FWIW - I am a Stanford grad, with two kids in elementary school. I have suspected for a couple years now that my kids may end up doing something totally different for college than I did - not sure what that looks like exactly, but I simply do not see higher education in 2021 as a system that promotes rigorous learning.
I hope U Austin flourishes and my kids can attend this or something created in the same vein. Or maybe you kick off a mini-rebellion and some "traditional" schools join this movement out of pure market opportunity. In any case, I think this approach to education is so, so important and I would happily give money to this over my actual alma mater.
Also, random note: a notable omission on the list of displaced academics here is Jordan Peterson. Would love to see him actually get to teach again before retiring - it's so obvious he loves it and wishes he could. Is he doing his own thing?
As far as I know, Peterson is still on the faculty of the University of Toronto. He seems to be doing a lot of other speeches so I don't know if he is teaching any classes.
Ralston College is leading the revival and reinvention of the traditional university. It is a fellowship dedicated to humanistic inquiry for anyone, anywhere, who seeks the truth with courage. Ralston has authorization from the State of Georgia as a degree-granting institution. https://www.ralston.ac/about
If you think Peterson is an insightful academic you’re a shit professor with 0 critical thinking skills. Autism University is probably where you belong teaching phrenology or demonology or some bullshit.
Our current universities at least in my experience in engineering and public research produce excellent work. You say Liberal Academia is lost and just reinforces elite propaganda but are even a Maoist? Probably just a soy Liberal professor, smh.
Your comments are def a great advertisement for why a new university is needed. I once overheard 2 people complaining about Jordan Peterson, and I politely asked if they had ever listened to him talk for more than a 5 minute clip, and they innocently and politely responded by saying that they had never seen any video of him speaking at all, just what they had read about him on MSM.
Try again. It is the pseudo-disciplines becoming dominant in universities that are driving the need for these new institutions. And the need to provide education free from censorship, cynicism, and coercion. Where one can think freely, ask fundamental questions, explore works of art and intellect that help us better understand ourselves and the world. I am a liberal who supports freedom of thought above all else.
Ah yes, where one can think freely about phrenology and the scientific truths Peterson talks about like masculine and feminine energy/vibes.
Peterson claimed to be an evolutionary biologist, he’s not.
The field of evolutionary psychology is arguably pseudoscience.
Yeah man, you’re a liberal, nothing is new about that. Liberalism is an idealist philosophical tradition, it’s not rooted in material reality but the individuals own feelings and subjective thoughts.
Ralston college is not different from any other low tier Liberal arts college. They just found a viable target market in sentimental Libs that can’t cut it at any of the more rigorous higher learning institutions.
You obviously know nothing about evolution, ethology, behavioral ecology, or population genetics, aka evolutionary psychology. It is impossible to even begin to understand human behavior if one has no understanding of how it evolved through natural selection. Behavior is like any organ or physiological system - the result of complex evolutionary pressures intimately tied to the environment, most particularly others of the same species. This enormously important science was originally called ethology, then when population genetics was incorporated it became sociobiology. When belatedly applied to humans, it became known as evolutionary psychology.
You might check out BYU as an alternative. Reasonably priced even for students who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints @ around $13,000/year for tuition. Merit based scholarships available for freshman and those that make top grades freshman year forward. Up to 100% paid.
I went to BYU. Trust me, it might be relatively cheap but the overall quality of education and the general culture is not great. There are a few departments that shine -- Accounting, Law, and Nursing are all respectable enough. But I absolutely would not recommend that a non-Mormon, a woman, or a non-white person attend this school. Non-Mormons are treated as oddities and eventually are ostracized if they don't cave to the pressure to convert. Women are not taken seriously anywhere, as they are expected to marry, have babies, and not pursue a career according to Mormon church teachings. And if you're not white, nobody will be mean to you about that but you will find that fewer people are eager to date you without ever saying the reason -- this goes triple if you're black. I have also found that due to perfectly legitimate concerns about Mormonism's track record of racism, sexism, and homophobia, in job interviews I have had to explicitly say that I am no longer a Mormon because I disagree with the religion's teachings. When I haven't done this, as soon as someone saw I went to BYU the interview was essentially over. Students are better off going to a junior college to save money than attending a fringe school associated with a fringe religion.
Um. “Fewer people are eager to date you.” This is true in general of all populations. People date based on physical attraction and personality traits. Races tend to be most attracted to members of their own race. People within a culture tend to be attracted to personality traits within that culture. Your lack of awareness of this (or inability to understand it without feeling bigotry is afoot?) shows that you must have been indoctrinated in the very way we must abolish.
Unfortunately, even BYU seems to have gone "woke" in many ways. My daughter has wanted to attend BYU since she was a tot, but I'm concerned about the current political climate of the school.
It is true it has a vocal minority going "woke", but by and large BYU continues to be given the most conservative university in the U.S. Either way it is a fantastic value for educational dollars
Nah, the administration has just let the .0001% of wokester students have their temper tantrum. It's a better strategic decision than fighting them. No worries if you want to keep your daughter safe from lefties -- BYU is overwhelmingly the most conservative major university in the USA.
The protests that happen at BYU tend to consist of very few people and produce no results at all. If the school cracked down on them by punishing students, it would draw a lot more attention to them and cause more to join in. There would then be a larger debate over free speech. If it's only a few kids and they aren't very effective, it's much less work and much better for the university to just let them do their thing than to draw negative attention for stifling a protest. If there are particular troublemakers, the Honor Code Office is pretty good at targeting them for punishment or expulsion for other reasons at another time. BYU looks better by publicly making it look like they are fine with students saying whatever they want but then quietly continuing with the policies they think are best and removing unwanted students out of the public eye.
I agree, the students should have free speech & as long as the school doesn't cave to the demands of a few crazy woke kids, they should be free to protest as they wish. Glad to know BYU continues to have good morals!
There are plenty of intelligent BYU grads, but they are the ones who left Mormonism and are now embarrassed about having gone to BYU. The ones who brag about going to BYU do tend to be super obnoxious because they are just trying to show their righteousness credentials. So you are not wrong. It's just also possible you've met a smart BYU grad but would never know it because they'd never talk about it.
Making such sweeping generalizations does not add to the discussion. There are plenty of intelligent BYU graduates who are strong in their faith and are active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And there are plenty others who fall somewhere in between on the spectrum.
I may be wrong but wasn't the first sentence you wrote on this thread "I went to BYU." So which category does that put you in? The "I'm smart, left the church, embarrased I went to BYU so I don't bring it up." or the "Obnoxiously trying to show my righteous credentials to everyone so I brag about going to BYU whenever I get a chance." category?
