Wow--to not study sociology? Sociology of crime changed my life. It made the blatant racial inequalities in our criminal justice system obvious to me, and made me think about group behavior. But aside from race, it showed how for most people, despite what kind of virtue they claim to practice, morality was mostly situational. Which is a big wakeup call. Knowing that a theology student, about to give a talk on the Good Samaritan, was no more likely to stop and help a wounded person than a non-theology student on the way to give a talk on something else was very eye-opening. It made me realize how much I have to be aware of the dynamics affecting my behavior, in order to be truly moral. It made me understand how people could engage in things like Abu Ghraib, and what kinds of conditions create that sort of bad behavior.

I can think of no good reason to not take sociology. None. (And yeah, some experiments are b.s., so of course people should view data critically, and always have an eye on where error could have crept in and what the data REALLY tells us.) Argh.

How terrible. My very first semester of undergrad, I took a class about the sociology of race relations. It changed my life forever. Now I feel like I can recognize racism and call it out. It taught me how to think critically about political arguments, especially those pertaining to race, gender, or other social inequalities. And it was a hell of a lot of fun. It turned out to be one of my favorite classes I've ever taken. And I'm a zoology major!

What a ridiculous philosophy, that you should avoid classes because they "don't pertain to you" (ethnic and gender studies DO pertain to everyone, but that's what this author is trying to say). College is about opening your mind to new situations as well as putting your nose to the grindstone in your chosen field. Whenever I have reached out to take ANY class beyond my major, I have seldom been disappointed. So many people are going to miss out on wonderful opportunities because of this advice, and just trot through life with their privilege blinders on.

WOW. This woman is amazing to me, in a horrible, shattering way.

I love that the only female writers that she thinks are worth her attention are the ones who have had their (yes, very good) work turned into film version after film version (usually starring Colin Firth), and are assigned in most high school curriculum. It makes me wonder if she's ever read a non-required book.

I guess this is what happens when people are allowed to grow up with dogma in the place of any sort of intellectual curiosity.

Wow. Why did Herzog even go to college? She's obviously not remotely interested in learning.

If she's so concerned that people will change their minds and become more liberal in classes like these, she must think that the Neocon position is very weak. If being conservative is so ideal, why can't it stand up to critical thinking and analysis?

Of course, she would argue that college students are being 'brainwashed' by the liberal professors, but I've come out of college far more liberal than at least half of my professors (as far as I can tell, since good professors don't lean on any one ideology too hard in their teaching).

I have terrible news for Ms. Herzog: Bronte was a woman, and arguably a lesbian as well.

I'm with RedPersephone (and for that matter, with dead old white guy John Milton) on this: if your faith in your principles can be shaken utterly by a semester of Women's Studies, they may have been lousy principles.

what a f--king idiot. If she can't handle life in a racially/socially diverse society full of feminists, queers, blacks, Jews, Muslims, etc, then she should get the fuck out of the United States and go live in a remote cave somewhere so she wouldn't have to deal with us.

This shit makes me laugh. Too bad you didn't realize that I, the "close-minded conservative," read (and often agree with) Feministing every day...you know, because I'm not open to any ideas other than my own.

By the way, the point of my Townhall column was that you shouldn't waste your money on courses that should be basically non-political, but are taught from a slanted perspective anyway. The Civil War was the result of American leaders trying to hold off the socialist revolution? Please. And Assata Shakur's biography belongs in a political science, not an English, class. Have you read it? I wouldn't exactly call it great literature.

Funny how the feminists are accusing me of "dogma" and never being exposed to any ideas other than my own. What am I doing at OU then? Trust me, if I only wanted to be exposed to my own ideas, I wouldn't be studying at one of the most liberal schools in the Midwest...or reading Feministing.

By the way, if I was such a dogmatic conservative, I wouldn't waste my precious time writing this (which didn't go over well with my conservative colleagues):

http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/2008/02/14/22875/

It would be nice if college feminists would admit that they're the close-minded ones. They despise women whose views are even slightly different from their own and put them down, calling them "baby makers" and the like. Just read some of the comments on Feministing: their biggest thrill in life is sneering at women with the wrong set of beliefs. Maybe if you ditched your snotty, condescending, more-enlightened-than-thou attitudes, feminist ideas would be attractive to a larger group of women.

Love always!

