“[The Ex. Editor] also suggested that colleges aren’t preparing new hires to be tolerant of dissenting views.” This is from today’s WSJ article, New York Times Bosses Seek to Quash Rebellion in the Newsroom – WSJ .
Here is the comment I made.
“He also suggested that colleges aren’t preparing new hires to be tolerant of dissenting views.“
Of course not. They want happy “customers” (once quaintly called “students”). Teach your “customers” to tolerate dissent? Or even use their minds? Never. Actually, teaching them anything they don’t “want” goes against the business model.
Here is an observation from the most revered observer of higher education that America has ever produced. (Note the year of his observation.)
“the “wants” of students to which competing institutions, departments, and individual faculty members cater are quite different from the “needs” of students – David Riesman from On Higher Education: The Academic Enterprise in an Era of Rising Student Consumerism, 1980“
I just received this response from the above comment I made in the WSJ. It’s very disturbing – though not surprising.
“When I taught at a large university a few years ago, I was appalled that the director of the program told me to consider students “customers.” That meant that their “wants” trumped their “needs.” They decided who would continue to be a teacher at the school. They would decide who was good and deserved to stay.”