I went to UPenn and feel exactly the same way as you. Our preeminent universities are being swallowed up by a bizarre woke ideology created in education schools throughout the country. Great video on this: https://youtu.be/0hybqg81n-M
You had us at hello. The rest was mostly a recap of what those of us with school aged kids already know.
Im sure we aren’t alone in being on track to save mid 6 figures per child for university, only to question if there is a place it’s worth it. My husband and I both have masters degrees. We demand a LOT of our kids. We sacrifice to put them in a private school that demands a LOT - both in and outside of the classroom where character expectation and excellence in outside endeavors (athletics, arts, STEM) are as high as academic expectations.
It’s worth every penny - which is why we sacrifice even more and donate to help children access the school regardless of their parents financial means.
Still, we often wonder what comes next? What alternative paths are out there? Dropping mid six figures for some university to crush their love of learning, kill their curiosity, condemn their work ethic, and destroys their spirit, seems like a poor use of hard earned cash from us, and hard earned opportunity for them.
So from all of us who see the possibility of a brighter, more intelligent, more thinking future every time we look at our kids faces - Thank You!!!!
I have young children, and I’ve also been thinking about what their future will look like if they pursue higher education. I went to college & graduate school, and I’ve been listening to podcasts with people like Prof. Boghossian - wondering whether it’s even worth going to university these days. I’m a lifelong Democrat, frustrated entirely by the denials from “my side” that intellectual freedom is being stifled on campuses.
Already seeing the predictable backlash to this announcement online. There are many options for private higher education in the US. Their anger at others being given a choice (at some point when it’s ready) might be seen as proof that they realize that most colleges & universities ARE stifling intellectual freedom (of the ideas they see as inappropriate).
I unfortunately have no children but would be feeling the same as you if I did. Also, thank you for being a good parent! I appreciate and admire you so much. <3
Thanks to all of you for standing up and for doing something so important. I have a 6th and 8th grader and the thought of sending them to college as it is right now scares the crap out of me. I don’t want their thoughts and views stifled because they aren’t the “right” ones. Never being challenged or taught to think about different views or debate is going to have huge consequences on our society. Shutting down anything you don’t agree with or makes you uncomfortable is dangerous. All the best! Hoping this will catch fire and spread.
Wonderful news. My two cents. Employ an evangelist to facilitate replication of U of Austin across America. Employ an outreach official to set up internships and employment opportunities at the highest possible levels. High schoolers who want bright futures in tech or media or politics should see U of Austin as a strong partner. And do club sports, not intercollegiate sports. Do not let your web site become an infestation of DEI platitudes. Don't do DEI at all. Do people. Don't burden kids with the cost of paying for heavy layers of deans and assistant deans and assistant to assistant deans and other assorted bureaucrats.
Good luck. America needs parallel structures; in education, in tech, in soft drinks, in media.
This school will never exist and they will probably not be able to get accredited let alone provide any significant career path support for the half wit alumni that are dumb enough to go
Ah yes Teddy Roosevelt would know something or two about that since he engaged in genocide against native Americans. Are you going to reference Hitler next for why this school will be successful?
I suppose he should quote Woodrow Wilson, instead, who re-segregated the armed forces and featured "Birth of a Nation" at the White House. He'd certainly know a think or two about tearing down other people's dreams!
Wonderful! I've been wondering why the Cancelleds didn't get together and form a counter-university. Turns out they were already doing it!
I hope you can keep the founding spirit going. The spiral of tenure and orthodoxy is a powerful force. Per your website, you're pursuing accreditation, which is another powerful force toward orthodoxy. You'd stand a better chance of maintaining independence if you avoided both tenure and accreditation.
I believe this will be the trend people seek — both teachers and students. Employers will look past “not accredited” and “no tenure-track positions offered” because they will know the quality students you produce.
You're not wrong to be worried, but Hillsdale College (my alma mater) is both accredited and uses tenure, and has remained fiercely independent, protective of the pursuit of counter-cultural ideas, etc. As the system works now, accreditation grants value to your degree - without it, a college degree isn't really worth the paper it's printed on. Accreditation doesn't guarantee the quality of the degree, of course. But it's pretty essential with the way academia and employment work in the US.
This is exactly it. Wealthy people need to stop complaining about illiberal universities, while simultaneously making big donations, and start building new ones.
I think you misread my statement. It's OK to stifle the "By Any Means Necessary" tactics of the leftist activists, meaning building takeovers, shouting down and assaulting speakers they disagree with, etc.
This is not the first alternative university or college I've heard of, but I find such efforts heartening.
I'm currently in the belly of the beast, employed as a member of the faculty of a large public university. My institution has not yet been wholly consumed by illiberal ideology, due to a number of factors. I teach in the humanities, though, and I certainly know the woke walk amongst us.
Tales of academic dissidents have inspired me to be more daring in my own teaching, to give my students permission to think and speak freely, challenging them to embrace the discomfort that is essential to any real learning. So, I'll work the inside angle, while you all pursue this new vision on the outside. Perhaps, between us, we can start to move things in a better direction.
"John Keating: Now we all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go, [imitating a goat]
John Keating: "that's baaaaad." Robert Frost said, "Two roads diverged in the wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.""
It's definitely one of my absolute favorite movies 🤗. If you believe there is a message in the film that you would like to share, please consider writing a Guest Post on "moviewise: Life Lessons From Movies."
This is fantastic! I’m a professor at an illiberal big ten university and I would love to work at a place like this. It would be an immense reprieve from all the craziness that we have to deal with every day.
I was elated to read about your enormous undertaking to create a university, where people will be free and encouraged to think as individuals. Also, I never in my life ,as an American, would have thought I would have ever written that sentence. I have two very young grandsons and have given much thought to the fact that they may never attend college. This was a gigantic shift for me as my father was an academic, a department chair at Penn for virtually his whole career. Obviously for me , and then for my own family higher learning was the way. However, I have watched the entire system slide into indoctrination over the past twenty years, and over the past ten it has been full steam ahead. So thank you very much for creating a true place of higher learning.
One slightly in-the-weeds thing I think you'll see: "traditional" universities waste an incredible amount every year on bureaucracy. What would it look like if you instead focused that money on researchers and scholarships? Am pretty certain at this point you could pay all your professors 50% more than market rate and still have plenty leftover if you minimized the multiple layers of deans / diversity bureaucrats etc.
The already wealthy people who made the endowments don’t want them to spend the money on research or instruction - they want them to invest it while the donors sit on various boards in order to access private equity and retain power despite claiming to have “gifted” the funds. They retain the benefits of the financial assets without retaining the actual assets or associated tax liabilities and estate planning concerns…….
I say this with 1st hand knowledge.
