Open Letter by CSM Faculty

https://sites.google.com/view/umb-mission-vision-letter/home

by peanutcrisis • 4 years ago

93 24 4 years ago

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tartarate• 4 years ago

This reminds me of the article "Catechism Class at British Universities" about similar policies in the UK, and that title neatly sums up how, while this conflict is being presented as about politics, it is really about religion.

People in earlier eras wouldn't have all been surprised by the requirement for all teaching and research to happen within a particular moral framework, whose tenets were not drawn from rational study or considered open to debate, but simply held as self-evidently correct. They wouldn't be surprised about lecturers or students having to attend prayers or recite scripture.

And all societies undergo periodic revivalism, where there is a constriction of what is considered ethically acceptable behaviour, enforced through a mixture of social ostracism and state and institutional coercion. The fact that the current revivalist movement is a secular religion instead of a spiritual one is a minor difference. Otherwise, it's little different from equivalent Victorian campaigns against immoral behaviour. It just feels unusual because we've been through such a long period of liberalisation and religious decline and perhaps fooled ourselves into thinking it was a permanent state of affairs.

pyuser5832• 4 years ago

Part of the process of “revivalism” is allowing minority viewpoints protection and platform.

In the modern Anglo-tradition, colleges and universities have played a major role in constructive dissent.

Non-public universities have historically had some kind of creed, but it was interpreted liberally enough to allow energetic debate.

geofft• 4 years ago

This is an excellent point from the comments, from one of the signatories:

If you as a public university had no power against racism beyond the nobility of your intentions, your mission statement wouldn't matter a damn anyway. The public university's power against racism is the inherently anti-racist power of genuine knowledge.

And I think it actually refutes some of the more simplistic comments by other signatories about e.g. a desire to keep politics out of science or whether a university's goal should be truth or social justice. Such a phrasing implicitly claims that social justice (however one defines it) is a separable goal from truth. It reminds me a little of the "non-overlapping magisteria" non-solution to conflicting claims from science and religion, that either science determines truth and religion determines, I dunno, vibes, or alternatively that religion has real truth and science is limited to some subset of reality - it solves the problem by refusing to take either one or the other seriously.

The claims of politics and social justice are claims within the domain of truth, just as the claims of science are. Either climate change is happening and merits a response, or it isn't. Either diversity brings conflict or it doesn't. Either the implicit association test is good science or it isn't. Either social Darwinism is good science or it isn't.

The goal of the university should be to seek the truth because it helps humanity. This is why the research university publishes its research and the teaching university opens its doors to the public, after all. There are enough places (as we tech folks know!) where you can pursue the truth about many things for private gain.

Those of us who are on the side of "science" and "truth" must say that when the pursuit of truth has brought us somewhere, we need to do something with that conclusion. It might take us a long while and to false places on the way (as with social Darwinism), but once we've landed on the shores we sought, we need to build something there. And those of us who adhere to the cause of "social justice" as widely understood (and I certainly count myself as one) must believe that the claims it makes about the world we live in are in fact true, and that the pursuit of truth will keep us focused on what actually benefits the people or causes we support, and we need to not cede ground to the idea that our pursuit of truth is somehow a different thing from the ordinary pursuit of truth.

andrewflnr• 4 years ago

Politics and social justice contain claims in the domain of truth, but also contain claims in the domain of norms, i.e. end goals, which are inherently orthogonal to truth (or near enough). Whether a fact is true is different from whether it's good or bad, which is different again from whether you should do something about it. Confusing these leads to dangerous outcomes, I believe some of the "false places" you mentioned.

canadaduane• 4 years ago

Physical truth is very different from socially constructed truth. It took me 25 years, great pain, and leaving my original Mormon faith to understand this.

Money, God, and What's Good are socially constructed truths, for example.

You can converge on understanding physical truth without necessarily converging on socially constructed truth.

akira2501• 4 years ago

The claims of politics and social justice are claims within the domain of truth, just as the claims of science are. Either climate change is happening and merits a response, or it isn't. Either diversity brings conflict or it doesn't. Either the implicit association test is good science or it isn't. Either social Darwinism is good science or it isn't.

That's a rather black and white way of looking at things, and seems to imply that once "truth" is found, that further action no longer requires any relationship to it.

Why these things are happening and what is the best way to solve them seem to be more pertinent questions, and involve a much deeper search for the truth then merely establishing that they're occurring and something needs to be done.

Those of us who are on the side of "science" and "truth" must say that when the pursuit of truth has brought us somewhere, we need to do something with that conclusion.

There are those of us who see this as pure hubris. Particularly that you're conflating scientific result with truth and ultimately with conclusivity. It suggests a path where solutions are no longer socially discussed and implemented collectively though compromise, but rather handed down by science and enforced by rote.

tptacek• 4 years ago

It looks like only a small fraction of CSM faculty have signed on to this open letter.

crackercrews• 4 years ago

However, we also believe that this outcome was likely accidental, and that it stemmed from the fact that the College of Science and Mathematics only has one representative on the committee despite being the second largest college on campus.

