Re: Is my CS instructor nuts?

In article <dk1kg.25921$0v4.14736@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, lshaw-
usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
Gerry Quinn wrote:
In article <1150207525.592639.256340@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx says..

"Zionism" is a World Religion issue: this
is obvious, indeed as obvious as the proposition that in order to teach
applications programming, you have to have an application to program.

It appears, however, that the person charged with deciding the latter
on behalf of Roosevelt University felt that it was not so. Perhaps he
wishes to employ an adjunct who will debate the merits of jihad;

... in which case they'd pretty much need to cover Zionism anyway, since
the current jihad seems *fairly* closely related to Zionism.

Clearly you have no understanding of the concept of jihad. To what
'current jihad' do you refer?

it
seems more likely, though, that he feels a more anodyne curriculum will
better serve the university's interests.

Now you start getting into two issues. The first is who is supposed to
decide the question of what will be taught. The second is whether the
person who does have this authority makes a stupid decision that. I'm
not familiar with the details of this situation, but there is something
to be said for the idea of objecting when the administration gets too
restrictive about what can and can't be discussed; it sort of goes against
the spirit of having a university for the administration to exercise too
much authority in these areas, even if it is their authority to exercise.

That is tautologically correct but largely content-free, as it includes
the words "too restrictive" - which imply that the difficult question
of what degree of restriction is optimal has been resolved.

- Gerry Quinn



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