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CrabCake
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« Reply #50 on: December 21, 2015, 06:45:34 PM »

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961500080X

if your institution provides access to papers, this paper published recently is pretty interesting reading.
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RFayette
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« Reply #51 on: December 21, 2015, 09:16:12 PM »

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961500080X

if your institution provides access to papers, this paper published recently is pretty interesting reading.
Does it break down by discipline?  If so, could you paraphrase the data?
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Hillary pays minimum wage
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« Reply #52 on: December 25, 2015, 10:05:18 PM »

In academia it seems to me that fields like Socialogy are virtually 100% left-leaning. Psychology also, though psychiatrists might be slightly more conservative, philosophy is probably left-leaning as well. I think that your most likely to find conservatives in History and Economics departments.

Ask those loons what the job placement percentage is of students they teach.  They won't care because all that matters to them is that 100% of their students vote Democrat.  I'm talking about you. 
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« Reply #53 on: December 29, 2015, 10:26:05 PM »

In academia it seems to me that fields like Socialogy are virtually 100% left-leaning. Psychology also, though psychiatrists might be slightly more conservative, philosophy is probably left-leaning as well. I think that your most likely to find conservatives in History and Economics departments.

Ask those loons what the job placement percentage is of students they teach.  They won't care because all that matters to them is that 100% of their students vote Democrat.  I'm talking about you. 

It is worth pointing out that professors are liberal even in employable fields; just from a few off-the-cuff statements, I can tell my CS professor is very left-leaning, for instance.

Curious, are your computers proffs super-focused on cool-sounding concepts like "Big Data", talking about how CIS is like the most employable field ever, and how the Internet revolutionized human life (with convenient mentions of the Arab spring) etc.? Only taken one comp class so far, but that was the gist I got.
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TJ in Oregon
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« Reply #54 on: December 30, 2015, 09:26:47 PM »

In academia it seems to me that fields like Socialogy are virtually 100% left-leaning. Psychology also, though psychiatrists might be slightly more conservative, philosophy is probably left-leaning as well. I think that your most likely to find conservatives in History and Economics departments.

Ask those loons what the job placement percentage is of students they teach.  They won't care because all that matters to them is that 100% of their students vote Democrat.  I'm talking about you. 

It is worth pointing out that professors are liberal even in employable fields; just from a few off-the-cuff statements, I can tell my CS professor is very left-leaning, for instance.

Virtually everything touched by academia exudes liberalism, but CS is typically one of the most liberal engineering fields (if you consider it one). It's certainly more liberal than chemical, mechanical, or civil engineering.

Professors in every field will be mostly liberal since they are creatures of academia. In particular, the are reliant on government grants for research funding, (if it's a public school) their paycheck is up to the budgetary decisions of the state legislature and governor, and they've spent pretty much their entire life since high school surrounded by liberals. On the flip side, one can be a conservative in academia in hard science fields without facing a ton of outright pressure from their peers since the subject isn't terribly political. So the net result ends up being circa 4:1 D:R for the professors in those fields.
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« Reply #55 on: December 30, 2015, 09:48:12 PM »

For the record, my chapter's faculty adviser is a civil engineering professor who seems to be at least centrist, likely center-right to an extent. Churchgoer. Said he's okay with Snyder.
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TJ in Oregon
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« Reply #56 on: December 30, 2015, 10:02:48 PM »

For the record, my chapter's faculty adviser is a civil engineering professor who seems to be at least centrist, likely center-right to an extent. Churchgoer. Said he's okay with Snyder.

I suspect (though I have no data to defend it) that engineering professors at Catholic schools are probably more conservative. I'd guess it's a mix of people who took it because it was a good job and people who prefer to work at a Catholic school.

When I was doing grad school visits, I visited a Catholic school where one of the professors had recently left a highly ranked program (at which he had long been tenured) to go to the Catholic school. I met with him and asked him why he switched and he told me that he thought there should be top-notch non-secular research institutions and wanted to work for one. That's not to say anything abut his political views (I have no idea) or even what his religious affiliation is beyond the implication that he has one and values it. But that does say something.
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« Reply #57 on: December 30, 2015, 10:18:27 PM »

For the record, my chapter's faculty adviser is a civil engineering professor who seems to be at least centrist, likely center-right to an extent. Churchgoer. Said he's okay with Snyder.

