{"id":1154,"date":"2006-06-21T14:51:19","date_gmt":"2006-06-21T22:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/migrator.rab.olt.ubc.ca\/workplace\/2006\/06\/political-bias-rare-in-college-classes\/"},"modified":"2006-06-21T14:51:19","modified_gmt":"2006-06-21T22:51:19","slug":"political-bias-rare-in-college-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/2006\/06\/political-bias-rare-in-college-classes\/","title":{"rendered":"Political bias rare in college classes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Patriot-News<\/i>(Harrisburg, PA): Political bias rare in college classes<\/a><\/p>\n

Lawmakers who went on a hunt for political intimidation and discrimination in public college classrooms say they returned almost empty-handed.<\/p>\n

“We have some pretty good institutions that are following standard procedures,” Rep. Tom Stevenson, R-Allegheny, said yesterday.<\/p>\n

Stevenson summarized the conclusion of the four two-day hearings held around the state by the House Select Committee on Student Academic Freedom. The panel discussed a plan for developing a report on their findings. The report is due by Nov. 30.<\/p>\n

Representatives of Penn State and the 14 State System of Higher Education universities said Stevenson’s summation affirmed what they had believed.<\/p>\n

At the hearings, committee members heard from dozens of professors, students, administrators and other groups.<\/p>\n

While some university officials testified to having received student complaints about a case of a professor’s political bias affecting their grade or the classroom discussion, they insisted it was not a widespread problem. They also testified their institutions had a procedure for students to follow to resolve these concerns.<\/p>\n

Others argued those procedures were lacking.<\/p>\n

Rep. Gib Armstrong, R-Lancaster, called for the panel’s formation last year. He said he heard complaints about professors’ attempts to indoctrinate students in liberal philosophies and discourage debate of conservative views.<\/p>\n

Armstrong said the hearings pointed out to him that public universities “are not as encouraging about diversity of thought as they should be.”<\/p>\n

“To say we have no problem [with academic freedom concerns on public college campuses] is wishful thinking,” Armstrong said.<\/p>\n

The panel spent about six months and $20,000 exploring the issue.<\/p>\n

Rep. Dan Surra, D-Elk, who has been critical of the panel’s formation from the outset, said yesterday, “Personally, I think the recommendation section [of the report] should be pretty thin.”<\/p>\n

Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Allegheny, said perhaps colleges need to do a better job of publicizing their policies students should follow if they encounter a problem with a professor.<\/p>\n

Another recommendation might be to require colleges to provide students with a person — other than the professor with whom a student has a beef — to help resolve the problem, Stevenson said.<\/p>\n

Shippensburg University senior Meredith Brandt of Myerstown said neither of those steps is necessary.<\/p>\n

“Saying students don’t know how to resolve these problems … is saying students aren’t competent and they are,” Brandt said. “If there’s a real problem, they’ll take care of it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Patriot-News(Harrisburg, PA): Political bias rare in college classes Lawmakers who went on a hunt for political intimidation and discrimination in public college classrooms say they returned almost empty-handed. “We have some pretty good institutions that are following standard procedures,” … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}