If we limited private foundations to 15 years and taxes endowments for organizations that fail to actually SPEND at least 10% of their total endowments each year at either ordinary income or corporate tax rates this would end. Instead wealthy people hide their assets in tax exempt “charity” funds where they can ensure poor people, around the globe, suffer the consequences of their woke “theories.”
- I suggest Harvard invest this $20m in private equity firm XYZ
- I simultaneously go to XYZ and suggest that if I get a board seat, $20m may flow their way.
- I can then help direct the money in the fund.
- Also, I get a carried interest package because I'm on the board, so I make money off the proceeds of the fund, probably at a similar rate that I would if I just invested the $20m directly.
Naw. I've been outta touch for long time. Come-ta think on it, I wasn't IN touch when I was working. Had no time for "outside" activities, like asking "What goes ON in the world these days?"
I should say one thing - what I’ve seen more is an access loop than direct quid pro quo. I give $20m to ABC university. I sit on the board of whatever endowment I donated to which might in total be worth $1billion. I might only have $1m sitting in cash to invest in my own name that month, but money managers know I am “really” directing $15m in investments that month so even though I’ve only got $1m personally, I get promote, I get fee discounts for getting in early, my risk is reduced because I know the fund will meet its capital goals since I’m going to direct the endowment board I sit on to help them do it, snd I probably know which other endowments are going to invest. This I have access to investments and economic players which my personal wealth would never have allowed - and by putting a “charity” sticker on it that continues in perpetuity without pesky issues like flow through tax liability or estate taxes.
Some boards don’t allow it. In my experience that’s few and far between.
The point is money can mean power and opportunity. For charity it’s meant to give a tax break for funds donated help those in need or society. In reality, with both private foundations and many university endowments, it’s just a way to collect and invest tax free so the “donors” maintain that power/ wealth.
While private foundations do pay a penalty if their annual gifts to public charities are too low, the penalty isn’t huge and the structure is set up for them to exist in near perpetuity. For university endowments it grows the power and influence of those controlling the endowment.
Worst of all, a lot ends up spent on social experiments, not direct help (just look at what the Gates “foundation” is doing with farmland).
I don’t think increasing the double tax on corporate earnings, or inflation tax on capital gains, does much to address the power issues in society. Targeting the “rich” for being successful seems more punitive than anything else, and I’m not sure why we’d outright punish success.
But I do think forcing universities and private foundations to either pay taxes on a fair playing field with the rest of the economy, or actually spend the money on providing a tangible benefit would be beneficial in changing the mindset of these organizations.
It’s ridiculous these universities sit on huge endowments while jacking up tuition and using 18 year olds as a conduit of taxpayer dollars to the university via government backed student loans. Combining an endless source of taxpayer revenue with zero tax constraints on wealth accumulation in comparison to every other path of wealth accumulation in the economy is corrupting, promotes cronyism, and serves zero charitable purpose which is the entire basis of the carve out from taxes.
And then on top of it all they draw forgivable PPP funds while still charging full tuition for online instruction and sitting on massive endowments.
It’s truly disgusting.
I worked in higher ed for years and now work in business/private equity.
Business certainly has its flaws, but at least entrepreneurs actually create value, create jobs…innovate…and are subject to some pretty strict checks and balances if the company is publicly-traded.
There are no checks and balances on the university system. They funnel tax-payer dollars into their coffers by strapping 18-year-olds into lifelong debt.
The system is rotten to its core not only ideologically but also structurally and financially.
And yet, somehow, people who virtue signal all day long about corporate tax breaks and the salaries of the CEO compared to the average worker…don’t make a peep about universities that don’t pay any taxes, are publicly funded with taxpayer money, and that pay their adjunct professors $2000 a class…meaning a professor could teach 10 classes a year and still be below the poverty line…while presidents and administrators make high 6 figures and even 7 figures a year.
Not commenting on the professor pay part, but they certainly value facilities and insanely bloated administrators over anything having to do with learning. I haven’t even been out of undergrad 20 years and the price has more than doubled. Nothing dumped fuel on the insane tuition fire like federalizing student loans - at the same time degrees are becoming more worthless. Using kids as a conduit for Gary teed cash is insane. I can’t figure out why the issues are only with for profit colleges, a few of which are actually good, when they are all making a bunch of empty promises around earnings potential and how much simply checking the box of getting a degree plays a role versus actual life and work accomplishments.
I couldn’t agree more that the private sector has its issues but is still the only place that growth and progress and innovation and value added actually occur.
The one area I am all for - place guardrails on the endowments - either use them to fund the school or pay taxes on the income. Any “charity” (fund, endowment, entity, or foundation) that engages primarily in investing is an investment vehicle and should be taxed as such. Private businesses don’t get an opt out, neither should other entities seeking profit in their monetary activities.
Shame on the over social experiments for sure. I'm not sure all the donors are "bad" people - they are misguided often, and there are no checks to when being misguided causes real harm.
Too often there has been a move away from investment for growth - everywhere from US based universities to international investments in developing nations - towards "charity" with a huge weight on social experiments. The NGO's in Africa do virtually nothing to help those nations develop an independent, self-sustaining, economy. Instead they use poor people as vessels to see what weird social experiments would work. Our decades in Afghanistan were a failure because our contractors had no interest in training the Afghan army to sustain itself, or the NGOs to teach the Afghan people to run schools - the army was trained to be our foot soldiers and the NGOs run the schools. Our contractors and NGOs get an endless supply of cash that would necessarily vanish should they accomplish teaching the Afghan people help themselves.
Is it any surprise this has creeped into or universities? Pretending like the goal of "higher education" is to create monolithic thinking social justice warriors with no skills of value is the outcome of a wide spread social experiment that, at its core, holds the universities job is to "mold" young adults into the image of what those in control preferred them to be rather than empower those same young adults to pursue something of value.
A simple way to put it - giving people fish to meet their needs today has taken over, while the timeless need to teach people to fish has fallen out of fashion with many who have the luxury of living in their own heads with full bellies, a few houses, and little fear when there isn't any fish for the little people for some period of time.
Awesome. I’ve never been a fan of the status quo in education, and it’s only gotten worse in the past 30 years. Courage will be rewarded. It’s great to see so many names I recognize involved in this project.
Ralston College is leading the revival and reinvention of the traditional university. It is a fellowship dedicated to humanistic inquiry for anyone, anywhere, who seeks the truth with courage. Ralston has authorization from the State of Georgia as a degree-granting institution. https://www.ralston.ac/about
This is all very well, but allow me to sound a bit skeptical here. The founders are a mix of genuinely serious academics and other public figures who, with all due respect, are not academics, and there presence as founders of a university raises an eyebrow no less than if they claimed to found a hospital or a space program. Moreover, even among the academics, many are already into retirement age, and/or have by no means announced their departure from their very comfortable jobs at established institutions.
