With UCLA making national headlines after an alumnus offered to
pay students for information on “radical professors,”
members of the UCLA community are considering what kind of
atmosphere professors should create in the classroom.
While some recent media attention has focused on the idea of a
“culture war” and on the ratio of liberal to
conservative professors on campuses, some students and faculty say
the real question is whether instructors of any background should
offer their political views during lecture.
Faith Christiansen, chairwoman of Bruin Republicans, said while
she would never endorse limiting a student or faculty’s
freedom of speech, she wants professors to show integrity and
responsibility in the classroom.
Taking a break from lecture to discuss topics such as the war in
Iraq, which are unrelated to the course, is a common occurrence and
a disservice to students who are there to learn, she said.
“One of my concerns is, are you taking class time to
discuss your political views that are obviously biased and outside
the topic of class and completely out of your area of
expertise?” said Christiansen, who is also the undergraduate
representative for the Academic Senate’s Academic Freedom
Committee.
According to the University of California’s Faculty Code
of Conduct, “significant intrusion of material unrelated to
the course” and “evaluation of student work by criteria
not directly reflective of course performance” are
unacceptable classroom behavior. Students who believe their
instructors are violating the code can file a written complaint
with the Charges Committee of the Academic Senate.
John Curtis, director of research for the American Association
of University Professors, said most faculty are careful to give
students different perspectives and encourage them to arrive at
their own conclusions. Students are adults, not robots, he
said.
There are situations in which it may be appropriate for
professors to state their personal views, Curtis said, though
“it’s not the kind of thing that one would do
repeatedly.”
“It’s not a yes-or-no answer,” he added.
“I think the faculty member can create an atmosphere where
students know that it’s OK to have open
discussion.”
Adrienne Lavine, chair of the Academic Senate and a professor of
engineering, said given how selective UCLA’s admissions
process is, students who make it to the university are “top
of the line.” She believes they should be able to stand up
for their viewpoint in class, even if their professors disagree
with their views.
“I trust our students, who are very smart, to be able to
think for themselves,” Lavine said.
“That is idiotic, and you can quote me on that,”
said David Horowitz, publisher of www.frontpagemag.com. He believes
students form a “captive audience.”
“It’s doubly idiotic first of all because everybody
knows a professor has great power. I can’t tell you the
number of students who tell me they just spout what the professor
wants to hear because they’re afraid of being graded
down,” he said.
Christiansen said while freshmen may be afraid instructors will
take ideology into account when evaluating work, most seniors find
their political views do not affect their grades.
Still, she said she knows many students who get “As”
on well-researched papers but end up having to read through
numerous comments from professors about why their point of view is
wrong.
Marc Trachtenberg, a political science professor, frequently
tells students to “get to the bottom of it,” to examine
evidence and make their own case on issues ranging from the causes
of World War I to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
When a student asked him in class on Wednesday what he thought
about Hamas winning the Palestinian elections, Trachtenberg
answered, but added he would rather not talk too much about his own
perspectives.
“Education is not just absorbing a mass of factual
material, but learning how to think,” he said later.
Trachtenberg said he tries to challenge students “to think
about how they can identify what the crucial problems are, and see
beyond their own preconceptions.”
He remembers being taught in high school and middle school to
simply believe what teachers told him.
But when he made it to UC Berkeley in the 1960s, the professors
there were different, he said. They presented multiple arguments
and asked him and other students to reach their own
conclusions.