Honest question re BYU's course

[Solon]

In the same sense as BYU?

Schools that have a religious orientation: Baylor in the Big-12; Boston College in the big least; Wake Forest in the ACC. But - for whatever reasons - the byu is considered more like Wheaton College and Oral Roberts U. than these other schools.

[SeattleUte]

Schools that have a religious orientation: Baylor in the Big-12; Boston College in the big least; Wake Forest in the ACC. But - for whatever reasons - the byu is considered more like Wheaton College and Oral Roberts U. than these other schools.

Which it is.

[jay santos]

I think that the byu is more fundamentalist than most educated mormons are comfortable with admitting.

And I think BYU is much more mainstream than those who never attended would ever imagine.

[TripletDaddy]

For someone that had a business/finance/accounting undergrad, I am not sure that all this academic freedom stuff had much impact on me at all. It certainly didn't effect my employment opportunities or subsequent career moves. BYU's accounting program is literally one of the best in the country....far better than ANY of the Ivy League or Pac 10. In fact, it generally competes with Illinois and Texas for the top spot.

BYU is certainly not Harvard, yet Harvard had no qualms with having a BYU alum lead its B-school.

I have had zero issues in my career wherein the academic freedom at BYU hindered or, to my knowledge, even affected me.

Apparently for you folks that have made a career in science or humanities, there was some major collateral damage as a result of BYU's policies. However in my field, it is definitely a MAJOR plus to have attended BYU.

PS I do think some of BYUs policies can be stifling. Those that have responded No here are mostly rejecting SeattleUte, as I find it hard to believe that everyone here thought it was a really great idea to cancel the Rodin exhibit, for example. If you don't think your alma mater could change for the better, you aren't being realistic. The types of changes are debatable, of course.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I don't imagine it does SU, but I do think the people should be realistic that BYU is something qualitatively different than every school in the Pac 10 or even in the MWC. I'm not saying it isn't a university, but I am saying that it is not a university in the sense that almost every other Division I school is. It is a parochial school, or a church school if people like that term better.

That isn't as different as, say, a beauty academy, but it is still a very different thing. What if the Green party were to open a university, employ primarily party members, make students and and faculty alike agree that they would follow the party platform in their lives (including not openly opposing it) and then offer a curriculum similar to other schools except that party indoctrination classes are required for graduation. Also, the school doesn't have academic freedom and will not permit the teaching of ideas that are critical of the Green party platform.

Would it then be bigotry or wrong in any sense for a conference to say "you are just too different from us, you are not a school in the same sense we are, no thanks." I'm not trying to deny that a conference like the Pac 10 is going to have political motivation for saying no, but I don't think is has to to have a sufficient basis to say "one of these things in not like the other" so to speak.

I agree with this. SU's framing of the issue as binary (one is right and the other is wrong) is inappropriate. BYU doesn't want to be like the others. But it can't expect to be treated like the others either, and I don't accuse the nonaccepting parties of bigotry.

I do think that if one were truly open-minded, one wouldn't shun BYU but would instead acknowledge its considerable strengths and seek to take advantage of those. In fact, if one is confident in the validity of one's views, given those strengths it would be in one's best interests to embrace BYU with the expectation that eventually, the interaction and proximity would produce positive results for everyone. The Hegelian Dialectic applied to intercollegiate sports.

[Solon]

I agree with this. SU's framing of the issue as binary (one is right and the other is wrong) is inappropriate. BYU doesn't want to be like the others. But it can't expect to be treated like the others either, and I don't accuse the nonaccepting parties of bigotry.

I do think that if one were truly open-minded, one wouldn't shun BYU but would instead acknowledge its considerable strengths and seek to take advantage of those. In fact, if one is confident in the validity of one's views, given those strengths it would be in one's best interests to embrace BYU with the expectation that eventually, the interaction and proximity would produce positive results for everyone. The Hegelian Dialectic applied to intercollegiate sports.

Are you suggesting these Pac-10 schools should start building relationships of trust with the byu? I've heard of that working before . . .

[PaloAltoCougar]

Are you suggesting these Pac-10 schools should start building relationships of trust with the byu? I've heard of that working before . . .

Nice! If BYU were invited into the PAC 10 Speakeasy I'm sure everyone would be changed for the better.