More to the point. With all due respect, research universities are not primarily about undergraduate instruction, they are about research, first and foremost, and this verbose high-minded essay says precious little about that. How will this new university advance world-class research? What are their plans for hiring faculty? What are their views on erosion of tenure? Will their own faculty be tenured? Even as to undergraduate instruction this long long essay left no concrete details. Only very vague virtue-signalling platitudes. In short, I will remain doubtful , but I will be happy to be pleasantly surprised.
That is not what they are claiming that is broken, and I hardly see what reasonable alternative one can offer to professionalism. The essay *does* do a good job in pointing out some of the present-day ills of contemporary academia, namely overblown administration, and an increasing trend towards constriction of academic freedom. This by no means explains what people who are not academics, some even without a PhD, have to do with founding a University. I mean no disrespect, but this is simply a matter of expertise. A university, I should think, should be founded by scholars and scientist, certainly if its explicit purpose is a sort of backlash against a takeover by bureaucrats and non-academic "tainting" of academia ("many universities are doing extremely well at providing students with everything they need. Everything, that is, except intellectual grit" etc. etc.). If that is the case, I do not see what this has to do with quite a few people on the list there, who, though highly accomplished and impressive in their respective fields, have little to no record of any kind of scientific or scholarly contribution to speak of. This raises serious questions about this project.
Oudeis, I'll offer one last response, then I'm moving on. The point, the very title of the announcement, is that they are 'starting anew.' The website state that "We're completely rethinking how a university operates." Completely! From the ground up, from curriculum to campus. The author states that they want to incorporate the influence and teaching of "society's great doers" into a new academic model, not just the bloated thought from a bunch of PhDs. Enrollments across America are down, tuitions are up, and learning has hit new lows. It's past time to scrape the ivory towers and 'build back better.' Sorry, I had to use that line. :)
As the author states, "administrators and professors … will feel threatened" by their new vision for learning. Same for "status quo donors" and, I assume, a bunch of PhDs who are invested in that status quo. AGAIN, as they say, "something fundamental is broken," and we aren't just talking about administrative bloat. Academia is BROKEN, Ouideis. It's working for PhDs, I guess, but the other 99.9% are FAILING.
P.S. The author notes that, "Four out of five American PhD students are willing to discriminate against right-leaning scholars." For my money, you can shove that PhD "intellectual grit" where the sun doesn't shine.
P.S.S. UATX is starting studies in entrepreneurship. Is that a lane for ivory tower PhD rigor, or for someone like Jon Lonsdale? And…. while she and I probably disagree on a number of issues – I'm still waiting for that article about how voting for Democrats has provided a safe haven for progressive Totalitarian ideology :) – let my kid learn the path of truth-telling from Bari over some Ivy League 'woke' and entitled PhD journalism professor.
I've had the pleasure to discuss entrepreneurship before major college audiences of Masters and PhD students in business and engineering. I certainly don't have a PhD (or Masters), but I promise they learned more in a few hours with me than in a semester of academia noise. Just saying. REBUILD!
I think you're raising some good points here, namely that they do seem to be quite equivocal or rather worryingly vague and obscure on what it is they are actually trying to do. Is it to restore a classic rigourss academic approach or rather to attempt an alternative to academic approaches (and if the latter, why hide under the guise of "University"?). My fear is that it is a vagueness to which each potential donor would fill in his or her hopes and assumptions. A potential for disappointment at best, to put it mildly... Assuming all involved in the venture are well-meaning, honest people, I ascribe this highly problematic vagueness to its pangs of birth, and expect them to be far more clear, and concrete in the near future. Otherwise, this charitable assumption will have to change.
Your reading is much closer than mine. TYTY, M. Oudeis. I failed to notice if there were even gonna BE any PhD programs, tho assuredly most-all the academic names probably have them. I may have missed it tho.
All I KNOW for CERTAIN is that there will be.. Ah... "Interesting" trade-offs, unless they are founded on Billionaires cash, which carries it's own risks and rewards, right?
FWIW - I am a Stanford grad, with two kids in elementary school. I have suspected for a couple years now that my kids may end up doing something totally different for college than I did - not sure what that looks like exactly, but I simply do not see higher education in 2021 as a system that promotes rigorous learning.
I hope U Austin flourishes and my kids can attend this or something created in the same vein. Or maybe you kick off a mini-rebellion and some "traditional" schools join this movement out of pure market opportunity. In any case, I think this approach to education is so, so important and I would happily give money to this over my actual alma mater.
Also, random note: a notable omission on the list of displaced academics here is Jordan Peterson. Would love to see him actually get to teach again before retiring - it's so obvious he loves it and wishes he could. Is he doing his own thing?
I immediately thought of Jordan Peterson too. I would love to take a class from him.
As far as I know, Peterson is still on the faculty of the University of Toronto. He seems to be doing a lot of other speeches so I don't know if he is teaching any classes.
And crying. He cries a lot :)
I’m awed by how I’m touch with his feelings he is. A real role model for us all.
He resigned from there
Pretty sure he's not on the faculty anymore.
Jordan Peterson is a Visitor at Ralston College in Savannah, GA. https://www.ralston.ac/people/jordan-b-peterson
Ralston College is leading the revival and reinvention of the traditional university. It is a fellowship dedicated to humanistic inquiry for anyone, anywhere, who seeks the truth with courage. Ralston has authorization from the State of Georgia as a degree-granting institution. https://www.ralston.ac/about
You may enjoy some of the podcasts hosted by Ralston College President Stephen J. Blackwood, available here: https://www.ralston.ac/conversations/podcasts
A conservative university dedicated to pseudo science and Peterson propaganda. Got it. Waste of money
Brilliant example of the quality of thinking our current universities produce. Thanks for making their point--even if inadvertently.
If you think Peterson is an insightful academic you’re a shit professor with 0 critical thinking skills. Autism University is probably where you belong teaching phrenology or demonology or some bullshit.
Our current universities at least in my experience in engineering and public research produce excellent work. You say Liberal Academia is lost and just reinforces elite propaganda but are even a Maoist? Probably just a soy Liberal professor, smh.
This ain’t Twitter, fool.
Go troll somewhere else. And get some help while you’re at it. You really really need it.
Please grow a brain. You’re drugged out philosopher king hasn’t been doing so well.
Your comments are def a great advertisement for why a new university is needed. I once overheard 2 people complaining about Jordan Peterson, and I politely asked if they had ever listened to him talk for more than a 5 minute clip, and they innocently and politely responded by saying that they had never seen any video of him speaking at all, just what they had read about him on MSM.
