Oberlin College, one of America’s most reputed liberal arts colleges, has become famous, or rather, infamous, for the lawsuit initiated against it in 2017 by Gibson’s Bakery.
Excellent as usual, Alta. My experience teaching at a state university in the South--the University of Central Arkansas--was not quite so extreme, but still surprisingly similar. As you say, the rot is systemic--just not in the way that woke students and faculty believe!
This would have been in the Lena Dunham years, amirite? Checks out with what we saw on Girls, which was barely a parody.
I’m about your generation & have seen the unwashed aesthetic cycle through a few times in my career working in higher education. It’s never pleasant, & I’m hoping we’ll cycle through the current fad soon. I’ve noticed that poor hygiene is becoming once again a sign of poor mental health and/or trans-ID (& usually both tbh).
This reminds me a bit of my life. I’m old. I went to medical school in the Bronx in tne late 1970s. The ‘cool radical’ pediatric residents didn’t wear whites or anything decent while working. Jeans with a stethoscope wrapped around your neck (not me as a female student I wore a white jacket and tried to look decent). As a really our poor Hispanic patients who usually got sort of dressed up to see the doctor felt very disrespected. One teenage patient told me quite assuredly that there was only one doctor on the pediatric floor. The chief of pediatrics who wore a long white coat over adult clothes.
I noticed that in the US it is often rich white people who dress without any concern for context and situation, while the old habit of dressing up on Sunday has been kept mostly in Hispanic and black communities. (I am generalizing, but not dressing up has something to do with the disrespect for tradition that many people have). I have nothing against casual clothes, but there is something like an upside-down snobbery when people deliberately dress as if they were homeless.
In my experience as an expat abroad, it is white folks who can risk not dressing "up" while also noting that expats typically distinguish themselves from more transient folks such as English language teachers with a certain uniform of affluence conveyed by tailoring and fabrics. As I age, now back in super-casual Canada and not in a traditional office job, I find that it can be important to dress up again to avoid being dismissed by younger shop attendants, professionals and servers who seem to see gray hair as an indicator of lesser relevance, even as I have come to understand it as an indicator of (potentially great) insight. Unfortunately, it's a bit incompatible with the paint & mud stained garb suitable for my studio and garden activity.
Before being accused of forgetting my own youthful misjudgements, I'll say that when at university my Doestoevsky class population spanned age 17 to 80s; my musical recreation similarly, age 14 to near 90. I've always appreciated the range of persepctives that come through multi-generational engagement.
"(...) a number of them complained that “such a prestigious college” degraded itself by hiring someone with a degree from the University of Florida, who “spoke French with a Romanian accent”
Yeah, I would say that this attitude is the essence of wokeism. The gap between professed values and what they truly believe. They, clearly, believe in the privilege of their class.
You would be surprised, nowadays (too) many French PhDs from Yale/Harvard/Columbia (etc.) are barely literate in the language (compared to the old guard, of course, mutatis mutandis). These programs from Ivy League universities don't emphasize language anymore, but Francophone "interdisciplinarities", which are mostly taught in English. Are you a specialist in "Colonial ways of transportation in the Francophone world"? Yahoo !!!! You're hired in the French department! Regardless of your basic mistakes in French, like misgendering nouns or misusing the imparfait. I was on a hiring committee in a public, flagship university, and we got some open pressure (emails, calls, etc.) from colleagues at Yale to hire one of their recent graduates, advertised as stellar. Maybe she was (I guess she was). But we couldn't get over her abysmal linguistic skills, and her complete lack of awareness about the profession. She thought she could get away by teaching classes ONLY in her area of expertise, in English, to graduate students (!!!!!!). I guess her professors from Yale had modeled her as their own replica.
I wonder if, at some point, a genuine desire for teaching and research (in that order) by misfit academics looking to follow their vocation can meet up with a genuine desire for real education by misfit students, producing new institutions of learning?
Thank you for reading. Actually, I enjoyed teaching at Oberlin--it was a very good experience from many points of view. But I think that those comments are very revealing when it comes to the psychological profile of many of these "progressive" students who come from the upper-middle class.
Alas, this will likely be looked back as being the good times. We are under siege from both the Looney left and the righteous right. No Switzerland in sight.
Thank you for saying this - it's exactly how I feel and I am fortunate to have a couple of good friends I can share this position with, but many of my friends and acquaintances are quite left, if not far left. I am definitely not conservative but in the past year have found myself in the middle occasionally leaning slightly to either side depending not the issue. If there is indeed a silent majority I think it might be in the middle.
I graduated from another college in the conference, and will withhold any sarcastic comments about the school. But I'm pretty sure I've taped this article to my wall before. For the lolz:
"My teammates showed similar disdain, and one ardently anti-Trump teammate met her eyes with a glare across the court.
"Several moments later, the opponent snapped back, “I thought this was a safe space.” The liberal buzzword jokes continued, as we overheard another Centre player watching the number 6 singles match laughingly comment, “I can’t believe she won that point. I’m triggered. Where’s the trigger warning?”
The denizens of the PMC want to convince us all that they hold the keys to salvation and the future. But their shtick is wearing thin. Many of us yokels actually know how to read, so their plans to sell indulgences are starting to fall apart, thanks to reports like this. Muchas gracias.
Excellent as usual, Alta. My experience teaching at a state university in the South--the University of Central Arkansas--was not quite so extreme, but still surprisingly similar. As you say, the rot is systemic--just not in the way that woke students and faculty believe!
This would have been in the Lena Dunham years, amirite? Checks out with what we saw on Girls, which was barely a parody.