[DU Ute]

"Stanford, Cal-Berkeley and one or two others would absolutely have a heart attack if BYU was admitted into the Pac-10,"

http://www.sltrib.com/utahutes/ci_14377991

Does input like this give any of you BYU alumni the thought that BYU should change? Does it cause you to reflect that maybe BYU is wrong and the rest of the academic community is right?

I swear I've seen this quote before!

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showpo...&postcount=436

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showpo...3&postcount=29

[creekster]

Honest Quesiton:

SU, many practicing Mormons find your approach on the church to be repetitive, shrill and annoying. Does this make you want to change your course?

[SCcoug]

BYU is certainly not Harvard, yet Harvard had no qualms with having a BYU alum lead its B-school.

I have had zero issues in my career wherein the academic freedom at BYU hindered or, to my knowledge, even affected me.

Apparently for you folks that have made a career in science or humanities, there was some major collateral damage as a result of BYU's policies. However in my field, it is definitely a MAJOR plus to have attended BYU.

I've also had no problem with academic freedom in my experience in the engineering program.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Which it is.

If we were talking about BYU-Idaho, I would agree. BYU in Provo, though, is not so easily categorized. On the one hand, you have some top-notch progams at BYU and the academic reputation is solid. I didn't have any trouble whatsoever being taken seriously for graduate school because I came from BYU. I got into every program I applied to, including the very liberal UMASS.

Academically, BYU students have nothing to be ashamed about.

Likewise, BYU faculty come from credible, highly-regarded graduate programs and (occasionally) professional careers.

In some respects, though, BYU has an anti-intellectual bent. The failure to resolve an academic freedom problem from the mid-90s is part of this, as is the insistence that the President be a Church official.

I've spent some time with students and faculty from Baylor, and I think that's about as close of a comparison to BYU as can be made (although I think BYU is both a little more academically rigorous and a little more religious).

Interestingly, some of the schools in the fabled SEC are something of a haven for religiously-oriented faculty, but no one is making an issue of that!

[Solon]

And I think BYU is much more mainstream than those who never attended would ever imagine.

Sure it is. Just like you said, 99% of it is TA's teaching calculus and professors giving powerpoint lectures. But society doesn't see it that way. BYU students, teachers, alums should own it (maybe even proudly), rather than just complain about "discrimination."

[pellegrino]

Everybody's a victim, I guess.

The byu is a different kind of school, to be sure - but there are religious schools in major conferences. I think that the byu is more fundamentalist than most educated mormons are comfortable with admitting.

as a group we Mormons did score rather well in that pew religious study. Weren't there fewer fundamentalist Muslims than Mormons?

I too hoped that BYU as an organization (not individual professors) and its studentbody would be somewhat less fundamentalist when I taught there. I was disappointed.

[creekster]

I think Solon is correct; academic freedom issues area concern in some departments at BYU. I only attended BYU for one year but I can still recall being startled when my freshman biology professor began the section on evolution with a pleas not to be turned into the honors office for teaching it, explaining that he did have a testimony but that anyone that wanted to be a biologist had to understand the area.

OTOH, the reason BYU stands out, I think, is because it is so large and so many of its students are so successful. No conservative and strictly university is larger (AFAIK). This fact, when combined with the notoriety of the Church for past practices (please SU, we know, you can refrain) and present social positions (and again, SU) makes some intellectual quarters much more sensitive than they should be.

The notion that any religious person should have second thoughts about his or her approach to religion based on express or even implicit criticism by Stanford or Cal is, frankly, amusing.

[TripletDaddy]

The notion that any religious person should have second thoughts about his or her approach to religion based on express or even implicit criticism by Stanford or Cal is, frankly, amusing.

I think it depends. Does that include speaking out against fundamentalist Islamic practices that subjugate women, promote illiteracy, or inflict cruel physical punishments on its followers?

I wouldn't dismiss criticism out of hand. To the extent that Stanford protested BYU back in the day because of its racial practices, not sure why that should not give us all pause to think. After all, "the world is our campus," so we should be aware of the world in which we reside.

I agree that SeattleUte's wording suggests that any criticism that comes from the likes of Stanford and Kal should be given instant credibility. This much is amusing, yes. Also, as pointed out, the article speculates that Standford and Kal would have a heart attack because they have an anti-Mormon bias....so, to that extent, I would think it is Stanford and Kal that should change.