Try again. It is the pseudo-disciplines becoming dominant in universities that are driving the need for these new institutions. And the need to provide education free from censorship, cynicism, and coercion. Where one can think freely, ask fundamental questions, explore works of art and intellect that help us better understand ourselves and the world. I am a liberal who supports freedom of thought above all else.
https://www.lotuseaters.com/the-birth-of-ralston-college-03-03-21
Ah yes, where one can think freely about phrenology and the scientific truths Peterson talks about like masculine and feminine energy/vibes.
Peterson claimed to be an evolutionary biologist, he’s not.
The field of evolutionary psychology is arguably pseudoscience.
Yeah man, you’re a liberal, nothing is new about that. Liberalism is an idealist philosophical tradition, it’s not rooted in material reality but the individuals own feelings and subjective thoughts.
Ralston college is not different from any other low tier Liberal arts college. They just found a viable target market in sentimental Libs that can’t cut it at any of the more rigorous higher learning institutions.
You obviously know nothing about evolution, ethology, behavioral ecology, or population genetics, aka evolutionary psychology. It is impossible to even begin to understand human behavior if one has no understanding of how it evolved through natural selection. Behavior is like any organ or physiological system - the result of complex evolutionary pressures intimately tied to the environment, most particularly others of the same species. This enormously important science was originally called ethology, then when population genetics was incorporated it became sociobiology. When belatedly applied to humans, it became known as evolutionary psychology.
Thank you for your in-depth analysis and cogent argumentation.
You’re welcome
You might check out BYU as an alternative. Reasonably priced even for students who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints @ around $13,000/year for tuition. Merit based scholarships available for freshman and those that make top grades freshman year forward. Up to 100% paid.
I went to BYU. Trust me, it might be relatively cheap but the overall quality of education and the general culture is not great. There are a few departments that shine -- Accounting, Law, and Nursing are all respectable enough. But I absolutely would not recommend that a non-Mormon, a woman, or a non-white person attend this school. Non-Mormons are treated as oddities and eventually are ostracized if they don't cave to the pressure to convert. Women are not taken seriously anywhere, as they are expected to marry, have babies, and not pursue a career according to Mormon church teachings. And if you're not white, nobody will be mean to you about that but you will find that fewer people are eager to date you without ever saying the reason -- this goes triple if you're black. I have also found that due to perfectly legitimate concerns about Mormonism's track record of racism, sexism, and homophobia, in job interviews I have had to explicitly say that I am no longer a Mormon because I disagree with the religion's teachings. When I haven't done this, as soon as someone saw I went to BYU the interview was essentially over. Students are better off going to a junior college to save money than attending a fringe school associated with a fringe religion.
Um. “Fewer people are eager to date you.” This is true in general of all populations. People date based on physical attraction and personality traits. Races tend to be most attracted to members of their own race. People within a culture tend to be attracted to personality traits within that culture. Your lack of awareness of this (or inability to understand it without feeling bigotry is afoot?) shows that you must have been indoctrinated in the very way we must abolish.
Unfortunately, even BYU seems to have gone "woke" in many ways. My daughter has wanted to attend BYU since she was a tot, but I'm concerned about the current political climate of the school.
BYU has gone woke?!? seriously? that would be a sad state of affairs indeed
All the BYU alums (Utah LDS) I know are super conservative
It is true it has a vocal minority going "woke", but by and large BYU continues to be given the most conservative university in the U.S. Either way it is a fantastic value for educational dollars
Nah, the administration has just let the .0001% of wokester students have their temper tantrum. It's a better strategic decision than fighting them. No worries if you want to keep your daughter safe from lefties -- BYU is overwhelmingly the most conservative major university in the USA.
why is it a better strategic decison than fighting them?
The protests that happen at BYU tend to consist of very few people and produce no results at all. If the school cracked down on them by punishing students, it would draw a lot more attention to them and cause more to join in. There would then be a larger debate over free speech. If it's only a few kids and they aren't very effective, it's much less work and much better for the university to just let them do their thing than to draw negative attention for stifling a protest. If there are particular troublemakers, the Honor Code Office is pretty good at targeting them for punishment or expulsion for other reasons at another time. BYU looks better by publicly making it look like they are fine with students saying whatever they want but then quietly continuing with the policies they think are best and removing unwanted students out of the public eye.
Makes sense :) thanks for the explanation!
I agree, the students should have free speech & as long as the school doesn't cave to the demands of a few crazy woke kids, they should be free to protest as they wish. Glad to know BYU continues to have good morals!
Which is probably why it’s such a dogshit school
daughters X 2 :)
Lmao BYU is even more political than most LA schools. The education there is garbage as well. Never met an intelligent BYU grad
There are plenty of intelligent BYU grads, but they are the ones who left Mormonism and are now embarrassed about having gone to BYU. The ones who brag about going to BYU do tend to be super obnoxious because they are just trying to show their righteousness credentials. So you are not wrong. It's just also possible you've met a smart BYU grad but would never know it because they'd never talk about it.
Making such sweeping generalizations does not add to the discussion. There are plenty of intelligent BYU graduates who are strong in their faith and are active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And there are plenty others who fall somewhere in between on the spectrum.
I may be wrong but wasn't the first sentence you wrote on this thread "I went to BYU." So which category does that put you in? The "I'm smart, left the church, embarrased I went to BYU so I don't bring it up." or the "Obnoxiously trying to show my righteous credentials to everyone so I brag about going to BYU whenever I get a chance." category?
Agreed. Grab Jordan Peterson! He is awesome! He led me to Dark Horse and the rest of the IDW.
I went to UPenn and feel exactly the same way as you. Our preeminent universities are being swallowed up by a bizarre woke ideology created in education schools throughout the country. Great video on this: https://youtu.be/0hybqg81n-M
You had us at hello. The rest was mostly a recap of what those of us with school aged kids already know.
Im sure we aren’t alone in being on track to save mid 6 figures per child for university, only to question if there is a place it’s worth it. My husband and I both have masters degrees. We demand a LOT of our kids. We sacrifice to put them in a private school that demands a LOT - both in and outside of the classroom where character expectation and excellence in outside endeavors (athletics, arts, STEM) are as high as academic expectations.
It’s worth every penny - which is why we sacrifice even more and donate to help children access the school regardless of their parents financial means.
Still, we often wonder what comes next? What alternative paths are out there? Dropping mid six figures for some university to crush their love of learning, kill their curiosity, condemn their work ethic, and destroys their spirit, seems like a poor use of hard earned cash from us, and hard earned opportunity for them.
So from all of us who see the possibility of a brighter, more intelligent, more thinking future every time we look at our kids faces - Thank You!!!!
