Your Cart is Empty
By Michael Camp
Princetonians for Free Speech
Excerpt: Recently members of the senior class at Princeton University were asked to respond to an opinion survey. Among the many questions asked, one was “How would you describe your political persuasions?” Another question asked, “On a scale from one to five, how comfortable do you feel sharing your political views on campus?” Of the total population of 1296 seniors 542 answered both of these questions. The results are shown in [a table in the full article, linked below]: . . .
There is a remarkably clear pattern. If you compare any two political categories, the respondents in the more liberal category are also more comfortable expressing their views. Another way to look at it is that 71% of those in the three most liberal categories rate themselves as 4 or 5 in terms of comfort, while 60% of those in the three most conservative categories rate themselves as 1 or 2. Why is it that liberal students are more comfortable than conservative students in sharing their political views on campus? I can think of three explanations.
Click here for link to full article
Comments will be approved before showing up.
In April 1995, University maintenance crews spent two days cleaning “walkways, benches, plazas and walls on campus,” working to remove not dirt or debris, but simple sidewalk chalk. The chalk drawings, according to a report from The Daily Princetonian, consisted of “pro-gay messages” written by hand during Pride Week. After the removal, advocates were rightly in uproar. Following the incident, the University, claiming that the discrepancy had transpired because of “cross-office confusion,” clarified its chalking policy — it was henceforth banned, in all cases.
Three decades on, chalk at Princeton has found itself relegated to dusty trays in classrooms and lecture halls. Hardly anyone — students, activists, artists, campus organizations, candidates, schoolchildren — chalks University grounds anymore. Simply put, the University’s ban has worked. But the question remains: Why is Princeton so afraid of chalk?
There is exactly one kind of institution in the world whose product is “thinking” — the university. This is an existential challenge for every university, Princeton most definitely included, now that nearly all artificial intelligence is purpose-built to offload the hard work of thinking.
Universities need to return to the foundations of learning with trust — and verification — at the heart of their relationship with students. They also need to be far more prescriptive about what learning looks like so that students who arrive with limited capacity for deep reading have the time and space to develop their critical thinking skills.
The University has implemented a new limit on the number of Undergraduate Student Government (USG), Graduate Student Government, and Council of the Princeton University Committee (CPUC) student representatives allowed to attend faculty meetings.
In an email to student leaders obtained by The Daily Princetonian, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Ian Deas wrote that the new changes will go into effect at the Sept. 14 faculty meeting and each constituency will be able to send a maximum of two observers to a meeting. The Rules and Procedures of the Faculty do not specify the number of observers permitted from the student governments or CPUC.
