Alex Myers is a foreign exchange student attending State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego). While attending the school, Myers held an intern position in the school’s Public Affairs Office and everything seemed to be going well for Alex.
Alex was given a journalism assignment in his advanced journalism class to write a feature article on a public figure, so he chose the school’s men’s hockey coach, Ed Gosek. Following good journalism practice, he sought information from coaches in other schools who had played against SUNY Oswego. He sent an email questionnaire to the coaches at SUNY Cortland, Cornell University and Canisius College on Oct. 17. The email read:
“My name is Alex Myers, I work for the Office of Public Affairs at SUNY Oswego.
I am currently writing a profile on Oswego State Hockey head coach Ed Gosek and was hoping to get a rival coaches view on Mr Gosek.
If you have time would you mind answering the following questions.
1. How do you find Mr Gosek to coach against?
2. Have you had any interactions with Mr Gosek off the ice? If so how did you find him?
3. What is your rivalry like between your school and Oswego State?
Be as forthcoming as you like, what you say about Mr Gosek does not have to be positive.”
One of the coaches, Michael Schafer from Cornell wrote back to Alex:
“Saying your comments don’t need to be positive is offensive.”
Alex quickly replied:
“Simply letting you know that this piece I am writing is not a ‘puff’ piece.”
Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with what Alex wrote, but evidently the Cornell coach did and must have complained to the SUNY Oswego administration.
On the evening of Oct 18, a letter from SUNY Oswego President Deborah Stanley was hand delivered to Alex informing him that he had been suspended from the school and that he had to vacate his dorm room by 6 pm the following day. The letter spelled out the school policies that he allegedly violated and also informed him that he may be facing criminal charges.
The school accused Alex of claiming that he worked for the Office of Public Affairs instead of identifying his investigation as being part of a class assignment. This was deemed to be ‘academic dishonesty.’ The second charge they made against him was for disruptive behavior. This second charge could include any or all of the following: “harassment,” “intimidation,” “threats,” “conduct which inhibits the peace or safety of members of the College community,” “retaliation, harassment or coercion,” and it specified that “specifically: Campus network resources may not be used to defame, harass, intimidate, or threaten another individual or group.”
When Alex learned of the charges on Oct. 18, he immediately apologized for misrepresenting himself and explained that he sends out communications for OPA all the time as part of his intern duties. He admitted that he should have clarified the purpose of the email better than he did.
Tag Archives for education
Teachers Flock to Northwestern University for ‘Marxist Conference’
This Saturday, the Midwest Marxist Conference was held at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. The event was teeming with teachers who spoke about the new found bond between the radical socialists and their Teachers Union. The all-day event, which collected money to support Chicago Socialists and featured a communist bookstore, provided students on-campus along with the radical left community to plan the next phase in their activism.
Becca Barnes, a Chicago Teachers Union teacher and organizer with Chicago Socialists, proclaimed at the beginning of the conference that “the struggle here in the United States has entered a new phase. Nowhere have we pointed the way forward more clearly than here in Chicago with the teachers union strike.”
After the opening plenary, breakout sessions addressed more specific topics like the history of the Democratic party, education, and case studies in Russia. In these sessions, speakers continued to celebrate the use of education as a mechanism to insert Marxism into public institutions. In one session, the idea of targeting their message to students, even over “the working class,” was debated.
University Dean Tells Class: ‘Bible is Myth,’ Creationists Shouldn’t Graduate
A female, lesbian, Episcopalian Priestess, that is.
A university dean in Florida, who moonlights as an Episcopal priest and is an admitted lesbian, recently caused controversy after a video surfaced on the web that provided snippets of a lecture she delivered to her Epistemology class, in which she discusses religion and evolution.
“This is a book of myth, and that’s going to offend some of you,” stated professor Lesley Northup of Florida International University’s Honor College in the video. “And I don’t really care.”
“I know that some of you out there are creationists. You really don’t believe in evolution,” another clip reveals. “I personally don’t think you should be allowed to leave this university with that belief.”
Since the release of the video, recorded by a student in Northup’s class, various web outlets have been discussing what Northup meant by her remarks, which they believe to insinuate that students should not be able to graduate as creationists.
