Anyone who has been away from teaching at the college level may be surprised at some of the changes that have occurred at the ivory tower.  Most of these changes are in place to insure that students have no new thoughts or ideas.  This is especially true in the progressive-dominated so-called social and political sciences.

It’s no secret that college and university faculty are liberal.  Howard Kurtz writes in the Washington Post that “[c]ollege faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined[.]”

Let’s look at some recent trends in higher education that insure that liberal thought control continues well into the future.

The Rise of an Adjunct Faculty: Adjunct faculty now teach the majority of classes at U.S. colleges and universities.  Some studies show they make up over 65% of the course taught.

With low pay, no tenure, and their jobs at the mercy of many capricious and neurotic administrators, who make high salaries, don’t expect adjuncts to step out of line and offer a new thought to their students.

Beyond that, “[t]his shift [to adjunct faculty] has weakened academic freedom, argues the American Association of University Professors, as adjuncts may feel less inclined to express their opinions since they aren't protected by tenure.”

Large numbers of adjunct faculty also cause grade inflation.  Many adjuncts know that the college registrar or another administrator may change a student’s grade for whatever politically correct reason.  Why fail an illegal-alien Mexican DREAMer, who spent the entire semester dreaming in your class, when the registrar can change your F grade to a C?

To keep their jobs, adjuncts often inflate their grades.  This grade inflation waters down for everyone the wine of a college diploma.

The High Price of Textbooks: In order to teach the party line, most adjuncts rely on high-priced textbooks, often assigned to their classes by an administrator.  One popular textbook in sociology, for example – Dolton Conley’s You May Ask Yourself... – often sells at the campus bookstore for more than $70.

A used copy of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism – by Max Weber, one of the giants of sociological thought – sells for about $7 on Amazon.com.  Of course, a progressive professor would not want to expose students to such a critic of progressive propaganda, even if Weber’s book is $65 cheaper.

When considered over the course of a four-year college program, high-priced textbooks may add five to ten thousand dollars to the cost of a degree.

The Electronic Classroom: Using a modern high-priced textbook instead of a series of classic paperbacks contributes to thought control in the classroom.  Combine textbooks with PowerPoint presentations, and it's easy to see why the lectures of most adjunct professors are nothing more than repeating what’s on the screen, which itself is nothing more than repeating what is in the textbook.

The modern classroom has replaced the professor’s desk with a podium from which audiovisual devices may be controlled.  This means that authority has now moved from the professor to the DVD player and the wifi connection.

This means that all the spontaneity and the joy of discovery associated with the Socratic method no longer exist.  Students soon lose attention and go about their own business.  Besides that, when the lights in the lecture hall go off for a PowerPoint presentation, student cell phones come out for texting.

Sexual Harassment Legislation: In an attempt to make the workplace comfortable, recent sexual harassment legislation has made the college classroom a place that is no longer safe for truth.

Certain words may no longer be said in the contemporary classroom because they makes some students uncomfortable and open the adjunct professor to harassment complaints.  There are the N-word and the F-word and the C-word.  Say these actual words, even if you are quoting from a great novel, and you’re out the classroom door.  The best professors these days have a niggardly vocabulary.

The eagerness many female HR bureaucrats have to enforce harassment laws against white males works as a form of censorship in the college classroom.  In this regard, George Leef writes in Forbes, “The First Amendment loses much of its vitality when government (and college) officials have so much power to damage critics through regulatory procedures that the critics decide it’s better – safer – simply to remain silent…”

Students now know they may complain about feeling uncomfortable when certain topics or words come up in lectures or discussions.  To protect themselves from a harassment complaint, many adjuncts lecture only from the textbook and what is on the PowerPoint slides.

Will higher education change its ways of thought control?  The trends mentioned above seem to argue not to expect change any time soon.  We may have to wait for a generation of professors to die off.  Even at that, the present generation of  progressive professors are doing a good job of making carbon copies of themselves.

If change is to come to higher education, it may be change from the outside.  Already some are questioning the worth of the high cost of a college degree.  Many students go on to adulthood with a mountain of debt and a molehill of truth.

Reality may be eventually the acid that wears away the propaganda students have learned in college from their progressive professors.  A writer for The Economist claims, “Too many degrees are a waste of money. The return on higher education would be much better if college were cheaper.”

The tide of questions that could challenge the thought control at so many colleges and universities is already rolling in.  Students are asking, I paid seventy-five thousand dollars for my degree in gender studies, now what? Yeah, the four years of parties were great, but dude, how come I can’t find a job?

Meanwhile, back at the faculty lounge, they’re still talking about how bad a president George Bush was.