I’m about your generation & have seen the unwashed aesthetic cycle through a few times in my career working in higher education. It’s never pleasant, & I’m hoping we’ll cycle through the current fad soon. I’ve noticed that poor hygiene is becoming once again a sign of poor mental health and/or trans-ID (& usually both tbh).
This reminds me a bit of my life. I’m old. I went to medical school in the Bronx in tne late 1970s. The ‘cool radical’ pediatric residents didn’t wear whites or anything decent while working. Jeans with a stethoscope wrapped around your neck (not me as a female student I wore a white jacket and tried to look decent). As a really our poor Hispanic patients who usually got sort of dressed up to see the doctor felt very disrespected. One teenage patient told me quite assuredly that there was only one doctor on the pediatric floor. The chief of pediatrics who wore a long white coat over adult clothes.
Dirt flith and dressing down are disrespectful.
I noticed that in the US it is often rich white people who dress without any concern for context and situation, while the old habit of dressing up on Sunday has been kept mostly in Hispanic and black communities. (I am generalizing, but not dressing up has something to do with the disrespect for tradition that many people have). I have nothing against casual clothes, but there is something like an upside-down snobbery when people deliberately dress as if they were homeless.
In my experience as an expat abroad, it is white folks who can risk not dressing "up" while also noting that expats typically distinguish themselves from more transient folks such as English language teachers with a certain uniform of affluence conveyed by tailoring and fabrics. As I age, now back in super-casual Canada and not in a traditional office job, I find that it can be important to dress up again to avoid being dismissed by younger shop attendants, professionals and servers who seem to see gray hair as an indicator of lesser relevance, even as I have come to understand it as an indicator of (potentially great) insight. Unfortunately, it's a bit incompatible with the paint & mud stained garb suitable for my studio and garden activity.
Before being accused of forgetting my own youthful misjudgements, I'll say that when at university my Doestoevsky class population spanned age 17 to 80s; my musical recreation similarly, age 14 to near 90. I've always appreciated the range of persepctives that come through multi-generational engagement.
Exactly!
"(...) a number of them complained that “such a prestigious college” degraded itself by hiring someone with a degree from the University of Florida, who “spoke French with a Romanian accent”
At first this shocked me, but then it didn't.
Yeah, I would say that this attitude is the essence of wokeism. The gap between professed values and what they truly believe. They, clearly, believe in the privilege of their class.
I'd be curious to hear about how the administration handled this type of student feedback, if it is public :)
They probably hired someone from Harvard the following year. :) Just kidding.
You would be surprised, nowadays (too) many French PhDs from Yale/Harvard/Columbia (etc.) are barely literate in the language (compared to the old guard, of course, mutatis mutandis). These programs from Ivy League universities don't emphasize language anymore, but Francophone "interdisciplinarities", which are mostly taught in English. Are you a specialist in "Colonial ways of transportation in the Francophone world"? Yahoo !!!! You're hired in the French department! Regardless of your basic mistakes in French, like misgendering nouns or misusing the imparfait. I was on a hiring committee in a public, flagship university, and we got some open pressure (emails, calls, etc.) from colleagues at Yale to hire one of their recent graduates, advertised as stellar. Maybe she was (I guess she was). But we couldn't get over her abysmal linguistic skills, and her complete lack of awareness about the profession. She thought she could get away by teaching classes ONLY in her area of expertise, in English, to graduate students (!!!!!!). I guess her professors from Yale had modeled her as their own replica.
I wonder if, at some point, a genuine desire for teaching and research (in that order) by misfit academics looking to follow their vocation can meet up with a genuine desire for real education by misfit students, producing new institutions of learning?
Anything it's possible. What is certain is that our world functions according to reaction/counter-reaction.
This is a fascinating article, though i'm sorry to hear about the rude comments made by some of your self-entitled students.
Thank you for reading. Actually, I enjoyed teaching at Oberlin--it was a very good experience from many points of view. But I think that those comments are very revealing when it comes to the psychological profile of many of these "progressive" students who come from the upper-middle class.
Great article. You are probably already familiar but Abe Socher wrote a wonderful piece in Commentary about the Gibson bakery debacle.
Fantastic piece. Thank you!
Alas, this will likely be looked back as being the good times. We are under siege from both the Looney left and the righteous right. No Switzerland in sight.
Indeed, the problem is that the center (Switzerland, as you say) is disappearing.
Thank you for saying this - it's exactly how I feel and I am fortunate to have a couple of good friends I can share this position with, but many of my friends and acquaintances are quite left, if not far left. I am definitely not conservative but in the past year have found myself in the middle occasionally leaning slightly to either side depending not the issue. If there is indeed a silent majority I think it might be in the middle.
I graduated from another college in the conference, and will withhold any sarcastic comments about the school. But I'm pretty sure I've taped this article to my wall before. For the lolz:
- https://oberlinreview.org/15731/sports/liberal-stereotyping-undercuts-sportsmanship/
"My teammates showed similar disdain, and one ardently anti-Trump teammate met her eyes with a glare across the court.
"Several moments later, the opponent snapped back, “I thought this was a safe space.” The liberal buzzword jokes continued, as we overheard another Centre player watching the number 6 singles match laughingly comment, “I can’t believe she won that point. I’m triggered. Where’s the trigger warning?”
Thanks for the link. Will check it out.
LOL
The denizens of the PMC want to convince us all that they hold the keys to salvation and the future. But their shtick is wearing thin. Many of us yokels actually know how to read, so their plans to sell indulgences are starting to fall apart, thanks to reports like this. Muchas gracias.
Thank you for reading.
Amen.