I agree, but some schools tend to attract those individuals that make the difference. Not all of them want to go to MIT or Cal Tech, and the best schools cannot take all who might deserve to go there, but presumably those who get in to the top engineering schools are ones who make the difference. The presumption is not always right, sometimes they only get good grades.

The teacher can make it easier for the student to learn or he can make it harder. But if the school distracts the student away from learning, that makes a difference, too.

Chris–
Good stuff, as well!
My daughter went to Hillsdale, and I am extremely satisfied! (extremely)
(We even have our own brick, on the sidewalk near the student-center.)

– We wanted her well-grounded in a classical education. She went on to earn her M.S. & Ph.D in chemistry & pharmacological-research from Minnesota & Wisconsin (respectively), and I picked up a genius Ph.D son-in-law, (also in pharmacology) in the process, whom she had originally met at Hillsdale.

The one that comes to mind is, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”

When you build a boat, the boat has got to float, and a bridge you build has to stand up, …or people die in screaming horror! If Riley’s dogma wins in engineering education, the last excuses for industrial society to be supporting academia will be gone. It is far past time to be building competent alternatives.

Frankly, I have absolutely no idea how we managed to circle around to the progressives being so outwardly bigoted and prejudiced, as half a century ago, but it has happened. This time, it seems to be accepted by many people who should know better.

It is clear that such policies as Affirmative Action, which presumes lower ability on the part of some people, did not fix the problem and seems to have exacerbated it. Electing Obama did not have the post-racial effect that the news media thought it would, which they thought should have fixed the attitudinal problem, and Obama himself exacerbated the problem, too, commenting stupidly about various situations. Now, after proving that the country is not prejudiced (except for that Affirmative Action policy), the social justice warriors (SJW) are going to extremes to say the opposite.

But then again, when there is such prejudice against the 1% (a prejudice that wasn’t prominent half a century ago), why would a SJW professor help her students to move in that direction?

Steve-
I tend to think it’s more of a counter-revolution, than a civil war. The coup has pretty much been implemented, now we need to overthrow them before they can fully consolidate control, and re-establish Constitutional rule. I would prefer an Article 5 political route, but I fear it will degrade into kinetic action.

Edward-
Good stuff.
I’m in the Behavioral end of the Social Sciences, and we always tried to emulate the traditional hard sciences as much as possible. (Physics rather than Politics.)
If I spouted the same tripe as this lady, I would never have graduated

How have the mighty fallen in the midst of the social justice warfare! When I was still in high school, I interned alongside a co-op student from Purdue. I was impressed with his knowledge and ability. Purdue was once regarded as a top notch engineering school (about ten minutes ago), but not any more.

Not only would I not want to fly on a rocket built by Purdue engineering graduates taught by her, I wouldn’t want to fly on a plane, drive a car, drive over a bridge, or live below a dam designed, built, or tested by one, either. This also explains the trade-show-handout pen that fell apart as I removed the cap, a few years ago; it must have been made by one of her students.

The first thing that she says is “academic rigor is a ‘dirty deed’ that upholds ‘white male heterosexual privilege.’ Defining rigor as ‘the aspirational quality academics apply to disciplinary standards of quality.’”

If being rigorous in one’s job can only be done by white male heterosexuals, then that does not say much for anyone else — or what she thinks of anyone else. The laws of nature are the same, no matter who you are, and we all have to be taught the scientific method, economics, and engineering practice; none of these are innate. This is why Professional Engineers (yes, it is a title) need to take a rigorous test to get a license. Like a doctor or a lawyer. No matter their race, sex, or sexual preference.

I completely disagree with her assessment of the human condition. I have worked with plenty of people of many races, both sexes, and a few sexual preferences, but those factors did not seem to influence their knowledge or abilities. Engineering rigor seemed more prone to personality and willingness to do well at the job. The latter is what rigor comes from. Those who are rigorous want to do the job well. Professor Riley seems to think that only white heterosexual males want to the their jobs well. What a crock. This could only come from someone who has not worked in the real world but sees a view only from her ivory tower.

I completely reject the second part of her opinion that “rigor is used to maintain disciplinary boundaries, with exclusionary implications for marginalized groups and marginalized ways of knowing.” rigor requires discipline, but if it is used to exclude anyone, it is only used to exclude those who are not willing to do what it takes to do a good job.

Rigor is needed in all disciplines, jobs, and levels; otherwise this could happen:
http://www.about-ecoli.com/ecoli_outbreaks/news/jack-in-the-box-ignored-safety-rules/#.WjMh7PCnGJA

If, on the other hand, such rigor is influenced by the factors that Riley suggests then maybe it is because of teachers like her. If she is telling her students such drivel, then they are more likely to believe it than students of my generation.

Students of my generation had to put up with a few old professors who had opinions about women engineers (some or many old professors were encouraging). I talked with several women at school who would, even without being asked, identify the professors who had low expectations of them, but that seemed to drive them to work harder and become the ones to beat (and at a school where grading is on a curve, you have to keep up with everyone else — not easy to do at a school that asks for, and gets, the best of the best of the best).

Yeah, it was my privilege to have to keep up with the supposedly unprivileged students.

It is one thing when a professor says that he personally thinks that you are inferior, it is another when all the professors say that society has deemed that you are inferior. A single professor can be overcome, but an entire society is much harder. We aren’t dealing with the same prejudices of half a century ago, this time it is worse, because today’s professors are aware that it is better to be encouraging rather than divisive. It is worse because the professors are encouraged to be divisive, and those who disagree are shunned and not given tenure. As with half a century ago, this attitude by leadership, people like Riley, has to be overcome. (Yes, Steve, it can be fixed, we did it before. It isn’t easy, but we can do it.)

Professor Riley does her students a disservice and that hurts the rest of us in many ways. We get worse spacecraft, cars, and dams, and those students that she marginalizes are more likely to fail to live up to their potentials. What a putz.

Her slogan, unlike the US Army, may be: “Be all I say you can be.” Which is mediocre.

It’s now so deeply entrenched in all of our schools, I’m not sure it can ever be fixed.

Are we now so devolved that our Society is doomed?

Is there anything short of Civil War that can turn things around?

The foothold this nonsense has owes much to the previous administration. Having read of the Fordham University story, the situation has become utterly irrational.