I wonder if her initial response had been different if this would be happening. Guess we will never know.
“it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”
What exactly in this moment is extraordinarily challenging?
I haven’t cared enough about this latest virtue signaling on trial episode to follow other than the headlines. Although I am interested if she did plagiarize some of her work? This is the one that was accused of that right?
I haven’t cared enough about this latest virtue signaling on trial episode to follow other than the headlines. Although I am interested if she did plagiarize some of her work? This is the one that was accused of that right?
Yeah, she’s been accused of plagiarism. I haven’t followed every detail, but I think the response to the protests and the appearance before Congress followed by the plagiarism allegations was just too much. Penn’s president was already ousted.
Hopefully others have followed this more closely and can comment further.
I had thought about starting a thread earlier, something less mundane, and then read of her resignation this morning. Here’s more fodder for discussion.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/claudine-gay-made-a-career-of-attacking-black-scholars-don-t-defend-her-for-being-black-opinion/ar-AA1m74dl
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/finance/news/billionaire-megadonor-suspends-donations-harvard-170002476.html
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/claudine-gay-congress-probes-harvard-003029943.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/harvard-has-a-veritas-problem/ar-AA1lUkQP
“it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”
What exactly in this moment is extraordinarily challenging?
Balancing free speech on campus with student inclusivity and safety.
“it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”
What exactly in this moment is extraordinarily challenging?
I imagine it was extraordinarily challenging to negotiate her buy out over the last few weeks. Once that was settled, it’s “See Ya!”
Balancing free speech on campus with student inclusivity and safety.
This.
Balancing free speech on campus with student inclusivity and safety.
This.
The universities have made the world they are living in though. An oversized emphasis on inclusion and diversity has come back to bite them.
Balancing free speech on campus with student inclusivity and safety.
This.
And this is something new, and extraordinary, on university campuses?
Cancel culture strikes again.
I sure those against cancel culture will be so upset by this.
Any minute now.
Balancing free speech on campus with student inclusivity and safety.
This.
And this is something new, and extraordinary, on university campuses?
I don’t know that keeping the balance is new. But as the world has become more complex via social media and other concerns, the complexity of keeping the balance is certainly more difficult.
I wonder if her initial response had been different if this would be happening. Guess we will never know.
The plagiarism in isolation might have been survivable. The Congressional testimony in isolation was certainly survivable. The combination was not.
Balancing free speech on campus with student inclusivity and safety.
This.
And this is something new, and extraordinary, on university campuses?
I don’t know that keeping the balance is new. But as the world has become more complex via social media and other concerns, the complexity of keeping the balance is certainly more difficult.
I don’t know, seems like a the reduction in national guard troops shooting students is an improvement.
This is all politics though. Like why did they pick the presidents of these small east coast schools with very little diversity. Why not at least one president from a big state school? Is there no way to get from college station to DC? Texas A and M has 57k undergraduates, Harvard has 7k. The Texas an and m president has almost literally an order of magnitude more students. And there are more students attending schools like Texas than Harvard. So if you really cared about what is going on campuses, you would have those people testify.
But this wasn’t about students, this was all political theater.
Plagiarism allegations can be more damaging that some stupid testimony before Congress, especially in academic circles.
I suspect that’s why there were those allegations in the first place. The Harvard community would have stood behind her with her testimony. The way to turn them against her was to dig up and attack her academic credentials.
Balancing free speech on campus with student inclusivity and safety.
This.
And this is something new, and extraordinary, on university campuses?
I don’t know that keeping the balance is new. But as the world has become more complex via social media and other concerns, the complexity of keeping the balance is certainly more difficult.
I don’t know, seems like a the reduction in national guard troops shooting students is an improvement.
This is all politics though. Like why did they pick the presidents of these small east coast schools with very little diversity. Why not at least one president from a big state school? Is there no way to get from college station to DC? Texas A and M has 57k undergraduates, Harvard has 7k. The Texas an and m president has almost literally an order of magnitude more students. And there are more students attending schools like Texas than Harvard. So if you really cared about what is going on campuses, you would have those people testify.
But this wasn’t about students, this was all political theater.
I think most of the instances of just how “awful” Universities have become are relatively rare instances, often enough occurring at elite types of Universities that don’t represent the realities at most schools.
Balancing free speech on campus with student inclusivity and safety.
This.
And this is something new, and extraordinary, on university campuses?
I don’t know that keeping the balance is new. But as the world has become more complex via social media and other concerns, the complexity of keeping the balance is certainly more difficult.
I don’t know, seems like a the reduction in national guard troops shooting students is an improvement.
This is all politics though. Like why did they pick the presidents of these small east coast schools with very little diversity. Why not at least one president from a big state school? Is there no way to get from college station to DC? Texas A and M has 57k undergraduates, Harvard has 7k. The Texas an and m president has almost literally an order of magnitude more students. And there are more students attending schools like Texas than Harvard. So if you really cared about what is going on campuses, you would have those people testify.
But this wasn’t about students, this was all political theater.
I think most of the instances of just how “awful” Universities have become are relatively rare instances, often enough occurring at elite types of Universities that don’t represent the realities at most schools.
I am not sure it is deliberate, but it sure does distract from West Virginia dismantling UWV. Or Florida using the college system as a piggy bank for Republicans that are out of office. All of those affect way more students than Harvard. But this is not about students.
But this wasn’t about students, this was all political theater.
The Congressional testimony was all political theatre, I don’t think the plagiarism bit was. Harvard academics has a strong self-policing culture in academic honesty. The knives will come out if you violate that, and the higher you get the sharper the knives. And the higher you get the more you’re scrutinized.
For the Congressional stuff, it was theatre, but the reason a Harvard President gets paid ~$1M/year is very much with the expectation they are equipped and ready to big girl-pants politics. But in football playoff terms, Claudine got flat out bullrushed and knocked on her ass by Stefanik. Now Stefanik is a very shrewd player. But that’s the game, and the Board could easily expect their President to be up for Stefanik-grade tactics.
Setting aside the plagiarism bit, I don’t think any the less of Ms. Gay as a person for failing against Stefanik. I like people who aren’t Stefanik-grade players more than those who are. Though I recognize that organization like Harvard *need *some of those people in top leadership positions.
Harvard, Penn State and MIT are elite institutions. As such I think they were judged to be more worthy of inspection. Ivy league schools are where the leaders are supposed to come from. With a few recent exceptions coming from Harvard or Yale was pretty much a requirement to be a supreme court judge.
I never did get why MIT was chosen. I think of it mainly as a technical school. Maybe it had more students of middle eastern background and more challenges of controversy on campus because of that?
Harvard, Penn State and MIT are elite institutions. As such I think they were judged to be more worthy of inspection. Ivy league schools are where the leaders are supposed to come from. With a few recent exceptions coming from Harvard or Yale was pretty much a requirement to be a supreme court judge.
I never did get why MIT was chosen. I think of it mainly as a technical school. Maybe it had more students of middle eastern background and more challenges of controversy on campus because of that?
Were there well publicized incidents at all of these schools?