This is a very optimistic take, and surely the signers must know this. Is this move to allow for face-saving?

nr2x7• 4 years ago

Also, I’m guessing they didn’t show up to the meetings, circulate earlier drafts, and got upset with outcome they don’t like.

This is how this type of self governance works: you have to show up.

jrm4• 4 years ago

So, part of my job is to work with this sort of thing and, meh? Both sides have a few fair points?

I think the thing is; there's always a lot of play in these words and people perhaps frequently get too uptight when it comes to a current definition etc.

I'd say my only issue would be "anti-racist" (I'm black fwiw). I don't think that much belongs in a mission statement for roughly the same reason I don't much respect air-quotes "Atheism" -- being against a thing, or "not" a thing is just far weaker than being for something. While I actually do personally believe that racism is at least a plausible candidate for our worst problem right now, I still don't like it in a statement like this. It would be like if, instead of "spreading knowledge" there was a bit about "fighting ignorance." Mission statements aren't the place.

But I think e.g. "social justice" and "diversity" are terms that are loose enough to be appropriate, even if they carry certain connotations today. It's hard to not think that, again, taking these words at face value -- that "social justice" and "diversity" aren't well within the mission of a college/university.

Get these people in a room and hash it out.

wolverine876• 4 years ago

Get these people in a room and hash it out.

That is the key and it's not that big a deal.

People with a certain political agenda, seek to depict these situations as irreconcileable warfare - because the division and conflict are what they seek.

A mission statement could easily address everyone's concerns, which as usual are understandable.

nr2x7• 4 years ago

I don’t think it’s an agenda so much as a desire to create a grand victim/hero narrative.

There seems to be some attitude present that they are fighting some grand battle. In reality this is the same type of stupid academic infighting that has existed since Monks ran the place hundreds of years ago.

nr2x7• 4 years ago

Exactly, they’re trying to leverage mob outrage and not actually seeking a reasonable accommodation that allows all sides to come out with a win.

riedel• 4 years ago

I myself work at a university (had the pleasure to be in the working group that drafted our first code of conduct) and I can very much relate to this: that is both sides.

IMHO CS professors, however, tend to become drama queens when it comes to any progressive political thinking. And they might have reason for this reflex.

An important aspect of this is that keeping things as they are in the scientific community is also very political. And what claims to be apolitical in the letter and purely research guided is often radical conservatism. I think one has to understand that the academic system at its current state still relies a very biased narrative of excellence that has promoted a certain type of academic. The reaction demonstrates IMHO that there might a bit of good reasoning behind the mission statement (which I still don't really like because it seems to not reflect other important values in science)

pyuser5832• 4 years ago

The new mission statement sounds a lot like the Nicene Creed. “We are …”

Other than that, they’re pretty similar.

nr2x7• 4 years ago

What’s the point of having people outside the university sign the letter? Seems like another veiled attempt to litigate by mob action.

This is an internal organizational discussion and should remain that way. This is just inflaming the situation with no clear strategy to sensible resolution.

rahimnathwani2• 4 years ago

It's a public research university. It receives federal funding and federal grants. We taxpayers fund it.

Why should people outside the organization contribute funds but not opinions?

nr2x7• 4 years ago

There’s people on there from other countries. They don’t pay taxes here.

upsidesinclude• 4 years ago

We are a public urban university _dedicated_ to teaching, learning, and research _rooted_ in equity, environmental sustainability, social and racial justice, innovation, and expansive notions of excellence.

Swap these words above and your mission statement is not standing on its head.

This type of control over words and the nuanced replacement of priority is NewSpeak. Anyone dismissing the importance of this subtlety is either a proponent of the concept or ignorant of the far reaching consequences. Neither is acceptable.

matthewdgreen• 4 years ago

This is most evident in the Vision Statement which discusses diversity, equity, expansive notions of excellence, wellness, an ethic of care, plural identities, climate justice, environmental justice, and racial justice, and then states that "We hold ourselves and each other accountable to ensure these values drive all decision-making in research, pedagogical innovations, resource allocation, and the development of policies and practices."

Heaven forfend that “excellence” and “wellness” and various sorts of justice should be primary drivers of various sorts of decisionmaking.

csande17• 4 years ago

The mission statement doesn't say "excellence" should be a primary driver, it says "expansive notions of excellence" -- a jargon phrase with a different meaning:

Expansive excellence recognizes a shift from the traditional (and often narrow) ways that excellence has been defined and measured to explore more comprehensive and relevant ways that excellence can be defined to promote equity and achieve inclusion. Holistic admission practices strive to broaden the criteria used to assess applicants.

(source: https://journals.lww.com/jopte/Fulltext/2021/09000/Editorial...)

Open Letter by CSM Faculty

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