Ashley

I have a BA in Sociology and an MA in Environmental Leadership and I am Native American. I took tons of sociology, African, women's, Native American literature, Spanish, Environmental, Leadership Canadian studies class, etc. She would have a hard time being around me...

People, like this "ignoramus," don't want to be told that there are actually problems in our perfect little world. They don't want to be informed that they may actually be a part of the problem. They are raised in bubbles and remain in them, unless someone/something comes along to challenge their erroneous notion that everyone shares the same life experience/beliefs.

People get defensive when they are told that they have inherent privilege, because, for the most part, they too had to deal with bad shit. But, of course, not as much as someone without those privileges.

I totally agree with you SaraGwin. To me, the whole point of going to university is to learn new things that possibly change your perspective on certain topics, and to develop critical thinking skills.

People like Herzog are taking up spaces in universities that could be given to people who love to learn and are open to new ideas.

oh look, another feminist telling me I shouldn't be allowed to go to college.

:D

oh look, another feminist telling me I shouldn't be allowed to go to college. Yeah, you're all about advancement for women.

Personally I learned enough bullshit about how AWESOME and GENIUS white Euro dudes are in high school... in college therefore I've avoided European classes as much as POSSIBLE cause it's boring as fuck! My favourite class so far has been Latin American Art and Culture, it was great.
I think it just makes education a LOT more boring to learn the same shit over and over... probably a lot easier too though. Seeing as it's already been drilled into all of us for years.

dear ashley,

obviously your reading feministing hasn't clued you into a whole hell of a lot so far. take your idiotic "love always!xoxox!!!!11" condescension elsewhere.

Ashley, in regards to this comment:

"And Assata Shakur's biography belongs in a political science, not an English, class. Have you read it? I wouldn't exactly call it great literature."

You do, of course, realize that English is not about reading "great literature," right?

I went to to a small public high school in a rural, generally conservative area where the school board was loaded with "concerned citizens" (as opposed to people who had actually set foot in a classroom). So the first 13 years of my formal education were micro-managed by people who still thought Jesus snapped his fingers to make the world in seven days. (And yes, I'm aware of the theological foul-ups there...) Seriously, one of my sister's elementary school teachers refused to teach about dinosaurs because they're not mentioned in the Bible. My history teacher was run out of our high school not long after I graduated for, among other things, teaching that Washington, Jefferson & The Gang did not practice what modern evangelicals would recognize as Christianity. (This teacher was a conservative Republican, btw...but he also had a brain.)

If I hadn't had parents who encouraged me to read outside the state/county-mandated curriculum and develop my own critical thinking skills, I probably wouldn't have even gotten into college, let alone lasted long enough to take The History of Motown. (Note to Ms. Herzog: that's what we call an "elective." When your financial aid package requires you to take X number of hours and you're loaded up with required, writing-heavy, expensive book-reading heavy and Plato-heavy courses, they can come in handy. And my 15-page paper on Motown and the Civil Rights Movement kicked ass, if you're interested.)

Most colleges I know of require at least one multicultural class to be taken in order to graduate. Sure, some of those designated classes don't delve much into important issues affecting different people in the U.S. and around the world, but they're at least something. I can't imagine getting through college without taking a single class that exposes you to more than the world according to straight rich white men.

Sorry to double-post, but I also wanted to congratulate Ms. Herzog for formulating an opinion visa vis the Shakur biography. You don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with her life and opinions. You just have to THINK SOMETHING. That was the point, really, in making you read it.

As a doctoral student and soon-to-be professor in one of the "trash" disciplines Ms. Herzog mentions, I am not exactly surprised by her column (that does not mean I am not horrified of course!). Students are often reluctant to have their views challenged in class and simply expect college to confirm what they already know they know and what they think that they want to know. Furthermore, I find her assertion that classes in "trash studies" are necessarily easier to be a common misrepresentation. In fact, I find that what students hate the most about these kinds of classes is that they are, in fact, much more difficult and challenging than expected.

Students should never be attacked for having different viewpoints. It can sometimes be difficult to to try challenge a class to think about something from a different perspective, without appearing to indoctrinate. But, let me be perfectly clear here, indoctrination and education are not the same thing. My students are not graded on whether or not they agree with me, but on how well they understand and can utilize the material from the course. There are (and will always be) terrible classes and terrible professors in every discipline and students should have the right to speak up and express their beliefs and voice their disagreements. But having a terrible geography professor didn't make me think that maps are stupid and worthless. The responsibility for education lies both with the professor and the student.

