Posts Tagged ‘damagnificent seven’

Social justice warriors and the academy

Posted: May 3, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

During my 17 years at Temple University, I have seen a leftward-leaving body of faculty become a home for social justice warriors.

One of the SJW stars is Sara Goldrick-Rab, one of the most outspoken and obnoxious leaders at Temple, where she heads the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice. The center has attracted at least $6 million since she arrived in 2016, and she’s been named one of Education Week’s most influential scholars. 

Nevertheless, her autocratic and abhorrent methods for running the center have resulted in the massive departure of employees and has caused the university to hire investigators to find out what’s going on. 

Moreover, Godrick-Rab has been placed on paid administrative leave from the university while the investigation continues.

Not surprisingly, you won’t find a single word about the controversy on Temple’s website or in the student newspaper—only laudatory articles about her extraordinary work.

The problems first surfaced in Inside Higher Ed, a news organization devoted to reporting about university affairs. See https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/04/14/temple-hires-outside-counsel-investigate-hope-center

“More than a dozen center employees, past and present, have in interviews with Inside Higher Ed over the past several months described toxic management under Goldrick-Rab,” the news organization reported. That’s quite a few since only 50 people work there!

Here’s a sample of some statements in the interviews:

“The center fails to live out the public values of the work being done when it comes to the treatment of staff,” said one former employee, who (like most of his former colleagues who reached out to share their experiences) wished to remain anonymous, for fear of professional or personal retribution. “The Hope Center tagline is that ‘students are humans first,’ [but] in every possible way [Goldrick-Rab] fails to apply that same lesson to the treatment of staff, viewing them as disposable to her and the work of the center.”

Another current center employee said, “There’s drama everywhere, you know. You go to places of work, and there’s bad bosses. There’s people who do shitty things. I get it. But this is just untenable.” More than two dozen colleagues have left the center in the last few years, the employee said.

Goldrick-Rab told Inside Higher Ed that she had asked for the investigation and has faced retaliation for speaking out about Temple education dean Gregory M. Anderson. Earlier this year, Anderson resigned his post as dean. 

Temple acknowledged in a statement that it had initiated a “review” and that Anne Lundquist, managing director of learning and innovation at Hope, will act as interim director during that process.

“Temple takes seriously its responsibility to ensure a supportive workplace climate and professional environment,” the school said in a statement.

Whatever the case, social justice apparently only applies to those who join its highest rank of warriors. 

Cool Cal

Posted: April 19, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

As the 100th anniversary nears of his ascendency to the presidency, Calvin Coolidge is becoming cool.

Coolidge became the 30th president when Warren Harding died in 1923 and held the post until 1929, when he decided not to run. He promoted a mixture of lowering taxes, cutting the federal budget, removing the federal deficit after World War I, promoting racial harmony, and embracing America’s small-town heritage.

Coolidge is finally getting his due as a good president in a 2013 biography by Amity Shlaes and a more recent series of essays and a book about conservatives from Matthew Continetti, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Shlaes, a former journalist who heads the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation in his hometown of Plymouth, Vermont, carefully dispels many of the myths about Coolidge in her book.

Both Shlaes and Continetti want to give “Cool” Cal his due. “Cool” Cal seems a lot better than the liberals’ description of Coolidge as “Silent” Cal. 

Moreover, the misconstrued moniker fails to acknowledge Coolidge’s activities on the radio—long before FDR—and his fascination with modern technology, such as air travel. 

Although historians have placed Coolidge in the lower half of presidential accomplishments, Shlaes argues that that’s mainly because he was a conservative.

Her recalibration of Coolidge’s accomplishments argues that he’s worthy of a much higher place in presidential rankings.

Coolidge carefully steered the country through the disastrous aftermath of Woodrow Wilson’s calamitous post-World War I antics and illness and the scandals left by Warren Harding.

Continetti pushes Coolidge’s reputation into the upheavals of the 21st century, comparing Cal and Donald Trump.