I suspect (though I have no data to defend it) that engineering professors at Catholic schools are probably more conservative. I'd guess it's a mix of people who took it because it was a good job and people who prefer to work at a Catholic school.

When I was doing grad school visits, I visited a Catholic school where one of the professors had recently left a highly ranked program (at which he had long been tenured) to go to the Catholic school. I met with him and asked him why he switched and he told me that he thought there should be top-notch non-secular research institutions and wanted to work for one. That's not to say anything abut his political views (I have no idea) or even what his religious affiliation is beyond the implication that he has one and values it. But that does say something.

He's not Catholic, to my knowledge, but he has spent time in "industry" which may be an important contributing factor.

I'm Facebook friends with the head of the Philosophy Department (who's never met me), and his feed is absolutely disgusting; pretty bog standard "left-wing professor" type trash ("Haha! I am so smart for sharing an article about why someone else thinks Donald Trump is stupid!"). It's honestly somewhat surprising to see such domination in certain departments. One might be inclined to expect that history or philosophy professors would cultivate a semi-conservatism among a minority in their ranks. The former due to glorification of the American/Western past, the latter for the search for "truth". So sad to see such noble pursuits tarnished by modern day academic leftism.

Was there ever a more conservative stereotype of professors? It seems easy to imagine there being some film set in like the mid-fifties where a wily student has a run-in with some arch-conservative professor at a private (Catholic?) institution where the teacher preaches things like being serious and "absolute truth" and all that. Though maybe that's a plot theme meant only for high school movies.
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TJ in Oregon
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« Reply #58 on: December 30, 2015, 10:54:12 PM »

He's not Catholic, to my knowledge, but he has spent time in "industry" which may be an important contributing factor.

You do find the occasional good Protestant who works at a Catholic school because he prefers the nominally religious environment to a completely secular one and at least has some vague hope that the school has a beneficent goal in there somewhere. It was a common joke about the Theology department at one notable Catholic school (I can't remember which) that they only have one real Catholic professor and she's a Lutheran.

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Most of America's elite Catholic Universities have long since ceased to be dependably Catholic. You can find a Thomist here and there if you look (you can occasionally even find Thomists in secular school philosophy departments if you look hard enough), but many others are rather liberal ("liberal" in this case meaning disagrees with the Church's teaching on ___ and wants to teach that way). Certain of them do make some effort to follow the Church's teachings, such as Villanova (their website is refreshingly good), Catholic University of America, and occasionally Notre Dame. But yes, the idea of the university as a place devoted to finding the truth and serving Christ is a little removed from the current modern reality.

It seems the Catholic universities find themselves in something of a bind when making decisions between being on the cutting edge of their fields and being Catholic. If they hire a professor with academic pedigree from a secular university that professor may not agree with the Church's teachings on ___. Or they can go the Catholic route but their rankings might not be the best. In contrast to the elite schools, there are a few smaller Catholic schools such as Franciscan Univ in Steubenville, Ave Maria,  and Wyoming Catholic College (Going there would be awesome!!) who went the latter route.
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RFayette
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« Reply #59 on: December 31, 2015, 02:52:20 AM »

In academia it seems to me that fields like Socialogy are virtually 100% left-leaning. Psychology also, though psychiatrists might be slightly more conservative, philosophy is probably left-leaning as well. I think that your most likely to find conservatives in History and Economics departments.

Ask those loons what the job placement percentage is of students they teach.  They won't care because all that matters to them is that 100% of their students vote Democrat.  I'm talking about you. 

It is worth pointing out that professors are liberal even in employable fields; just from a few off-the-cuff statements, I can tell my CS professor is very left-leaning, for instance.

Curious, are your computers proffs super-focused on cool-sounding concepts like "Big Data", talking about how CIS is like the most employable field ever, and how the Internet revolutionized human life (with convenient mentions of the Arab spring) etc.? Only taken one comp class so far, but that was the gist I got.

