Undergrad student 1, Professor 0

[Unimportant]

Scott Yenor, a Professor in political science from Boise State University gave a speech at a conference where he said

independent women are “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome.” He also stated, “Our culture is steeped with feminism; it teaches young boys and girls that they are motivated by much the same things and want much the same things.” Most disturbingly he states “Every effort must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school, and the law, and every trade.”

and was applauded by the audience.

Ally Orr, an undergrad student at Boise State, was horrified and embarrassed. But, more, she acted. She risked her placement, career, and reputation by asking the other staff/academics at her university if they would support her in raising money to start a scholarship for female students in STEM.

“I was tossing and turning the whole night,” Orr said. She feared that the emails would result in disciplinary action or that the fundraiser would flop.

But just as the sun began rising, Orr went online to discover she had already raised about $500. Around 10 a.m., it was more than $2,000. And by the end of the day, she said, she had raised $10,000. After the fundraiser topped $25,000 three days after its launch and news outlets began reporting on the campaign, Orr said she realized, “Oh my God, this might really blow up.” She was right. On Dec. 13, 11 days after the fundraiser began, Orr sat down in an administrative building on campus and signed an endowment agreement, officially establishing the Women in STEM, Medicine and Law Scholarship at Boise State.

The fundraising is still steadily rising. As of Jan. 20, Orr has raised more than $112,000.

 

[Woollybear]

Geez, what an ass.

Analysis: Boise State has a Scott Yenor problem, and it could prove costly

The political science professor calls colleges and universities “indoctrination camps.” And he has the attention of conservative lawmakers, who are likely to use his words as ammunition as they pur…

www.idahoednews.org

 

[MaeZe]

Geez, what an ass.

Analysis: Boise State has a Scott Yenor problem, and it could prove costly

The political science professor calls colleges and universities “indoctrination camps.” And he has the attention of conservative lawmakers, who are likely to use his words as ammunition as they pur…

www.idahoednews.org

Alt-right wing drivel.

 

[Introversion]

Scary alt-right drivel. Calling out the educated and educators is a classic fascist move for authoritarians everywhere, everywhen.

 

[Maryn]

I so badly want to be flippant about his sexual prowess, but this isn't Reddit.

He's simply an educated douchecanoe who didn't learn a damned thing.

Maryn, whose family produces female engineers

 

[Roxxsmom]

Scary alt-right drivel. Calling out the educated and educators is a classic fascist move for authoritarians everywhere, everywhen.

Even when, and sometimes especially when, those doing the calling are academics themselves.

There were some assholes like this when I was in college. They were mostly old, sexist fossils who refused to consider mentoring female grad students or who insisted that skewed gender ratios in a discipline were due to differential abilities between men and women. They were mostly tolerated because, well, academic freedom. But also because everyone knew they would be retiring soon.

But of course those old fossils planted some seeds with their maundering, and we have a new generation of sexist (and racist) old fossils.

Once upon a time Right-Wing operators persecuted academics for being possible socialists. Now they are calling out academics for being pro--horrors--social justice.

 

[frimble3]

Gutless coward is trying to protect his buddies' jobs.
The smaller the pool of people in STEM fields, the more aging dinosaurs can keep their jobs, regardless of competence.
Engineering is one of those fields, like medicine, where low standards can kill people.

These should be 'brightest and best' fields, not judged on genitalia.

 

[Roxxsmom]

It would almost be amusing seeing a bunch of right-wing White guys who, after opposing affirmative action for decades, are now insisting that there should be affirmative action for Conservatives in academia.

Except a surprising number of people are taking them seriously, along with the general notion that somehow the people who have been in charge for so long are now being oppressed, simply because they are no longer ruling the roost completely uncontested.

At the heart of the anti academia thing is that rage over the fact that data generated via academic research simply doesn't support the efficacy of a lot of what the Right wants to do in government, let alone provide any objective support for facts behind the dogmatic religious beliefs that are dear to their voting base.

