Ward Update

Insta has an important update on the Ward Churchill mess, and to me it really cuts to the heart of the issue that I discussed below: should this guy ever have gotten tenure in the first place? If universities, and the folks that work there, want to be taken seriously on ‘issues’ by the public at large then they really need to take seriously whom they hire. Do they want serious scholars/excellent teachers or do they want to hire folks that satisfy preconceived political notions that they have?
In other words, colleges need to decide what their purpose is. If they want be known where students learn, then they need to tenure good scholars who are excellent teachers. If they want to be known as places where knowledge is pursued, then they need to tenure excellent scholars who are good teachers. Either of these in my mind is the road they should travel, and they are not mutually exclusive, obviously. If they want to be known as politicized, irrelevant institutions they can tenure folks like whom Ward Churchill seems to be.
And let’s see where the parents decide to spend their dollars.

5 Responses to “Ward Update”

1. Dave J says:

   February 8, 2005 at 11:31 am

   I bet Glenn’ll be grateful for the…Coalition-lanche? Swillalance? TOWACA-lanche? 😉

2. Mr. Bingley says:

   February 8, 2005 at 11:33 am

   this may be all that he needed to hit the big-time!

3. Crusader says:

   February 8, 2005 at 12:45 pm

   Coalanche?

4. Mr. Bingley says:

   February 8, 2005 at 1:06 pm

   i’m kinda partial to “swillance”, really.

5. Ken Summers says:

   February 8, 2005 at 4:20 pm

   I’ll have to go with Coalanche. It’s got a good beat, I can dance to it. I’ll give it a 7, Mr. Clark.