Not really.  It's more like "Student X took my class 10 years ago and founded Startup Y and stuff like that.  Big Data was 't really touched on as the course just covered the basics of data structures, graphics, and syntax.  The political references were completely random..."This graphics package has methods using polar coordinates.  Not a polar bear, guys.  (Solemn look) You know what though?  This is a terrible time to be a polar bear.  Here's what polar coordinates are..."

Or another one..."I really don't like Donald Trump, but that's a different story" (after praising Obama on net neutrality and discussing how fields like public policy need more coders)
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RFayette
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« Reply #60 on: December 31, 2015, 03:02:42 AM »

In academia it seems to me that fields like Socialogy are virtually 100% left-leaning. Psychology also, though psychiatrists might be slightly more conservative, philosophy is probably left-leaning as well. I think that your most likely to find conservatives in History and Economics departments.

Ask those loons what the job placement percentage is of students they teach.  They won't care because all that matters to them is that 100% of their students vote Democrat.  I'm talking about you. 

It is worth pointing out that professors are liberal even in employable fields; just from a few off-the-cuff statements, I can tell my CS professor is very left-leaning, for instance.

Virtually everything touched by academia exudes liberalism, but CS is typically one of the most liberal engineering fields (if you consider it one). It's certainly more liberal than chemical, mechanical, or civil engineering.


Yeah, I never considered CS to be engineering in the proper sense, but it seems all 'technical' majors get lumped in as engineering.  The left lean of CS is rather longstanding.  I read the book 'The Innovators' by Walter Isaacson, and he discussed how many early coders were 1970's hippies who helped start the open source movement.  The influence of the Bay Area almost certainly has an impact as well, since that is the biggest hub of the tech industry.

I agree that government funding is a big reason why professors lean Dem,  but I suspect religiosity is also a big reason.  Not a single professor goes to my church, whereas about 100 students go at least occasionally.  It seems most are irreligious and those who do go would attend Jewish or liberal Protestant services mostly.
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TJ in Oregon
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« Reply #61 on: January 02, 2016, 12:28:23 PM »

I agree that government funding is a big reason why professors lean Dem,  but I suspect religiosity is also a big reason.  Not a single professor goes to my church, whereas about 100 students go at least occasionally.  It seems most are irreligious and those who do go would attend Jewish or liberal Protestant services mostly.

It isn't unusual at all for faculty to avoid a church where students go and that doesn't necessarily mean they don't go to church. Lots of people in a college town want to stay away from the undergrads or feel institutions with undergrads aren't catered toward them.

College faculty are still less religious than most Americans regardless. I also agree that this is a major factor behind their politics. But why are they less religious than most Americans? Is it, as some here might suggest, that once people are more educated they look past the rudimentary myths and superstitions that common folk adhere to such as religion? Are they further along the arc of social progress that includes secularization? Is it due to the perceived conflict between science and religion with intellectuals choosing the former? Is it because the academe are more likely to have asked questions on the subject and therefore are more likely to hold unpopular views? Is it because professors have less empathy (statistically) than most Americans and empathy is correlated with religiosity?
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« Reply #62 on: January 02, 2016, 02:23:33 PM »

I mean, part of it could have to do with the fact that they view themselves as "objective observers" or somesuch, and thus feel the need, as "scientists" to not take stock in the very systems they study. Imagine a Religious Studies or Anthropology professor teaching about historical development of religion, for example. But were that hypothesis totally accurate, we wouldn't have departments riddled with activists and other such nonsense.
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« Reply #63 on: January 10, 2016, 08:56:40 AM »

Most academics have always been left-leaning, with the exception of business and economics.
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« Reply #64 on: January 30, 2016, 05:10:18 PM »

The liberal aura of academic communities is contagious. As a 17-year-old kid newly arrived in Cambridge, MA from Macomb, MI, I was struck by the sense among many (led by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) that we were mere seconds from a nuclear war if Reagan was re-elected. (Mondale won 76% in Cambridge, a city that was about 85% white).
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