Maggie's Farm

How To Choose A University.

Once again the season is upon us to help our children make a decision which will have an important impact on your family’s life forever. For all of those –both parents and students—who are trying to decide which university to choose, I submit the following guidelines:

RULE # 1. Review faculty credentials.
If you have an idea as to a specific area of study, for example: engineering, literature, pre-medicine, go to the website for that school, or department, on the university's website. You can usually find the specific departments by clicking on something that says “Academic” on the list of choices on the university’s main homepage.
1.)Click the homepage for the department of your particular interest.
2.)Click on faculty.
3.)Choose the department chair, and several other professors, then click on biography, or CV (Curriculum Vitae). First, look to see if the teacher has posted in plain view the universities from which s/he received their degree and what year. If you go through several faculty members bios, and notice that they have not posted the schools they attended, you will know that you are in a department that has been taken over by the extreme left/feminists. There is currently a move in academia to “level” the playing field for women and minorities, who are being zipped to the top. This is best evidenced by a mandate that requires everyone in a department to dumb down their academic credentials. That is done by removing the school and the year of graduation. Of course, some of the old time white guys, who still have tenure, will rebel against this and may still post their own credentials. But, you are looking for a trend-- not an absolute head count.

Here is a modified example:

http://antiochseattle.edu/academics/education/gtp_faculty.html

You will note that there are three critically important pieces of information missing from these bios:
1.) The department from which these people received
their Ph.D.
2.) The title of their final thesis and thus the focus of
their research (the area in which they are truly
qualified)
3.) The year they received their degree.

Below is another example.
http://www.asu.edu/president/meetthepresident


If you read the summary piece you will note that it gives you very little information about the man’s chronological movement through academia. If you click on articles and papers, and do a careful search, you will see that his first paper published was in 1983. Another author is also listed, this leaves us with no clear indication as to whether this was an article Mr. Crow did with his mentor while in graduate school, or if it is something he did later in his career. The omission of dates is deliberately confusing, and is intended to be so. We have a right to know when he worked as a political lobbyist, and when he was teaching, and where. That information should be posted up front and very clearly. It is interesting to note if you scan down to the last entry under “Book Chapters”, you will see that he co-authored a chapter with an M. Emmert, with whom he once shared an office. The same man, who co-incidentally became president of the University of Washington at about the same time Mr. Crow took over ASU.

Conversely, Mr. Emmert offers a much more detailed chronology:

http://www.washington.edu/president/curriculumvitae.html

What this does not tell you, though it does give reference to, is that during the few years he was in Montana, he was the leading force, and orchestrated the collapse of four independent administrations of four state campuses under one roof (the unions love him!), effectively silencing the rural voice in Montana colleges.

Finally, an example of a good page:

http://faculty.washington.edu/babaw

Good Luck!