I have young children, and I’ve also been thinking about what their future will look like if they pursue higher education. I went to college & graduate school, and I’ve been listening to podcasts with people like Prof. Boghossian - wondering whether it’s even worth going to university these days. I’m a lifelong Democrat, frustrated entirely by the denials from “my side” that intellectual freedom is being stifled on campuses.
Already seeing the predictable backlash to this announcement online. There are many options for private higher education in the US. Their anger at others being given a choice (at some point when it’s ready) might be seen as proof that they realize that most colleges & universities ARE stifling intellectual freedom (of the ideas they see as inappropriate).
I unfortunately have no children but would be feeling the same as you if I did. Also, thank you for being a good parent! I appreciate and admire you so much. <3
Thanks to all of you for standing up and for doing something so important. I have a 6th and 8th grader and the thought of sending them to college as it is right now scares the crap out of me. I don’t want their thoughts and views stifled because they aren’t the “right” ones. Never being challenged or taught to think about different views or debate is going to have huge consequences on our society. Shutting down anything you don’t agree with or makes you uncomfortable is dangerous. All the best! Hoping this will catch fire and spread.
Same boat and I hope so too.
Wonderful news. My two cents. Employ an evangelist to facilitate replication of U of Austin across America. Employ an outreach official to set up internships and employment opportunities at the highest possible levels. High schoolers who want bright futures in tech or media or politics should see U of Austin as a strong partner. And do club sports, not intercollegiate sports. Do not let your web site become an infestation of DEI platitudes. Don't do DEI at all. Do people. Don't burden kids with the cost of paying for heavy layers of deans and assistant deans and assistant to assistant deans and other assorted bureaucrats.
Good luck. America needs parallel structures; in education, in tech, in soft drinks, in media.
Jim...full card...Bingo, thanks.
This school will never exist and they will probably not be able to get accredited let alone provide any significant career path support for the half wit alumni that are dumb enough to go
See Theodore Roosevelt's speech "The Man in the Arena" for an explanation of the faint soul who only exists to tear down other people's dreams.
Ah yes Teddy Roosevelt would know something or two about that since he engaged in genocide against native Americans. Are you going to reference Hitler next for why this school will be successful?
I suppose he should quote Woodrow Wilson, instead, who re-segregated the armed forces and featured "Birth of a Nation" at the White House. He'd certainly know a think or two about tearing down other people's dreams!
Yeah Bari seems to be a fan of segregation since she mad about diversity programs
Let me guess. Loudon County?
What do you mean? Are you asking if I’m from Loudon county?
This comment did not age well. So...not surprising.
Sorry, what's "DEI"?
Diversity, equity, inclusion.
Thanks! I should have guessed... (puke)
Yes, avoid DEI garbage at this school please
Wonderful! I've been wondering why the Cancelleds didn't get together and form a counter-university. Turns out they were already doing it!
I hope you can keep the founding spirit going. The spiral of tenure and orthodoxy is a powerful force. Per your website, you're pursuing accreditation, which is another powerful force toward orthodoxy. You'd stand a better chance of maintaining independence if you avoided both tenure and accreditation.
I believe this will be the trend people seek — both teachers and students. Employers will look past “not accredited” and “no tenure-track positions offered” because they will know the quality students you produce.
Absolute nonsense. The only employee looking past not accredited is probably McDonald’s or Walmart
...did you mean "the only employer"?...
You're not wrong to be worried, but Hillsdale College (my alma mater) is both accredited and uses tenure, and has remained fiercely independent, protective of the pursuit of counter-cultural ideas, etc. As the system works now, accreditation grants value to your degree - without it, a college degree isn't really worth the paper it's printed on. Accreditation doesn't guarantee the quality of the degree, of course. But it's pretty essential with the way academia and employment work in the US.
This is exactly it. Wealthy people need to stop complaining about illiberal universities, while simultaneously making big donations, and start building new ones.
Any then work like crazy to prevent them from being infiltrated by the usual suspects.
How do you prevent the infiltration if the goal is creating an environment of free and open thinking? Sounds contradictory.
If they start promoting censorship, you firmly encourage them to find another school that's more in line with their thinking.
Lmao the only college where everybody is an illiterate nazi that hates censorship. Good idea, sure it will work.
Also, have a plan to deal with leftist activists' By Any Means Necessary tactics.
It's funny to see how quickly the "tolerate all viewpoints" thing goes with you conservatives
I've seen your sort in action.
So it's okay to stifle viewpoints because some random person has, "seem your sort" goodness conservatives are so weak minded
I think you misread my statement. It's OK to stifle the "By Any Means Necessary" tactics of the leftist activists, meaning building takeovers, shouting down and assaulting speakers they disagree with, etc.
Ah yes a learning environment where you get to shoot or run over “leftist” activists on campus. Sure that will be producing some fine academic talent.
I phrased my comment in such a way that it could be mistaken by someone who didn't notice the apostrophe. My mistake. I should be more careful.
This is not the first alternative university or college I've heard of, but I find such efforts heartening.
I'm currently in the belly of the beast, employed as a member of the faculty of a large public university. My institution has not yet been wholly consumed by illiberal ideology, due to a number of factors. I teach in the humanities, though, and I certainly know the woke walk amongst us.
Tales of academic dissidents have inspired me to be more daring in my own teaching, to give my students permission to think and speak freely, challenging them to embrace the discomfort that is essential to any real learning. So, I'll work the inside angle, while you all pursue this new vision on the outside. Perhaps, between us, we can start to move things in a better direction.
Way to GO, M. Bob K!
Mr. Keating! (Oh Captain! My Captain!) "Dead Poets Society" (1989)
https://moviewise.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/dead-poets-society/
"John Keating: Now we all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go, [imitating a goat]
John Keating: "that's baaaaad." Robert Frost said, "Two roads diverged in the wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.""
I love this movie. Thanks for referencing it.
It's definitely one of my absolute favorite movies 🤗. If you believe there is a message in the film that you would like to share, please consider writing a Guest Post on "moviewise: Life Lessons From Movies."
https://moviewise.substack.com/s/-guest-posts
(e-mail: moviewise@icloud.com for more details)
Very glad to hear this. It is a pity that this is necessary, but it is clearly is absolutely essential.
This is fantastic! I’m a professor at an illiberal big ten university and I would love to work at a place like this. It would be an immense reprieve from all the craziness that we have to deal with every day.
"If you are a fearless scholar (in any field), please drop us an email with your CV at careers@uaustin.org."
Yeah I’m a fearless scholar in demonology and phrenology. Is there a place for me at U Austin?
