Chronicle: Professors Found to Keep Political Views Quiet, but Students Detect Them
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=rzdkw2qkBVkkk8sMcysBQBt6PCzyvffK
Professors Found to Keep Political Views Quiet, but Students Detect Them
By ROBIN WILSON
To test the contention that liberal professors try to indoctrinate students, the Woessners also tried to determine whether students' own political views changed over the course of a semester in a political-science course. While they found a very slight shift toward the Democratic side, they say the movement could not be attributed to the politics of the professors—the shift happened not only among students whose professors were Democrats but also among those whose professors were Republicans."Given that political-science professors appear to exert no real influence on students' party loyalties," the Woessners conclude, "it is unclear whether efforts to diversify the field by hiring more Republican professors would actually reduce the 'liberalizing' effects of higher education."
Ohio University: Full Press Release on My New Assignment
OU-C names Nicholas Kiersey assistant professor of political science
Nicholas Kiersey has been named assistant professor of political science at Ohio University-Chillicothe. He will begin his new duties when fall quarter 2008-09 starts Sept. 8. This is a tenure-track position.
Kiersey is currently a teaching fellow at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, Va., a position he has held since 2006. He was previously an instructor and teaching assistant at Virginia Tech University. Kiersey was also a teacher of English as a foreign language at a school in South Korea.
Kiersey’s expertise is in comparative theories of empire, international relations and foreign policy. He holds a Ph.D. in planning, governance and globalization from Virginia Tech.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in European public affairs from the National University of Ireland, Limerick, a master’s degree in international studies from the University of Ireland and a second master’s degree in international politics and social science research methodology from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
Kiersey’s writing on his research and his book reviews have been published in several academic journals, and he has presented papers at numerous conferences in both the
United States and internationally. He is currently revising his dissertation for publication by an academic press. Also, he has received grants and awards to support his teaching and research activities.
“Nicholas Kiersey has proven himself to be an outstanding teacher whose research activities support his classroom instruction,” OU-C Dean Richard Bebee said. “He brings a breadth of knowledge and insights to this position and will further strengthen our faculty.”
Lisa Wallace chaired the search committee. Other members included fellow OU-C faculty members Tom Brown, Nirmal Niroula and John Reiger, and OU-Athens Political Science Department Chair John Gilliom.
Two recent press releases...
http://www.isanet.org/isa_2009_blog/2008/05/foucault-panel.html
Contributions are invited for a proposed panel on Foucault and World Politics: Re-thinking Security, Governmentality, & Political Economy to be convened during the International Studies Association Annual Convention in New York, February 15-18, 2009
Please send 400 word abstracts along with information about your institutional affiliation should by May 28th (final ISA deadline is May 30th).
Panels on this theme will be proposed to ISA under International Political Sociology & International Political Economy.
Submissions should be addressed to either Nicholas Kiersey at njk4yATvirginia.edu or Jason Weidner at jweid001ATfiu.edu
2. My new position at OU-C
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080511/NEWS01/805110318/1002/NEWS17
Nicholas Kiersey has been named an assistant professor of political science at the school and will also begin duties Sept. 8. He is presently a teaching fellow at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, Va.
Atlantic Monthly: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower
JUNE 2008 ATLANTIC MONTHLY
The idea that a university education is for everyone is a destructive myth. An instructor at a “college of last resort” explains why.
BY PROFESSOR X
There seems, as is often the case in colleges, to be a huge gulf between academia and reality. No one is thinking about the larger implications, let alone the morality, of admitting so many students to classes they cannot possibly pass. The colleges and the students and I are bobbing up and down in a great wave of societal forces—social optimism on a large scale, the sense of college as both a universal right and a need, financial necessity on the part of the colleges and the students alike, the desire to maintain high academic standards while admitting marginal students—that have coalesced into a mini-tsunami of difficulty. No one has drawn up the flowchart and seen that, although more-widespread college admission is a bonanza for the colleges and nice for the students and makes the entire United States of America feel rather pleased with itself, there is one point of irreconcilable conflict in the system, and that is the moment when the adjunct instructor, who by the nature of his job teaches the worst students, must ink the F on that first writing assignment.