 

[MaryMumsy]

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Exactly 50 years ago I was taking a Master's level class in marketing. The instructor was a retired big shot from BP or Exxon or a similar company. He told me to my face, in class, that I had no business being there "taking a space that should belong to a man who was going to have to support a family". There were at least a dozen available slots in the class that weren't filled. It really got his goat that I received (and deserved) an A in the class. His ire was exacerbated by the fact I was petite, had long blonde hair, and regularly wore 4 inch heels. (Think Elle Woods without the pink)

I would have loved the chance to tell him I was co-provider in my family for over 40 years, and for 25 of those years I was sole provider.

MM

 

[Roxxsmom]

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Exactly 50 years ago I was taking a Master's level class in marketing. The instructor was a retired big shot from BP or Exxon or a similar company. He told me to my face, in class, that I had no business being there "taking a space that should belong to a man who was going to have to support a family". There were at least a dozen available slots in the class that weren't filled. It really got his goat that I received (and deserved) an A in the class. His ire was exacerbated by the fact I was petite, had long blonde hair, and regularly wore 4 inch heels. (Think Elle Woods without the pink)

I would have loved the chance to tell him I was co-provider in my family for over 40 years, and for 25 of those years I was sole provider.

MM

One of my colleagues remembers being in a college major's-level physics class back in the early 1970s. There was one woman in the class and a bunch of men.

The woman got the highest grade on the midterm, and the prof shamed the male students (as a class, while the female student was there too) for "letting a girl beat them."

Even back then, he (the guy telling us this story) thought that was uncool and likely made the smart, hardworking female student embarrassed too, as well as not so subtly reminding her how unusual she was for being there at all.

At least that sort of thing doesn't tend to happen anymore, at least at the colleges and departments in which I have taught. There are certainly going to be subtler forms of discouragement and bias, though. We're human, and some of them are baked in without our even being aware. Which is why it is so important to be open about these things and to discuss them, rather than sweeping them under the rug or insisting that the inequities are the way things should be.

One wonders why the bag of dicks in the OP has such hostility toward women, though. Even among the sexists I grew up with, it was relatively rare for them to state that no women at all belonged in professions. There have been women doctors, engineers, and scientists, albeit rarer ones, since well before this guy was even born. The consensus back then was that women, as an extreme minority group, had to suck up whatever the dominant culture dished out.

So probably what is really pissing these asshats off now is that there are enough women, and other people who aren't white, straight, men in these professions that the consensus culture has shifted. They can't deal with this.

 

[Roxxsmom]

Gynotrocracy has a nice ring to it, though. He says that like it would be a bad thing.

 

[veinglory]

I hope something will happen to the professor also, he is openly admitting bias relating to a protected category.

 

[Roxxsmom]

Indeed he is, though I don't know if there's much they can do aside from criticize him. It would likely come back to bite the Left on the rear if this guy were fired, were it even possible to do so (as per the university's own contractual process with respect to tenured faculty). The Right is already actively attempting to restrict what can be taught in classes (and researched at public universities), and this would give them a foot in the door.

Academic freedom is an important principal. Back in the 50s, goons would show up on campus sometimes and arrest professors for (allegedly) being socialists. Many more careers were utterly destroyed by administrators who disapproved of what certain profs taught or researched, or who were afraid of getting in trouble themselves for allowing unpopular ideas into their classrooms.

There are some limitations, possibly, on what a faculty member or university employee can say as a representative of their institution, if it violates the core mission or stated policies regarding hate speech, or if it is a violation of their faculty contract with the university or college in question.

I remember a certain football coach at CU "getting in trouble" (which essentially meant some criticism and scolding) for promoting his religious views while speaking at press conferences and fundraising events on behalf of the athletic department, for instance. But he was always free to promote his (rather bigoted and exclusionary) views on his own time (and so he started the Promise Keepers).

A agree that hate speech is a different sort of thing than simple political views, and the Right has purposely muddied the water between sincerely held sociopolitical beliefs and bigotry (since bigotry has become so central to the platform of the GOP, not to mention many people's religions), but actually getting rid of this guy would be a long, hard fought process, and it would garner a lot of negative attention and scrutiny. Also, of course, allegations of left-wing hypocrisy by the Right.

This is why people like this asshat are such headaches for universities and colleges.

One thing I couldn't help noticing last night, as I read the latest issue of Science, is how many of the authors and co-authors on papers, not to mention writers of editorial pieces, are women compared to the way it was even 10-20 years ago. We are by no means at parity with respect to tenured faculty, let alone pay equity, between the sexes (and genders), but things are slowly improving. Women perform a lot of research and do a ton of work in STEM professions, and we are starting to see them as heads of important agencies and research groups too.