I was elated to read about your enormous undertaking to create a university, where people will be free and encouraged to think as individuals. Also, I never in my life ,as an American, would have thought I would have ever written that sentence. I have two very young grandsons and have given much thought to the fact that they may never attend college. This was a gigantic shift for me as my father was an academic, a department chair at Penn for virtually his whole career. Obviously for me , and then for my own family higher learning was the way. However, I have watched the entire system slide into indoctrination over the past twenty years, and over the past ten it has been full steam ahead. So thank you very much for creating a true place of higher learning.
Cassandra...good points
This is amazing. The world needs this SO badly.
One slightly in-the-weeds thing I think you'll see: "traditional" universities waste an incredible amount every year on bureaucracy. What would it look like if you instead focused that money on researchers and scholarships? Am pretty certain at this point you could pay all your professors 50% more than market rate and still have plenty leftover if you minimized the multiple layers of deans / diversity bureaucrats etc.
The already wealthy people who made the endowments don’t want them to spend the money on research or instruction - they want them to invest it while the donors sit on various boards in order to access private equity and retain power despite claiming to have “gifted” the funds. They retain the benefits of the financial assets without retaining the actual assets or associated tax liabilities and estate planning concerns…….
I say this with 1st hand knowledge.
If we limited private foundations to 15 years and taxes endowments for organizations that fail to actually SPEND at least 10% of their total endowments each year at either ordinary income or corporate tax rates this would end. Instead wealthy people hide their assets in tax exempt “charity” funds where they can ensure poor people, around the globe, suffer the consequences of their woke “theories.”
Ugh, that's so gross.
So it's something like:
- I give $20m to Harvard
- I suggest Harvard invest this $20m in private equity firm XYZ
- I simultaneously go to XYZ and suggest that if I get a board seat, $20m may flow their way.
- I can then help direct the money in the fund.
- Also, I get a carried interest package because I'm on the board, so I make money off the proceeds of the fund, probably at a similar rate that I would if I just invested the $20m directly.
Yup…… exactly. And they’ll all “swear” it’s not a conflict of interest.
Plus, taxes don’t eat away at the gains. There are zero estate planning concerns. Cash needs are met with gifted assets and crony jobs.
Phew! TY NCmom. Had NO idea. SHEESH on ME!
I’m pretty sure you had a good idea 😉
Naw. I've been outta touch for long time. Come-ta think on it, I wasn't IN touch when I was working. Had no time for "outside" activities, like asking "What goes ON in the world these days?"
I should say one thing - what I’ve seen more is an access loop than direct quid pro quo. I give $20m to ABC university. I sit on the board of whatever endowment I donated to which might in total be worth $1billion. I might only have $1m sitting in cash to invest in my own name that month, but money managers know I am “really” directing $15m in investments that month so even though I’ve only got $1m personally, I get promote, I get fee discounts for getting in early, my risk is reduced because I know the fund will meet its capital goals since I’m going to direct the endowment board I sit on to help them do it, snd I probably know which other endowments are going to invest. This I have access to investments and economic players which my personal wealth would never have allowed - and by putting a “charity” sticker on it that continues in perpetuity without pesky issues like flow through tax liability or estate taxes.
Some boards don’t allow it. In my experience that’s few and far between.
The point is money can mean power and opportunity. For charity it’s meant to give a tax break for funds donated help those in need or society. In reality, with both private foundations and many university endowments, it’s just a way to collect and invest tax free so the “donors” maintain that power/ wealth.
While private foundations do pay a penalty if their annual gifts to public charities are too low, the penalty isn’t huge and the structure is set up for them to exist in near perpetuity. For university endowments it grows the power and influence of those controlling the endowment.
Worst of all, a lot ends up spent on social experiments, not direct help (just look at what the Gates “foundation” is doing with farmland).
I don’t think increasing the double tax on corporate earnings, or inflation tax on capital gains, does much to address the power issues in society. Targeting the “rich” for being successful seems more punitive than anything else, and I’m not sure why we’d outright punish success.
But I do think forcing universities and private foundations to either pay taxes on a fair playing field with the rest of the economy, or actually spend the money on providing a tangible benefit would be beneficial in changing the mindset of these organizations.
It’s ridiculous these universities sit on huge endowments while jacking up tuition and using 18 year olds as a conduit of taxpayer dollars to the university via government backed student loans. Combining an endless source of taxpayer revenue with zero tax constraints on wealth accumulation in comparison to every other path of wealth accumulation in the economy is corrupting, promotes cronyism, and serves zero charitable purpose which is the entire basis of the carve out from taxes.
Yep.
And then on top of it all they draw forgivable PPP funds while still charging full tuition for online instruction and sitting on massive endowments.
It’s truly disgusting.
I worked in higher ed for years and now work in business/private equity.
Business certainly has its flaws, but at least entrepreneurs actually create value, create jobs…innovate…and are subject to some pretty strict checks and balances if the company is publicly-traded.
There are no checks and balances on the university system. They funnel tax-payer dollars into their coffers by strapping 18-year-olds into lifelong debt.
The system is rotten to its core not only ideologically but also structurally and financially.
And yet, somehow, people who virtue signal all day long about corporate tax breaks and the salaries of the CEO compared to the average worker…don’t make a peep about universities that don’t pay any taxes, are publicly funded with taxpayer money, and that pay their adjunct professors $2000 a class…meaning a professor could teach 10 classes a year and still be below the poverty line…while presidents and administrators make high 6 figures and even 7 figures a year.
Not commenting on the professor pay part, but they certainly value facilities and insanely bloated administrators over anything having to do with learning. I haven’t even been out of undergrad 20 years and the price has more than doubled. Nothing dumped fuel on the insane tuition fire like federalizing student loans - at the same time degrees are becoming more worthless. Using kids as a conduit for Gary teed cash is insane. I can’t figure out why the issues are only with for profit colleges, a few of which are actually good, when they are all making a bunch of empty promises around earnings potential and how much simply checking the box of getting a degree plays a role versus actual life and work accomplishments.
I couldn’t agree more that the private sector has its issues but is still the only place that growth and progress and innovation and value added actually occur.
The one area I am all for - place guardrails on the endowments - either use them to fund the school or pay taxes on the income. Any “charity” (fund, endowment, entity, or foundation) that engages primarily in investing is an investment vehicle and should be taxed as such. Private businesses don’t get an opt out, neither should other entities seeking profit in their monetary activities.
And get the government OUT of student loans.
wow. I had NO idea this was going on. how truly disgusting. shame on these people
Shame on the over social experiments for sure. I'm not sure all the donors are "bad" people - they are misguided often, and there are no checks to when being misguided causes real harm.
