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>Faculty hiring is straight up insane, and DEI/Faith statements don't even make the top 10 list of reasons why. The idea that because there are other issues wi

>Faculty hiring is straight up insane, and DEI/Faith statements don't even make the top 10 list of reasons why. The idea that because there are other issues with hiring in Academia that these "Faith Statements" don't matter rings pretty hollow imo. >By institution count, CA's public system is a teeny tiny fraction of the US's 4000+ colleges and universities. But I get it. For a certain mark, California gets the cortisol goin'. I'm actually a fan of the UC's and California generally but I also think that the UC's are the gold standard for Public Education in the US and what happens there often spreads across the rest of the big State University systems. >LOL no they're not. The push is FAR stronger at no-name tuition-dependent corn row colleges in the midwest who have snow white undergrad populations and are literally existentially threatened by the coming decline in white 18 year old midwesterners. Not sure how you can say this with such assurance, given we can see countless examples of DEI gone wild at the Ivies or Stanford or Wellesley, etc. You did your undergrad/phd at multiple Ivies and have worked at a dozen of those corn row schools and know what's happening there?

ModernMech 4y ago
> Not sure how you can say this with such assurance I'm wondering if you're willing to tell us how many faculty DEI statements you've actually read. I'm very sure that if we forced the posters here to disclose the same, the median across this thread would be 0 or 1 (that one being the first hit that could be found searching Google). Personally I've read dozens upon dozens in my role as an educator, and thwayunion has been spot on in their assessment. As for this: > given we can see countless examples of DEI gone wild at the Ivies or Stanford or Wellesley There's always going to be examples of things going wrong in a chaotic and distributed process. Pointing them out doesn't prove much. That said, a lot of the "gone wild" examples that people can bring up are also based in the same ignorance as people complaining about DEI statement who haven't read a single DEI statement. The recent Stanford word list that you probably have in mind is just one example; in that case, the freakout was over some overzealous members of an IT department publishing their internal content guidelines. It was probably misguided, but the ensuing freakout on the internet was overblown and rooted in a deep ignorance at how organizations like Universities operate. So as far as this conversation goes, thwayunion's perception is properly calibrated. It seems to come from experience.
thwayunion 4y ago
> The idea that because there are other issues with hiring in Academia that these "Faith Statements" don't matter rings pretty hollow imo. You may have missed it, but by "Faith Statements" I literally meant "Faith Statements". As in religious institutions requiring you to write about your religious beliefs. > Not sure how you can say this with such assurance, given we can see countless examples of DEI gone wild at the Ivies or Stanford or Wellesley, etc. You did your undergrad/phd at multiple Ivies and have worked at a dozen of those corn row schools and know what's happening there? I have a lot of experience in both of those worlds, yes.

ModernMech 4y ago

> Not sure how you can say this with such assurance I'm wondering if you're willing to tell us how many faculty DEI statements you've actually read. I'm very sure that if we forced the posters here to disclose the same, the median across this thread would be 0 or 1 (that one being the first hit that could be found searching Google). Personally I've read dozens upon dozens in my role as an educator, and thwayunion has been spot on in their assessment. As for this: > given we can see countless examples of DEI gone wild at the Ivies or Stanford or Wellesley There's always going to be examples of things going wrong in a chaotic and distributed process. Pointing them out doesn't prove much. That said, a lot of the "gone wild" examples that people can bring up are also based in the same ignorance as people complaining about DEI statement who haven't read a single DEI statement. The recent Stanford word list that you probably have in mind is just one example; in that case, the freakout was over some overzealous members of an IT department publishing their internal content guidelines. It was probably misguided, but the ensuing freakout on the internet was overblown and rooted in a deep ignorance at how organizations like Universities operate. So as far as this conversation goes, thwayunion's perception is properly calibrated. It seems to come from experience.

thwayunion 4y ago

> The idea that because there are other issues with hiring in Academia that these "Faith Statements" don't matter rings pretty hollow imo. You may have missed it, but by "Faith Statements" I literally meant "Faith Statements". As in religious institutions requiring you to write about your religious beliefs. > Not sure how you can say this with such assurance, given we can see countless examples of DEI gone wild at the Ivies or Stanford or Wellesley, etc. You did your undergrad/phd at multiple Ivies and have worked at a dozen of those corn row schools and know what's happening there? I have a lot of experience in both of those worlds, yes.