However, Northup told Christian News Network that the context of her message was to advise students that she believed they needed to accept evolution as fact and to “keep an open mind” about religion and science. She also stated that the way that she defines “myth” is widely accepted by most professors, but is understood differently by members of the general public.
“By myth we are talking about the stories that people have throughout their lives that give their lives meaning,” she said. “I made the claim that the Bible is myth. [But], I prefaced that by saying that we are not talking about the same kind of myth. … Myth is, in fact, true, but it is not the same kind of truth that we find in science.”
This is your brain on mainline Protestantism. As stupid as evangelicalism; except wrong in everything, exactly opposite Scripture.
Blackboard Jungle
Another example of police tyranny, AND why homeschooling is best.
Police officers forced students at Horizon High School in Texas to strip down so they could photograph any tattoos the kids were sporting. Parents did not give their permission for the photos, and school officials say the police did not tell them they would be taking photos of students. Police Chief Michael McConnel says the department has destroyed the photos.
Sure they have…
Real Tough Guy
John Rosi, a middle school teacher in Washington’s Peninsula School District, has been put on paid leave after cellphone video emerged of him and some of the students in one of his classes allegedly bullying one student, wrestling him, and tossing him around. The school system had originally suspended Rosi for 10 days and transferred him to another school. But after numerous parents said they would not allow their children to be in his classroom officials suspended him from teaching entirely. They say they have no plans to fire him, however.
More Public Schools Splitting up Boys, Girls
A potentially encouraging sign; ‘back to the future’, perhaps… (HT: Fidelbogen)
Single-sex classes began proliferating after the U.S. Education Department relaxed restrictions in 2006. With research showing boys, particularly minority boys, are graduating at lower rates than girls and faring worse on tests, plenty of schools were paying attention.
In 2002, only about a dozen schools were separating the sexes, according to the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, an advocacy group. Now, an estimated 500 public schools across the country offer some all-boy and all-girl classrooms.
One in Three British Youths Don’t Know from Where Milk, Eggs, and Bread Come
Fewer than half of young UK adults know butter comes from a dairy cow and a third do not know eggs come from hens, according to a survey.
More than a third of 16 to 23-year-olds (36%) do not know bacon comes from pigs and four in 10 (40%) failed to link milk with an image of a dairy cow, with 7% linking it to wheat, the poll of 2,000 people for charity Leaf (Linking Environment and Farming) found.
Some 41% correctly linked butter to a dairy cow, with 8% linking it to beef cattle, while 67% were able to link eggs to an image of a hen but 11% thought they came from wheat or maize.
If the goal of their education system to to make them stupid, it’s working…
Teachers Helped Schoolgirl, 15, Have an Abortion Without Her Parents’ Knowledge
Reason to homeschool #568,321… (HT: WK)
Teachers helped a 15-year-old pupil to have an abortion that her parents knew nothing about.
Her mother and father finally learned about the termination when she told them after it had happened.
Last night family campaigners said the case showed how parents are increasingly being sidelined by the law.
It is understood that the girl went to a hospital where it was confirmed she was pregnant. In line with her wishes, doctors did not tell her parents but notified the school in Salford, Greater Manchester, instead.
Teachers discussed the termination with the girl, checking she was comfortable with her decision. They also gave her time off school and supported her when she went for the procedure.
Ontario MPPs Pass Anti-Bullying Bill
Over objections of Ontario’s publicly-funded Catholic schools.
The Ontario legislature has passed Bill 13 — a bill mandating that students be allowed to form Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) in public and Catholic schools.
Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday he is convinced his government’s anti-bullying legislation will become accepted in all schools, despite concerns raised by Catholic educators.
“There are values that transcend any one faith,” McGuinty said. “And if you talk to parents, they’ll tell you. They want their kids to be respected and accepted, they want their schools to be caring places, ideally we’d like to see them as a bit of an extension of the home in terms of the comfort level that our kids might enjoy inside their school.”
[...]
Ontario Catholic school trustees had asked politicians not to pass the amendment to Bill 13 that strips them of the power to prevent students from calling their anti-homophobia clubs GSAs.