Too often there has been a move away from investment for growth - everywhere from US based universities to international investments in developing nations - towards "charity" with a huge weight on social experiments. The NGO's in Africa do virtually nothing to help those nations develop an independent, self-sustaining, economy. Instead they use poor people as vessels to see what weird social experiments would work. Our decades in Afghanistan were a failure because our contractors had no interest in training the Afghan army to sustain itself, or the NGOs to teach the Afghan people to run schools - the army was trained to be our foot soldiers and the NGOs run the schools. Our contractors and NGOs get an endless supply of cash that would necessarily vanish should they accomplish teaching the Afghan people help themselves.
Is it any surprise this has creeped into or universities? Pretending like the goal of "higher education" is to create monolithic thinking social justice warriors with no skills of value is the outcome of a wide spread social experiment that, at its core, holds the universities job is to "mold" young adults into the image of what those in control preferred them to be rather than empower those same young adults to pursue something of value.
A simple way to put it - giving people fish to meet their needs today has taken over, while the timeless need to teach people to fish has fallen out of fashion with many who have the luxury of living in their own heads with full bellies, a few houses, and little fear when there isn't any fish for the little people for some period of time.
Trump university comes to mind
I pressed like as soon as i read the heading.
I was ready to take ANY course there as soon as I heard the collaborators on the project.
As a student, thank you for doing this.
An urgent matter that not many see rn..
I hope the students flock to you and competition dictates the others follow suit.
Awesome. I’ve never been a fan of the status quo in education, and it’s only gotten worse in the past 30 years. Courage will be rewarded. It’s great to see so many names I recognize involved in this project.
Will Dr Jordan Peterson join your faculty?
Jordan Peterson is a Visitor at Ralston College in Savannah, GA. https://www.ralston.ac/people/jordan-b-peterson
Ralston College is leading the revival and reinvention of the traditional university. It is a fellowship dedicated to humanistic inquiry for anyone, anywhere, who seeks the truth with courage. Ralston has authorization from the State of Georgia as a degree-granting institution. https://www.ralston.ac/about
You may enjoy some of the podcasts hosted by Ralston College President Stephen J. Blackwood, available here: https://www.ralston.ac/conversations/podcasts
This is all very well, but allow me to sound a bit skeptical here. The founders are a mix of genuinely serious academics and other public figures who, with all due respect, are not academics, and there presence as founders of a university raises an eyebrow no less than if they claimed to found a hospital or a space program. Moreover, even among the academics, many are already into retirement age, and/or have by no means announced their departure from their very comfortable jobs at established institutions.
More to the point. With all due respect, research universities are not primarily about undergraduate instruction, they are about research, first and foremost, and this verbose high-minded essay says precious little about that. How will this new university advance world-class research? What are their plans for hiring faculty? What are their views on erosion of tenure? Will their own faculty be tenured? Even as to undergraduate instruction this long long essay left no concrete details. Only very vague virtue-signalling platitudes. In short, I will remain doubtful , but I will be happy to be pleasantly surprised.
"The founders are a mix of genuinely serious academics and other public figures who, with all due respect, are not academics,...."
Oudeis, I suspect (hope) that's the entire point. Traditional academics as a model is broken.
That is not what they are claiming that is broken, and I hardly see what reasonable alternative one can offer to professionalism. The essay *does* do a good job in pointing out some of the present-day ills of contemporary academia, namely overblown administration, and an increasing trend towards constriction of academic freedom. This by no means explains what people who are not academics, some even without a PhD, have to do with founding a University. I mean no disrespect, but this is simply a matter of expertise. A university, I should think, should be founded by scholars and scientist, certainly if its explicit purpose is a sort of backlash against a takeover by bureaucrats and non-academic "tainting" of academia ("many universities are doing extremely well at providing students with everything they need. Everything, that is, except intellectual grit" etc. etc.). If that is the case, I do not see what this has to do with quite a few people on the list there, who, though highly accomplished and impressive in their respective fields, have little to no record of any kind of scientific or scholarly contribution to speak of. This raises serious questions about this project.
Oudeis, I'll offer one last response, then I'm moving on. The point, the very title of the announcement, is that they are 'starting anew.' The website state that "We're completely rethinking how a university operates." Completely! From the ground up, from curriculum to campus. The author states that they want to incorporate the influence and teaching of "society's great doers" into a new academic model, not just the bloated thought from a bunch of PhDs. Enrollments across America are down, tuitions are up, and learning has hit new lows. It's past time to scrape the ivory towers and 'build back better.' Sorry, I had to use that line. :)
As the author states, "administrators and professors … will feel threatened" by their new vision for learning. Same for "status quo donors" and, I assume, a bunch of PhDs who are invested in that status quo. AGAIN, as they say, "something fundamental is broken," and we aren't just talking about administrative bloat. Academia is BROKEN, Ouideis. It's working for PhDs, I guess, but the other 99.9% are FAILING.
P.S. The author notes that, "Four out of five American PhD students are willing to discriminate against right-leaning scholars." For my money, you can shove that PhD "intellectual grit" where the sun doesn't shine.
P.S.S. UATX is starting studies in entrepreneurship. Is that a lane for ivory tower PhD rigor, or for someone like Jon Lonsdale? And…. while she and I probably disagree on a number of issues – I'm still waiting for that article about how voting for Democrats has provided a safe haven for progressive Totalitarian ideology :) – let my kid learn the path of truth-telling from Bari over some Ivy League 'woke' and entitled PhD journalism professor.
I've had the pleasure to discuss entrepreneurship before major college audiences of Masters and PhD students in business and engineering. I certainly don't have a PhD (or Masters), but I promise they learned more in a few hours with me than in a semester of academia noise. Just saying. REBUILD!
Moving on. Peace.
Here here!🙂
I think you're raising some good points here, namely that they do seem to be quite equivocal or rather worryingly vague and obscure on what it is they are actually trying to do. Is it to restore a classic rigourss academic approach or rather to attempt an alternative to academic approaches (and if the latter, why hide under the guise of "University"?). My fear is that it is a vagueness to which each potential donor would fill in his or her hopes and assumptions. A potential for disappointment at best, to put it mildly... Assuming all involved in the venture are well-meaning, honest people, I ascribe this highly problematic vagueness to its pangs of birth, and expect them to be far more clear, and concrete in the near future. Otherwise, this charitable assumption will have to change.
Your reading is much closer than mine. TYTY, M. Oudeis. I failed to notice if there were even gonna BE any PhD programs, tho assuredly most-all the academic names probably have them. I may have missed it tho.
All I KNOW for CERTAIN is that there will be.. Ah... "Interesting" trade-offs, unless they are founded on Billionaires cash, which carries it's own risks and rewards, right?