The Denisonian (Granville, OH), 1990-09-27

              THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 27 1990 Are College Students Really Conservative P 4 THE DENISONIAN By Charles R Kesler The Collegiate Times Todays undergraduates are too young to remember Barry Goldwater President Richard Nixon they may know the new Nixon the Black Panthers the Vietnam War Watergate or even President Jimmy Carter And yet the majority of them and a majority of the voters under 30 yearsold supported George Bush in 1988 even as their predecessors had helped lift Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980 and 1984 Absent the historical experiences that propelled older voters into the conservative ranks what is it nowadays that accounts for conservatism among undergraduates The campus is part of the nation of course and the same 12 HAIRCUTS am M onday thru Friday forwa Ikins If i 04 am DAVID SAMOR SALOMS I Open 98 MF 94 on Sat 124 S 30th St Newark Sanor Centre 3443024 DAVID SANOR HAIRC TING SALONS INC forces that shape national political opinions affect the academy Although the inspiring developments in Eastern Europe and the apparent decline in the Soviet threat have taken some of the anticommunist edge off the conservatives both in and out of college the crumbling of MarxismLeninism remains a cause for joy and pride At the same time young people are buoyed by the immense opportunities opened up by the great economic expansion of the 1980s Along with the vast majority of American voters they rightly feel grateful to the conservative policies that have fostered lower taxes and sustained economic growth What distinguishes student conservatives however is that every day of their lives they confront an educational N v J 1 X vr A Goldwell Perms Computerized Color Analysis Clipper Cuts Nexxus Paul Mitchell WDUB NYC establishment whose liberalism is supercilious and simonpure The public at large not to mention the businessmen who serve as college trustees have no idea how liberal are the faculty of the countrys elite liberal arts schools and major research universities Faculty opinions are simply off scale of American politics Not only is it normal to find 70 80 90 percent of a colleges faculty voting in lockstep for liberal Democrats but the astonishing fact is that these faculty members are also much more liberal than Michael Dukakis or Walter Mondale One proof of this is how eagerly faculties across the country have voted to suppress free speech on campus whenever it offends their sensibilities Even Jesse Jackson would have to swallow hard before endorsing such measures but to many faculty members and administrative officials the protection of free speech codes is no big deal Academic liberalism is the vanguard however so dont be surprised if this issue appears soon in one form or another in national politics Against the radicalism of college faculty abetted by the liberalism of a plurality of their fellow students conservatives rebel The modes of this rebellion are interesting On one hand its predominant tone is libertarian The academic orthodoxy is at once stifling and WOSU Talk Show continued from p 2 of cliques on campus was also discussed Watts believed that sometimes black students were purposely ignored by while students Woods argued that it was not the difference in skin color that resulted in a cliques apathy towards someone but simply the fact he or she was different from the people in that clique WALT DISNEY WORLD COLLEGE PROGRAM Walt Disney World Co representatives will present an information session on the Walt Disney World College Program on Wednesday October 3 1990 at 800 pm in the University Room Attendance at this presentation is required to interview for the SPRING 91 COLLEGE PROGRAM Interviews are scheduled for Thursday October 4 1990 in the University Room All majors are encouraged to attend C r jJ C The Wah Disney Company provoking conservative students seek therefore to be free of the party line to think and live for themselves And so they assert for example their right to rise or fall on the basis of merit and not racial or ethnic classification to despise the countlessmindnumbing rituals of consciousness raising and not incidentally to make some money and a place for themselves in society They resent the imposition of any opinion or dogmas and are certainly more permissive of abortion to take a salient issue than are conservatives in general On the other hand conservative undergraduates have at least an inkling that they cant make it completely on their own They know they need an education a way of seeking and participating in the larger truths that inform them as human beings and citizens Hence the calls for Western civilization and Great Books courses echoing all the way from Dartmouth to Stanford There is something oddly affecting about these requests by bright students eager to learn something that at last they can respect The difficulty is that they dont know how to argue for a more intellectual richer curriculum On campus intellectual discourse is often so impoverished that nonlibertarian moral and political conservatism seems mute at least publicly That God is seldom mentioned in Intolerance of any differences results in prejudice she stated One caller suggested a metaphor for American society saying We are not a melting pot but rather a tossed salad All of the differences in society could not possibly blend together to form one uniform culture Society is rather a variety of different cultures thrown in together Contact Career Development Center Phone 5876656 OdXkiEf World Co An Equal Opportunity Employer courses or conversation and then usually with a smirk cannot have escaped anyone who has spent time in the academy over the past 40 years Or consider the Declaration of Independence whose moral and political teaching would be laughed out of most of todays philosophy or political science classes not because it has been proven wrong but because it would be thought meaningless to try to prove it right or wrong Or take an elementary moral issue such as homosexuality To regard it as a vice is now thought not only impolite but boorish and downright well homophobic a word that makes no sense either in Greek or English So the apparent acceptance and even celebration of homosexuality goes unchallenged despite its deep and notsosecret repugnance to many students Although undergraduates tilted rightward in the 1980s one ought to be cautious in supposing that the trend will continue because traditional conservatisms own principles remain obscure to students To some degree this is an effect of their youth the heritage of conservative thought as well as the history of conservative politics is unknown to them Friedrich Hayek Leo Strauss or James Bumham do not appear on many reading lists That isn t the students fault of course its their educators who need educating Ford Grant continued from p 2 With the grant Gordon hopes to create courses that last the entire freshman year for students to fulfill their MinorityWomans Studies requirements Another possible use for this grant would be to create a new course exclusively for freshmen focusing on diversity and multicultural issues Denison has begun work on these new courses which will be offered in the 19911992 academic year NARAL continued from p I get Denison to recognize the magnitude of importance that the issue of choice holds for both men and women in our society Womens Emphasis organized a handful of Denison students to participate in a rally held on Tuesday at Ohio Wesleyan The focus of the rally was to oppose the nomination of David Souter an antichoice advocate to the US Supreme Court A prochoice rally is being organized by Womens Emphasis for next Wednesday October 3 at 1230 pm in front of Slayter Union As a NARAL pamphlet states NARAL will work during this Decade of Choice to safeguard the right of every American woman to choose