Breaking New Ground in Coercion at UCONN

[pizzaboy]

Although my rants are usually about my personal experiences, I thought this had merit. Val has a teacher (multicultural education class) who frequently rams his radical agenda down the students' throats. Although this is par for the course at a university (see Defronzo's Revolutionary Movements class and Cazenave's* White Racism class), in one way

Comments

[theantidj]

So, a few things

[theantidj]

To be clear, I forgot to mention in the Cazenave paragraph that during the time I took his class I was still in my thoroughly indoctrinated "Repulbicans have all of the answers" phase. I didn't acknowledge any of his racial points as valid, etc.

The truth of the matter is, of course, that it's somewhere in between. The guy isn't a total nut job. He has some good perspectives. He can point to some pretty solid evidence to back him up. He's probably "right" on a few things. His main problem, though, is similar to Michael Moore's (or Glenn Beck or other hyper-conservative) ... he can come on way too strong with his point of view turning away ears that might otherwise be willing to hear what he has to say.

[pizzaboy]

Cazenave, my bad. I'll correct that. As for Defronzo, I took his classes, and yes, they were multiple choice; I'm not alleging any grading bias on his part. Most of his exam content was based on fact. His lengthly rants and personal philosophy that he tried to ram down everyone's throats was inappropriate, though. Of course, at the time, I gobbled that shit up. I haven't had personal experience with Cazenave, but from what I've heard from probably a half dozen of his students I wasn't impressed. From what Neil said, he singled him out in front of the class as a typical white racist and humiliated him in front of everyone. I mean, Neil

[corinneyland]

If this were a class in economics, ethics, even perhaps psychology, I could maybe see the point. But forcing your students to fatten Moore's pockets to push your own personal agenda? I don't agree either, Nick. What is the penalty for not going? Is there an alternative assignment? I would argue the point with the professor just for argument's sake, but that's just me being, well, me. After seeing the previews for this flick, I've no desire to see this bloated ass put any of my money in his pockets. I mean, have we all forgotten Canadian Bacon?

[pizzaboy]

So there's nothing wrong with making students fund a pet political project instead of teaching them what they are already paying to learn (and what taxpayers are subsidizing)? Right... that's totally not corrupt at all!

In a way, it would be an even bigger deal, because the subject matter has absolutely nothing to do with anything relevant whatsoever.

When we watched movies in class and when I administered them as a TA, they were only relevant films - in "The City in the Western Tradition," we showed films on the development of Athens, Bruges, etc., not some pet project.

If this were a class in economics, political science, philosophy, the media, film, art, propaganda, communications, even English or sociology it might be permissible at a stretch, depending on the specifics. But its not, and it comes down to making students donate money to fund his personal issues.

[pizzaboy]

Yes it is mandatory, attendance is graded and he accompanied everyone to the film.

There is an atmosphere of intimidation in a classroom like this, since all grading is subjective - writing assignments. While she is going to include this on the professor's review, until the class is over and the grades are finalized, she can't do much, else she would risk him taking it out on her for one of her assignments - a huge headache at best, at worst, she loses valedictorian status. Other students have less to lose, but they still have to maintain a very high GPA to stay in the program, and he knows this. Also, this course is mandatory.

It doesn't matter how much $ it is, it's unethical. It does make a difference - everything does - if you truly believed that things like this didn't make a difference, you wouldn't vote. Maybe its just sending 20 kids to cough up $11.50 each for movie tickets, but its still inappropriate. It doesn't matter what movie it is, for what cause (some war propaganda movie would be just as bad).