According to "Right Wing Watch," the NAS was founded to bring together conservatives in academia to fight the 'liberal bias' on college and university campuses and to target multiculturalism and affirmative-action policies. They are indeed, a conservative organization with funded by conservative organizations.
It's interesting because if you read that short, little paragraph on their website of "Who We Are" their mission doesn't sound incredibly conservative...but read further and you'll eventually get the gist, especially in the section "Is it dangerous to join?" --You can even have the info shipped to your home address in case you are afraid that fellow colleagues will find out about your association with this group.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against academic freedom. I'm also not against a balanced academic curriculum or healthy debate...I just thought I smelled some familiar, far right, conservative rhetoric in their statement "Rebuilding Campus Community: The Wrong Imperative." As I mentioned in my previous blog, I don't think this is a common view among professors. Yes, academic snobbery exists, but to attempt to take down holistic student development with such weak arguments??? It's kind of making sense now...
After re-reading my previous post today (now that some time has passed) I am unsure if I actually communicated the heart of what I was trying to say. The answer, I think, is to change the way this discussion is framed on campuses. Like I said, I'm not against a healthy debate, but perhaps in environments where we are trying to promote bridges between academic faculty and student affairs, it's best not to view it in the "NAS vs. SLI" perspective. We should be framing our thoughts specifically around our students and the issues on our campuses, that way, we aren't arguing against each other, but trying to achieve a common solution.
No comments:
Post a Comment