If the science world did what this guy (who is by no means even a member of a STEM discipline or department) seems to want--removing women from these professions--it would come to a screeching halt. I suspect most people know this, but it's still scary to see someone seriously proposing such a thing.

 

[ElaineA]

I'm sure I've mentioned elsewhere that my husband is involved with the regional accreditation authority that includes BSU. This guy is causing both the university and the accreditors a big headache, not because of his socio-political ideas, but because his grading and student advancement can't be trusted. There was some talk in the news media of taking a look at his past grading to assess for bias. I think that's an excellent idea.

 

[ConnorMuldowney]

"Our culture is steeped with feminism; it teaches young boys and girls that they are motivated by much the same things and want much the same things.” The logic here is so bizarre, because in the most generalized sense possible, feminism is about women asking for what they want, is it not? That's a broad way of putting it, but if women are asking for, say, engineering positions "through feminism," doesn't that mean that's what they want?

Unless Yenor believes there's a grand brainwashing conspiracy where women are "tricked by feminism" into thinking they want to study science when really they don't, but considering out of morbid curiosity I went on his Twitter and he is posting 4chan wojak memes, I don't know if his understanding of gender goes deep enough for him to even be wrong in that specific way.

 

[litdawg]

I love how this student took a destructive situation and responded with an institution-building positive one. Sure, this idiot should be debunked, disciplined, and dismissed. But that's not the same as making something to replace him, which she's done.

Not that anecdotes are necessary to support this, but I'll say that, like Mary Mumsy, my oldest sister was a successful engineer for 30 years in Navy civil service. Her story of how she came to the field was precisely the same--sexist engineering professor castigating her for taking up his time during office hours when real (male) engineers who would have careers in the field deserved his time more. Beautiful, blonde, incredibly fit, with a silly sense of humor--she delighted in eliciting stereotypes and then grinding them to dust in the work groups and divisions she led. Damn good engineer and accomplished more in this world than the dinosaur who negatively inspired her.

 

[Roxxsmom]

I'm sure I've mentioned elsewhere that my husband is involved with the regional accreditation authority that includes BSU. This guy is causing both the university and the accreditors a big headache, not because of his socio-political ideas, but because his grading and student advancement can't be trusted. There was some talk in the news media of taking a look at his past grading to assess for bias. I think that's an excellent idea.

This is a big concern, and it's hard to see how someone who hates women as much as he does wouldn't be biased in his grading practices.

It's a touchy subject, because most universities and colleges do have it stated somewhere in their contracts or faculty handbooks or wherever that the faculty member is the one who is solely responsible for assigning grades. Differential outcomes in grades can not always be attributed to bigotry on the part of professors, Institutional level biases also exist, and of course some student demographics are less prepared (academically or psychologically) to excel in some disciplines--not due to inherent ability level, but because of 12+ years of differential socialization and education prior to college. So going through a professor's grade records for the past so many years can not be taken as proof that he himself is deliberately down grading a class of student.

This is generally a good thing, because the last thing we want is administrators going over content expert's heads and deciding to pass failing students who complain to them about "hardass" professors or unreasonable course requirements (nor to fire professors who have lower or higher average grades in their classes than others).

Administrators are rarely content experts, and curriculum are something decided within departments and also by college (or even system or statewide academic curriculum committees). This includes assessment methodology.

Academic freedom gives faculty a lot of latitude within those requirements, but it means that I can't cover "intelligent design" as a legitimate scientific theory in a freshman biology class or incorporate Victorian-era theories about race and gender as legitimate scientific views on the subject etc.

Plus, faculty are also contractually obliged in most public universities and colleges to NOT create a hostile or intimidating environment for students and not to promote racism, sexism, homophobia etc. in our courses. This can get complicated, because students will always differ in what they consider intimidating and hostile (something conservatives are gleefully running with).

