ThinkProgress: The Koch Foundation had a say in hiring and firing George Mason University professors

[No Excuses]

I mean what the **** do I know right?

 

This is such sensationalist nonsense, that Mason's president has opened an inquiry into the schools relationship with private donors and their influence on academic affairs:

 

Quote

 

The president of George Mason University has ordered an inquiry into whether big-money donors are being given undue influence over academic matters, after documents were released showing that the Charles Koch Foundation had been given a voice in hiring and firing professors.

 

The university president, Angel Cabrera, wrote in an email to faculty Monday night that he was ordering the investigation after learning of documents revealing “problematic gift agreements.”

 

Mr. Cabrera met Tuesday with the faculty senate to discuss a review of gift acceptance policy, “and there were a lot of interesting proposals from the faculty,” Michael Sandler, a university spokesman, said. Mr. Sandler said the review would cover every gift agreement, no matter how small, that supported faculty.

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/us/koch-george-mason-university.html

 

Please let him know how wrong he is to do this tshille, since you are apparently an expert on internal academic affairs and what is normal and what isn't normal at universities.

[tshile]

I don't think it's wrong for him to review it, and their policies, and to make sure they're sticking to them. Every university should be doing this, all the time. 

 

That's all he said he's doing. I have no problem with it.

 

Edit: Never mind. I'll just leave it at that. Carry on.

[No Excuses]

EDIT: this is over.

 

[Llevron]

You guys are so predictable lol

[No Excuses]

Ultimately, this is not even an issue just about the Koch's.

 

The American higher education system is ripe for being exploited.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/waking-up-to-chinas-infiltration-of-american-colleges/2018/02/18/99d3bee8-13f7-11e8-9570-29c9830535e5_story.html?utm_term=.9a8d5be15cd6

 

 

Quote

 

With more than 100 universities in the United States now in direct partnership with the Chinese government through Confucius Institutes, the U.S. intelligence community is warning about their potential as spying outposts. But the more important challenge is the threat the institutes pose to the ability of the next generation of American leaders to learn, think and speak about realities in China and the true nature of the Communist Party regime.

 

“Their goal is to exploit America’s academic freedom to instill in the minds of future leaders a pro-China viewpoint,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. “It’s smart. It’s a long-term, patient approach.”

 

This month, Rubio asked all Florida educational institutions that host Confucius Institutes to reconsider those arrangements in light of a growing body of evidence that China seeks to constrain criticism on American campuses, exert influence over curriculum related to China and monitor Chinese students in the United States.

 

 

 

The Koch's aren't the only ones who realize how utterly desperate American higher-ed is for funding and how they are willing to sacrifice transparency in return.

[DCSaints_fan]

1 hour ago, grego said:

Im sure there's an answer to this, but I've always wondered the same thing. When I went to UMD, you'd go to classes that were often filled with a couple hundred students. Then the 'professor' who is teaching the class is a grad student or teachers assistant. 

 

I always thought "what the hell are we paying for?". 

 

And that was in the early 90s, when college was 'cheap'. 

 

Its because the "real" faculty is busy doing research / attending conferences / collaborating with other profs, so they can publish, so they can get grant money, which brings money into the university (in the form of "overhead"), which is how they are evaluated by their department.   At least this is how it is in the sciences.  Undergrad education is one of the lowest priorities.

[tshile]

the only classes where we had assistants teaching (undergrad or grad) were labs, and spot lecturers where the subject matter was something the assistant was currently working on a project in or otherwise an expert in. In the later cases the professor was in the room and was 100% paying attention - sometimes adding context or otherwise contributing, sometimes just did the brief intro and ended with a 'we're covering this next week, assignments are posted on the portal'

 

those only happened in the upper level courses and there were usually 20-30 students. it was the CS/engineering department, they'd weeded most of the people out by then.

[Bozo the kKklown]

On 5/2/2018 at 1:30 PM, Kilmer17 said:

The problem is that our public universities are cashed strapped in the first place.  How the **** is that possible?  Tuition rates are 1000 %s higher than a couple of decades ago.

 

Stop spending money on lavish resort style campuses and maybe you wont have to take money from people you don't like.

Because your conservative masters have cut funding for public universities and have for decades.

 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/07/24/new-study-attempts-show-how-much-state-funding-cuts-push-tuition

 

I said this in a post months ago on here, the goal is of the Conservative movement is to end all things public, except funneling public money to private institutions (utilities, school, etc).

[twa]

Are universities in blue states lower tuition then?