Political views of academics

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

In the engineering world, academia certainly leans to the left, decisively but not overwhelmingly (somewhere between 60-40 and 70-30 I'd guess). Most of the conservative engineers tend to go into industry, and since there are far, far more engineers in industry than academia, those with any engineering degree are overall a Republican demographic.

The most liberal field is probably gender studies, which I suspect votes about 100-0.

I mean, what would be the point, otherwise? Though such would be very amusing.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The left lean of sociology really sucks, as I really enjoy my soc classes.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The left lean of sociology really sucks, as I really enjoy my soc classes.

Does criminology count as part of sociology?  If so, you do have John Lott and Mike Adams then.

I mean, my school doesn't have a "criminology" department--Criminal Justice Studies, rather--and I have yet to take "Criminology & Penology", so I'm not entirely familiar with the actual definition of criminology beyond, shall we say, studying of criminals including ability to profile them. Were you to classify it into older and larger social sciences, it would have to be a combination of both sociology and psychology. Hell, my Sociology of Deviant Behavior prof is an ex-prison psychologist and often takes us into tangents about his experience and/or psychological theory when Abnormal Psych is its own class.

EDIT: I had the chance to think this over whilst hungover in class and then while utilizing the Commerce & Finance building's restroom facilities, and to put it in its most plain form: the sociological side (at least for positivists--I don't consider constructivists to have that much of a practical addition to the study, though their conclusions are interesting) is going to ask and try to find out "what societal preconditions will cause crime, a rise in crime, etc. Constructivists are going to ask how it is we come to identify certain things as deviant, criminal, etc. Psychologists--I assume, I'm taking Abnormal Psych next term--would, on the other hand, focus on why the individual would do it. Consider abnormal psychology, prison psychologists, those guys on "Criminal Minds", and so on.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

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.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

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.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

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.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

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.