Cardinal Thomas Collins, the Archbishop of Toronto, has said the GSA movement in the U.S. conflicts with Catholic beliefs.Campaign Life Coalition, which has rejected Bill 13, claiming it is the government’s backdoor attempt to implement its controversial sex education curriculum, called on all Catholic ratepayers to encourage their school boards to invoke Section 93, which provides constitutional protection for their religious beliefs in education.
“Dalton McGuinty and those MPPs who voted in favour of this legislation have declared war against faith communities and made all Canadians vulnerable,” Mary Ellen Douglas, the group’s spokeswoman, said in a statement. “They’ve now set a precedent which all Canadians should find alarming. The state interference in Catholic and public schools takes away fundamental rights and puts all Canadians at risk.”
Sorry, Ontario Catholic schools and their supporters; I have no sympathy. Your lack of support for other faith communities, in the original John Tory initiative in the 2007 provincial election to extend funding to them (before he pussied out and backed down, losing my support and vote in the process), meant that instead of all parents having the option to have their tax dollars spent on religious education for their children – and thus being able to band together on issues like this, to argue for the rights of all believers not to have secularist dogma imposed on their educational systems – you retain your unique, unfairly privileged position of having your education publicly funded, just like the secularist public schools. And whose bread you eat, their song you sing. Suck it. If you want my support, back equal funding for other religious education, too. Otherwise, while I certainly object to what McGuinty has done, I’m not going to go to bat for you and yours, with your unfairly privileged position. Bite me.
While I’m on the subject, when is the Catholic Church going to deny the Sacraments to its erring ostensible son, Dalton McGuinty? Oh, that’s right; round about the time when they do likewise across the board to all pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, pro-euthanasia, ostensibly Catholic politicians at all levels, in Canada, America, and the rest of the world. In other words, never. Gutless as ever, as even honourable folks amongst your own people recognize…
Spanish Company Offers Professional Courses in Prostitution
They must figure there’s a market for it… (Hat Tip: Alkibiades)
A Spanish firm is courting controversy with its professional course in prostitution which it says ‘guarantees a job offer on graduation’.
For just €100, students will be taught the history of the world’s oldest profession, how to use erotic toys and the most popular positions contained within the Kama Sutra.
What they learn in the series of theory and practical classes will enable them to ‘earn a lot of money, very easily and quickly’, according to the ABC newspaper.
Naturally, they’re targetting female university students:
The venture has attracted much criticism in the predominantly Catholic country, with many saying it is the wrong way to tempt cash-strapped Spaniads back into work.
But the Valencian firm, which has flooded the city’s university campus with promotional flyers, says it will make the trade safer.
[...]
He added that 95 people, from the age of 19 to 45, had signed up to the diploma – which takes up two hours each day.
No “Boys” or “Girls” at Gender-Neutral Preschool in Sweden
Children there are required to just call each other ”friends”, and use a made-up gender-neutral pronoun.
A preschool in Sweden wants to eliminate gender bias by referring to children as “friends,” instead of girls and boys, and avoiding gender-specific pronouns such as “him” or “her.”
At the taxpayer-funded “Egalia” preschool in Stockholm, which opened last year for children ages 1-6, boys and girls play together with a toy kitchen, which is located next to the Lego bricks, the Associated Press reports.
They read books featuring gay and lesbian couples, single parents and adopted children, instead of fairy tales such as “Cinderella” or “Snow White,” which are rife with gender stereotypes.
Troubling Questions From the World of University Research
Gwyn Morgan has a Globe and Mail op/ed piece here on Canadian universities’ rejection of proposed grants due to the potential donors wishing a say in hiring decisions and areas of research.
Faculty councils, it seems, are not only opposed to outside funders having input on hiring and research decisions, they’re opposed to university presidents and provosts making such decisions without their approval. They also have veto power over the creation or termination of teaching programs. Moreover, tenured professors are free to work on practically any subject, resulting in research that may be relevant only to their personal academic interests, with little or no chance of creating material economic or social value. (Many professors prefer to focus on research, sending their graduate students to teach those lowly undergrads.)
How can it be that, in the name of “academic freedom,” those appointed to lead our publicly financed universities are rendered impotent by their own employees? Where else in the private or public sectors do employees decide who else is hired and what the organization delivers, while being free to spend most of their time doing what they choose?