I suppose the issue with this asshat in Idaho will come down to the content of their faculty handbook, the wording of any contract that exists, rules within that institution and state with respect to sanctioning or removing tenured professors who violate tenets of the contract and so on. Also, of course, if there is strong evidence and testimony as to his differential treatment or harassment of female students. Tenured professors CAN be terminated for contract violations, criminal behavior, misconduct etc (such as a history of sexual harassment). But the system is designed to require a lot of evidence and to prevent firings simply for teaching unpopular academic disciplines or content, so long as that content is ostensibly part of the curriculum and has at least some basis or legitimacy within current research in that discipline.

However, it doesn't sound like his sociopolitical theories have much in the way of current support or evidence to back them (I doubt most, if any, brain biologists who research gender differences would say their work should be cited as justification for purging women from STEM professions or academia), and they certainly create a hostile and intimidating environment for many students and call into question his ability to grade objectively and fairly.

But even a fully justified and "by the book" effort to fire him will likely garner lots of media attention, much of which will have a "the left is intolerant of conservatism in academia" spin to it. Idaho is a conservative state with a Republican-dominated legislature and a Republican governor. A lot of it could come down to how they respond to pressure from their own constituents with respect to the media spin (and outright lies). Also, how much latitude does the state constitution grant the legislature and governor to interfere with decisions made by the university with respect to disciplining faculty? This is going to be a huge headache.

Academia has been a burr under the saddle of the Right for decades. If they can't subvert it to their own purposes, the next best thing is to completely discredit and defund it, which they have been doing for decades already.

 

[Woollybear]

Thank you for teaching, Roxxsmom and Litdawg.

 

[Unimportant]

I suppose the issue with this asshat in Idaho will come down to the content of their faculty handbook, the wording of any contract that exists, rules within that institution and state with respect to sanctioning or removing tenured professors who violate tenets of the contract and so on.

All really good points, Roxxsmom. I am glad you're less cynical than me.

In my experience, what will happen is that they'll take his teaching off him, or hire someone to do the marking for him, and continue to pay him the same salary for doing less work. Which, also in my experience, is a common conscious or subconscious ploy on the part of the professor. Do the job badly, or don't do it at all, and they'll dump it on someone else (invariably of lower rank and almost always female) who ends up with a higher workload but no reward for it, whilst the original academic experiences zero negative repercussions and continues to reap the same inflated rewards.

 

[ElaineA]

This being Idaho, I don't expect much of anything will happen to the Prof. He's spouting locally accepted misinformation, and Unim's prediction is probably about right. Most schools would rather not deal with the inevitable hurricane head on.

For the accreditation body, they have to deal with complaints from left and right, and now, getting doxxed and inundated with personal threats on top of it. It's definitely a chaotic, intentional-feeling disruption.

 

[Roxxsmom]

All really good points, Roxxsmom. I am glad you're less cynical than me.

In my experience, what will happen is that they'll take his teaching off him, or hire someone to do the marking for him, and continue to pay him the same salary for doing less work. Which, also in my experience, is a common conscious or subconscious ploy on the part of the professor. Do the job badly, or don't do it at all, and they'll dump it on someone else (invariably of lower rank and almost always female) who ends up with a higher workload but no reward for it, whilst the original academic experiences zero negative repercussions and continues to reap the same inflated rewards.

I don't know that I am less cynical. I think Academia is in trouble, and I'll even admit that some of the wolves at its door are on the Left who think the best way to combat differential student success is for social promotion and strictly regimented curriculum to invade higher education. And the Left certainly hasn't done much to bring more taxpayer money or lower tuition costs for the colleges and universities in my own "blue" state.

You are absolutely right about the nature of penalties against tenured professors found guilty of harassment, though. I remember profs (and even non tenured "soft-money" researchers) who engaged in sexual harassment being told they couldn't advise female students or have female students in their labs for X number of years, for instance. Slap on the wrist stuff at best.

As for not being "allowed" to teach classes? That's a reward as far as many profs at research universities are concerned.

 

[Unimportant]

I don't know that I am less cynical. I think Academia is in trouble, and I'll even admit that some of the wolves at its door are on the Left.

Personally, I've seen a college where I was proud to teach (and where most of us felt the administrators, for the most part, cared about the students and understood and supported our concerns as faculty) to one where everyone, including many of my fellow faculty, seem to be sleepwalking through their jobs and shrugging off heavy-handed district policies and the steady erosion of institutional (and financial) support for what we do, even in a time when the state coffers are full.

