(12-12-2010 02:50 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I don't think Rice changed me much in social and political thought - I think I graduated pretty much the same person as I came in. Some of you may think you know what kind of person that was, and you would be wrong.

The changes in me, my understanding of the world, and my place in it, have come about over many years and through many experiences and with much thought. Rice was only one among many experiences.

FWIW, I matriculated in 1963.

So you're saying you are a slow study?

(10-04-2011 10:01 PM)elf owl Wrote:  

(12-12-2010 02:50 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I don't think Rice changed me much in social and political thought - I think I graduated pretty much the same person as I came in. Some of you may think you know what kind of person that was, and you would be wrong.

The changes in me, my understanding of the world, and my place in it, have come about over many years and through many experiences and with much thought. Rice was only one among many experiences.

FWIW, I matriculated in 1963.

So you're saying you are a slow study?

More of a constant study, always questioning. I started that process before I entered Rice, and it has never ended. rice was an episode, a chapter in my life, not the whole book.

(10-04-2011 10:01 PM)elf owl Wrote:  

(12-12-2010 02:50 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I don't think Rice changed me much in social and political thought - I think I graduated pretty much the same person as I came in. Some of you may think you know what kind of person that was, and you would be wrong.

The changes in me, my understanding of the world, and my place in it, have come about over many years and through many experiences and with much thought. Rice was only one among many experiences.

FWIW, I matriculated in 1963.

So you're saying you are a slow study?

What an ironically slow response, some 9+ months later.

(10-04-2011 11:53 PM)texd Wrote:  

(10-04-2011 10:01 PM)elf owl Wrote:  

(12-12-2010 02:50 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I don't think Rice changed me much in social and political thought - I think I graduated pretty much the same person as I came in. Some of you may think you know what kind of person that was, and you would be wrong.

The changes in me, my understanding of the world, and my place in it, have come about over many years and through many experiences and with much thought. Rice was only one among many experiences.

FWIW, I matriculated in 1963.

So you're saying you are a slow study?

What an ironically slow response, some 9+ months later.

No one ever said I wasn't a slow study, but it took two seconds to come up with that quip. Still some people are shocked and suddenly changed by their College experience. Others are temperamentally gradual in their rate of change. For me College was a big change. I always envied those who could take things in stride. I'm not like that. Not good or bad but a different way of processing.

I took my Intro Sociology class from Bill Martin who was more interested in the socialogy of religion than Marxism. A current teacher in sociology used to be the director of the adult probation department of my county. Rice just lost one member of the department to be the president of a Christian college. How liberal is all that?

(12-08-2010 04:29 PM)texd Wrote:  http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/...anking.php

"The Department of Sociology is dominated by Marxist categories of class, race, sex, and sexuality."

Um, I thought those categories were the raison d'etre for any Sociology dept.

I admit the A&M of today is much different than it was when I went to graduate school there in the 1970s. I went to a course there about 10 years ago and I was surprised to see an office for gays in Rudder Tower. in 1975, they would have thought gays belong in Austin at tu and not at A&M.

One negative trend is that there are many more Greeks than Corp members now.

A&M is a large campus so it would have organiztions for about everything including liberals.

(12-09-2010 08:18 PM)owl7886 Wrote:  http://tamu.campusreform.org/group/blog/...university

The Rice review amused me more than surprised me, but I was impressed by how much A&M still managed to tick them off.

(12-12-2010 11:25 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I did not change my belief system--basically libertarian, liberal social views with conservative economic views--so much as I experienced those views being challenged and standing up to the challenge, and leaving with a much better understanding of why those views made sense.

That's pretty cool. The success of a college environment should not be measured by the degree to which it changes one's basic beliefs. For one thing, that notion has the premise that the ideas one enters with are most likely "wrong" and need to be replaced by the "right" ideas which the university feeds you -- in which case a university is an expensive and relatively wet version of a North Korean re-education camp.

I suppose there are universities -- or at least departments within universitites -- who do start with the above premise: that students enter with wrong ideas, and that the job of the faculty is to beat out that wrongness and replace it with correct thinking administered by the faculty. One irony is that, in many cases, current students themselves have been hearing a similar drill since elementary school, so it's an open question how much re-education remains to be done by the time a kid gets to college. But what the heck? Nothing exceeds like excess...

(10-05-2011 05:38 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(12-12-2010 11:25 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I did not change my belief system--basically libertarian, liberal social views with conservative economic views--so much as I experienced those views being challenged and standing up to the challenge, and leaving with a much better understanding of why those views made sense.

That's pretty cool. The success of a college environment should not be measured by the degree to which it changes one's basic beliefs. For one thing, that notion has the premise that the ideas one enters with are most likely "wrong" and need to be replaced by the "right" ideas which the university feeds you -- in which case a university is an expensive and relatively wet version of a North Korean re-education camp.
I suppose there are universities -- or at least departments within universitites -- who do start with the above premise: that students enter with wrong ideas, and that the job of the faculty is to beat out that wrongness and replace it with correct thinking administered by the faculty. One irony is that, in many cases, current students themselves have been hearing a similar drill since elementary school, so it's an open question how much re-education remains to be done by the time a kid gets to college. But what the heck? Nothing exceeds like excess...

I think I've mentioned this before, but what really brought it home to me for the first time was my alumni interview for admission to Rice. I was asked, "Do you consider yourself liberal or conservative, meaning not just politics but all aspects of life?"

I will admit that I had never thought of that specific question before, but as I struggled to find a response that was sufficiently intelligent to convince this person to tell Rice to admit me, I realized that I really was a social liberal and economic conservative. And as I said, those views were challenged frequently and stood up to those challenges, leaving me much more secure in those beliefs. For that I thank Rice very much.

On another subject, you had mentioned in another thread trying to get together to view some Rugby World Cup at Richmond Arms. They are showing the Universal feed, and per the Universal site the final will be tape dealyed at 2 pm our time on Sunday 23 October. Perhaps we can meet, and any other Parliamentarians who'd like to see the world's greatest game could join us.