“Both Coolidge and Mr. Trump staked their presidencies on voter satisfaction with broadly shared prosperity. Both supported restricting immigration into the United States. Both wanted to protect American industry from foreign competition. Both sought to avoid overseas entanglements,” Continetti wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal. “Trump’s views now dominate the Republican Party. For anyone who grew up with the GOP of Ronald Reagan, the two Bushes, and John McCain, this can be strange and bewildering. But in many respects, it’s a return to the principles of the 1920s of Coolidge.” 

Coolidge presided over a prosperous nation at peace. He preached America First—as did Trump. 

When I started my deep drive into presidential biographies about three months ago, I didn’t expect to find such an underrated president as Coolidge. 

I’d move him into my top tier of George Washington, James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland, and Harry Truman. 

The wusses of journalism

Posted: April 5, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Temple University has determined that its journalism graduates are having a tough time.

In an announcement, the administration said: “[W]e are seeing an increase in our journalism graduates go into their first jobs and leave before their first contracts are up. Some of our alumni are telling us they just weren’t prepared for the stress and the challenges they are facing.

“We all know it’s always been difficult to adjust to those first years in the field, but between the pandemic and a growing number of people who think journalists are ‘fake news,’ in addition to many other new challenges, we are losing some of our best potential journalists.”

I am admittedly old school. But I’m amazed at how journalism graduates and current practitioners have become wusses.

In my first few years in journalism, I covered demonstrations, terrorist attacks, a civil war, and mass murder.

I am not alone in my amazement. New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg called his younger colleagues “little dweebs” and “f—ing bitches” for “going on about their trauma” from the events on January 6, 2021.

In a hidden-camera video, Rosenberg called the mainstream media’s reaction to the events “over the top.”

He joked, “I know, I’m supposed to be traumatized.”

During much of my career in training journalists, I assigned students to some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city to find stories that demonstrated the true nature of the locales.

My colleague Linn Washington, a longtime Philadelphia journalist, and I created Philadelphia Neighborhoods, an award-winning news organization.

From 2007 to 2013, our students told the stories of poor neighborhoods throughout the city, providing a much subtler view of how people—whatever their income and education—just wanted to have safe streets, a future for their children, and a way to make a good living.

The experience also toughened up student journalists who had rarely strayed outside of their comfort zone.

I’m not entirely sure what happened in the past decade, but I am saddened that some journalism students at Temple, which has a motto of “Temple Tough,” have gotten soft.

But what has happened at Temple is indicative of what has happened in much of the news media.

Bye, bye, Philly!

Posted: March 29, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Philadelphia lost more than 25,000 residents from 2020 to 2021, the largest exodus from the city since 1975.

While politicians and social scientists scratch their heads over the decline, I find it appalling that it took a pandemic for people to realize how bad Philadelphia has become.

Democrat Mayor Jim Kinney locked the city for nearly two years, bankrupting businesses both small and large. Hospitals became almost solely the home for those dying of COVID while many patients couldn’t get essential surgeries, which meant more people died last year in the city than were born.

He actually hired a police chief named Outlaw—Danielle Outlaw. She has managed to oversee the largest number of officers retiring from the force because she doesn’t have their backs.

The city elected Larry Krasner, a card-carrying member of George Soros’s leftist vision, as district attorney.

As a result of this triumvirate, more people have been murdered in Philadelphia so far this year than last year, which ended with a record 562 homicides.

My wife and I joined the exodus a year ago after Black Lives Matter demonstrators frolicked through our neighborhood, forcing affluent businesses in our upscale neighborhood to erect plywood and extra security to confront the threat of theft and damage.

In a neck-snapping analysis in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the news organization determined that the flight was caused by several factors: a desire to flee crowded urban centers, a movement of young people back to their parent’s homes, and a need for more green space.

It’s clear that the news organization hadn’t paid attention to its own reporting. People were afraid to go out on the streets for fear they would be mugged or murdered.

After a high-profile murder near Temple University, parents hired private protection for their kiddies because they thought the university police force, the second largest in the state, couldn’t keep their loved ones safe.

Philadelphia is not alone. New York lost nearly 400,000 residents. Los Angeles saw more than 200,000 people leave. Washington stood at a net loss of more than 60,000.

What do these cities all have in common? Democrats run them!

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