Sassy Sarah and unnamed legislators for not providing more heating assistance; he himself, of course, knew it would be needed.
I ask: Les, don’t you believe in global warming? Aren’t the effects supposed to be more pronounced at higher latitudes? Surely any rational government official, knowing that Albert Gore was absolutely correct, would be planning on dramatically warmer winter temperatures–especially since any right-thinking, NPR-listening progressive knows that warming is accelerating. So here, Sassy Sarah and your Demo buddies in the legislature "followed the science," but apparently not you.
So, the simple fact that you guys have been freezing your heinies off up there is completely irrelevant. You can’t argue with science, after all.