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UO to teach Republican faculty how to write OpEds on their ideals

At least I assume that’s who this workshop is for, since they’re the most under-represented group on campus. But I doubt they’re going to find 21 Republicans to fill the class among UO’s ~1600 faculty, so maybe I’m missing something:

On February 22 and 23, 2020, the Clark Honors College, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Division of Equity and Inclusion are co-sponsoring a two-day workshop, called “Write to Change the World.” In this interactive workshop participants will explore ideas and sources of credibility; learn how to present ideas quickly and powerfully under pressure; understand when and why people change their minds; reflect on the difference between being “right” and being effective; and develop strategies for greater impact, including how to escape being pigeonholed and how to preach beyond the choir. The workshop also includes a pedagogical component, so that participants can incorporate this important part of public writing into their courses. Participants will leave with an outline of an op-ed in hand, plus three months’ access to OpEd Project journalist mentors for individual follow-up.

Recognizing that journalism is improved when a diversity of perspectives are included in public discourse, the OpEd Project and its UO partners seek to focus on the ideas and impact of underrepresented voices, including women, in order to share knowledge, resources and connections across color, creed, class, sexuality, gender and beyond.

Each of the co-sponsors will send seven participants to the workshop. Faculty members can submit applications to only one of the co-sponsors.

TTF faculty and career instructors may submit applications to the College of Arts and Sciences. Applications should include the following:

    1. A letter of application (no more than 500 words), describing how this workshop relates to your teaching and research, and how you will focus on the ideas and impact of underrepresented voices
    2. A description of the project you intend to work on during the workshop (no more than 250 words)
    3. A current CV.

Please send applications to: [email protected]Applications are due December 15, 2019. Applicants will be notified no later than January 15, 2020.

13 Comments

  1. Hippo 11/14/2019

    Griping about the dearth of Republicans in the academy (modulo B-schools) is *almost* as boring as complaints about the shortage of parking. Both are true, but neither worth much discussion.

    • honest Uncle Bernie 11/14/2019

      You may be right. Just don’t be surprised if the Republicans become as indifferent to higher education as higher education is to them. Indifferent as in hostile. At some point, they may decide that academia does not need federal student loans, or research grants, or maybe overhead on the grants. They may start to exert as much control as the liberals have, say, with Title IX. Oh, and state support in the red states may no longer be as forthcoming as you are used to.

      • Hippo 11/15/2019

        Republicans are waging a war on expertise. State department employees who have devoted careers to understanding the nuances of specific countries are out; cronies are in. Independent scientists with relevant education in the the discipline are out at regulatory agencies; industry insiders are in. Eggheads at accredited Universities: out; Scam for-profit colleges: in. The hatred of institutions of higher ed has very little to do with “equal representation”.

        • honest Uncle Bernie 11/15/2019

          I think of Professor Krugman, of Nobel fame, who predicted right after the 2016 election that there would be a global recession “with no end in sight.”

          Why won’t the boobs just show that they know their place, and admit that they are ignorant and stupid, and bow down before their betters, who have it right?

          • heraclitus 11/16/2019

            There must be a name for this fallacy (anybody?). Sometimes the meteorologists get the weather wrong. That’s why we should replace them with psychics.

          • just different 11/16/2019

            So where do you stand on Wall Street predictions about what will happen if Warren wins?

            • honest Uncle Bernie 11/17/2019

              Who cares what I predict about this? But since you ask — my guess is it would collapse the equity markets if Warren’s plans actually were enacted. (A big if.) Of course, I might be as mistaken as Krugman has been about Trump. If that’s what you mean by Wall Street predictions. For example, PERS might become 30% funded instead of 70% or so as it is now. It might become impossible to pay the pensions, or else state spending would have to be cut drastically, or taxes raised astronomically, or some combination.

        • Alexis Burke 11/18/2019

          OK. I’ll bite. This is a tiny bit of an exaggeration. Most State Department employees (and intelligence service folks) are pretty obviously still on the job. And if you look back from, say, 2003 until now, it’s hard to know exactly where the US has mastered the nuances of the nations it has had to deal with. The current President is having a very difficult time shutting down the forever wars. I suppose it could be worse, but it’s not exactly a stellar performance the “experts” have given us: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt, China, Turkey, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Mexico…I happen to have a profound respect for diplomats, but I also know what bureaucracies do to human minds.

          Also, I have never heard evidence that people “hate” institutions of higher ed. People mistrust higher ed because it is a political monoculture and because it indoctrinates accordingly and gives place to often extreme and ungrounded ideas–but almost never gives a place to conservative ideas. It also seems to be better at teaching students to signal competence than to to learn and think and to be competent.

          I will defend the university until my death, but I will also criticize it. The four year college/university model as THE model is becoming inefficient and obsolete–and now turns young people into lifelong debtors. We need more gateways to good employment, more intellectually and politically diverse faculties, more access for people across the life-span, less anxiety and fewer mental health challenges among students.

          I think we need more Republicans and conservatives, too. Everybody matters.

      • uomatters Post author | 11/16/2019

        honest Uncle Bernie, it’s looking like you are the only prof on campus willing to help our VP for Diversity fulfill her modest intellectual inclusion goal. I’d be happy to write a letter of support for your application – though I strongly suggest you continue to use your pseudonym throughout the process.

        • honest Uncle Bernie 11/17/2019

          I’m not sure I’m eligible for this kind of affirmative action, if that’s what it would be called. I’m not even a Republican. I’m just calling attention to how this kind of stuff looks to about half the country. But your caution to me — mask my identity while talking about this stuff — is a sign of how bad things are in American academia.

  2. uomatters Post author | 11/14/2019

    And yet you’ve now commented on both topics.

  3. apt 11/15/2019

    well, I’m glad that no one person gets to set what a “discussion” should or shouldn’t be even though folks craving power on both sides of the aisle are always try to control discourse. But there’s an even more fundamental concern at play with this workshop: I thought academics presented critically-analyzed work that opened a space for folks to think through complicated issues. But I guess everyone wants to be a game-changer and folks are just waiting for the next Gandhi or Hitler to learn how to frame their ideas into the next revolutionary tome. Talk about hubris…I wonder how much of the hostility towards higher-ed comes from disagreeing with ideas generated from higher-ed or ideas generated from higher-ed framed as “here’s how we’re gonna save the world!!” And certainly left to wonder about the “pedagogical” component for students that most likely need to read and study more, gain some experience outside the U, and then think about what they got to contribute to changing the world…

  4. Madison 11/18/2019

    “In this interactive workshop participants will…reflect on the difference between being “right” and being effective…”

    The scares around “right” pretty much says it all.

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