Obv you and I have had the same career at the same academic institution

 

[Roxxsmom]

Some of it is that faculty are expected to do more with less. On top of teaching our classes, we have endless forms to fill out and administrative details to keep track of, or some new accommodation we must provide.

This has been a trend for decades, and it was reaching the breaking point even before the exam. Every time one turns around there's a new thing we have to do as part of our jobs, but nothing is ever taken off the list of tasks.

It's finally hit the point where most of us simply don't have the time or energy to keep up with everything anymore.

 

[Roxxsmom]

This article is simply depressing.

More than half of teachers are looking for the exits, a poll says

A new poll from the nation's largest teachers union finds burnout is widespread, and more educators say they're thinking about leaving.

www.npr.org

However, college instructors and professors are often ignored in articles about how education is fracturing, aside from articles about how college attendance was declining, even before covid.

And community colleges (and what is happening with respect to workload creep and burnout among their faculty and staff) are particularly ignored in articles about burnout and workload creep. I recently heard that at our college, counselors are quitting in large numbers and not being replaced. I don't know about faculty attrition overall, though some in our science and allied health division have retired at least a bit earlier than they otherwise might have. One colleague in our division recently died of a heart attack as well

Note that many of these faculty are not being replaced any time soon, and we have been forced to close some class sections that were actually full because of this.

In CA, enrollment at UC and Cal state campuses is actually up, and the overall drop in college enrollment is due to drops at the community colleges. This trend holds true, to a lesser extent, in the country overall.

There are likely a variety of factors at work here, including the fact that students in the demographics most likely to attend community colleges are the ones who are compelled to choose to eat one marshmallow today versus two tomorrow.

Or to put it another way, if you are barely paying the rent and have to work full time to take care of your family, greater job availability at the moment means you may put your college hopes on hold, at least for now. We always saw surges in enrollment during economic downturns and times of high unemployment, which (ironically) are when the colleges' funding gets cut too.

I think other factors are at play too. Whether these apply to all community colleges, or just ones in my state (where we have been increasingly constrained by legislation that changes how we are funded), I can't say.

1. In my state, there has been a huge push to focus financial support and aid funding on full time CC students, even though most of our students are part time.

2. Other measures to get students through faster that may be counterproductive and which make more work for instructors overall, such as the push to end remedial writing and math classes. Students will not magically improve their basic skills coming in due to this change, and instructors have to work harder to accommodate students who can't read well enough to even follow directions or do basic math.

3. There's been a push to discourage students who are purely exploratory or unsure of what they want to major in. Students are pushed to commit to a major right away, and the system strictly limits which classes "count" towards their major and are covered by financial aid. This may discourage prospective students who really have no idea what they want to major in and want to take a few CC classes to see what interests them.

4. Pouring resources and money into satellite/outreach centers, which have tended to be underutilized (outside of classes in a few high-demand majors, such as pre nursing). This leaves less money and fewer resources for the main campuses, and it shows (and students do notice dirty classrooms, and shorter opening hours for student services on the main campus).

5. Reducing the number of times students can repeat classes that they have either failed or withdrawn from later in the semester.

6. Less emphasis/funding on/for the college as a community resource or center of culture, which may affect at least some prospective students (this was happening even before covid).

7. Not realizing that students whose classes are cancelled due to low enrollment numbers may not flock to fill other sections, and some may give up on trying to enroll in future semesters if "the classes they want to take are always being cancelled."

8. It's likely that most instruction being moved online at CCs has worsened the enrollment drop in the past two years as well. Not all students can afford fast internet or own reliable computers, and some students simply dislike online classes because, for them, part of education is about the face to face interactions.

What's bizarre is that in addition to state coffers being full, there is supposedly all this federal money pouring into the schools right now, money that isn't enrollment dependent and which needs to be spent by 2024. Yet we don't seem to be seeing it. What's going on?

 

[Unimportant]

This article is simply depressing.

More than half of teachers are looking for the exits, a poll says

A new poll from the nation's largest teachers union finds burnout is widespread, and more educators say they're thinking about leaving.

www.npr.org

I shall flagrantly plagiarise:

This article is simply depressing.

Just eight teachers have arrived in New Zealand under a border exception class that was meant to get 300 teachers into the country - seven months after it was announced.