To say that a Women's Studies class for instance contains mostly theories and assertions and not "scientific facts" is arguably true and such a class may present viewpoints that some find unpopular and even offensive. But this is not grounds to say that it is unimportant. In fact, it is the very reason why these "trash" disciplines are important. Something that makes you angry or challenges your beliefs teaches you far more than something that affirms them.

Oy. That " "queer theory" " is really offensive, isn't it? I had never heard of it until I got to my junior year, and it turned out to be one of the most interesting and thought-provoking subjects I learned about.

Ashley,

Thanks for your post. The Internet being what it is, I guess you may or may not actually be Ashley Herzog, but I'll assume that you are.

I reacted to your piece on classes to avoid with horror, and I did actually assume you were a "close minded conservative." So I was surprised to see you here, and to read your (v interesting) article on the Vagina Monologues. I was even more surprised to find myself agreeing with a lot of what you say in that article, at least in a general sense.

(Parts of the Monologues make me uncomfortable, for various reasons, but I believe the good V-Day does outweighs the discomfort and that people who accuse the play of being pornographic are missing the point--which you discussed eloquently.)

So please allow me to point out a couple things about "College Classes for Conservatives to Avoid" that had my (and probably many other Feministing commenters') knees jerking.

It wasn't what you said, it was how you said it. I have no problem with wanting non-political classes to stay non-political. I absolutely want to study 'classics' like Bronte and Austen, though as several people have pointed out, Bronte and Austen are required in high school and also appear in many intro-level college courses, so I wouldn't expect to find them in a specialized course like the Women's Writing class you mention. I believe in solid education, and getting your tuition money's worth.

But though these points appear in the article, the main idea that jumped off the page in the rhetoric and the subtext boiled down to "STUDYING OTHER VIEWPOINTS IS BAD." Now, if you're a regular at both Feministing and the Clare Boothe Luce Institute, then obviously you're not allergic to differing opinions. But for me, that's exactly how you came across.

Also, the premise that any class that deals with queer theory, minorities, feminism, etc, must be entirely political and dead set on brainwashing is either an ignorant assumption or a gross generalization. If you're speaking from experience, I can only offer my condolences on your shortage of really good teachers.

Uh, and then there's seeing an article sharing page space with an Anne Coulter ad. Sorry, but that's gonna 'cause a knee jerk reaction for a lot of us.

On your indictment of feminisms: I consider myself a feminist. I also consider any woman who feels she has the right to vote, own her own credit card, get paid the same amount as her male peers, and generally be taken seriously and judged on factors besides gender a feminist. So yes, there are some issues with the "feminist movement," including sometimes condescending attitudes and that it alienates plenty of women who hold these perfectly reasonable convictions. But I don't think your approach to the problem is helpful. It's divisive, and makes gross generalizations. After all, the same issues apply to many segments of the conservative movement.

I know all of us can fall into the trap of close-mindedness, isolation, and thinking that the "other side" is wrong just because they're wrong. As someone who lives and goes to school in two states of entirely different colors, I've seen it happen to people across the political spectrum. I try to avoid it, but I don't always succeed.

Therefore, I'd like to apologize for my initial assumptions about you, without withdrawing any of my criticism of that article. I still think it sends a terrible message to young people.

I'm glad that some conservatives are willing to discuss their opinions. Obviously, there's a lot of stuff on which we are never going to agree, but I like to imagine we could still have intelligent conversations. I've had lots of good experiences talking to bright people with totally different views--it's just that they're sometimes hard to remember in a world of politically segregated talk radio and news anchors who yell at their guests.

Ganieda (regular lurker, new poster)

P.S. Even though the article is a couple weeks old, I replied to it recently. That was before I saw your post here, but if you're interested, it elaborates on my complaints.

This reminds me of my friend. She's a sociology major, and one of her hard-core Catholic/conservative friends told her social work is the devil's work.. Maybe because most social workers wouldn't shame a woman who's been impregnated by her father into having the baby. All of these conservative Christians against sociology just boggle my mind. Didn't Jesus work for social justice?

Well, I think it might help for you all to know where I'm coming from. I've recently become very interested in the issue of college affordability and accountability (one of my professors, Richard Vedder, started a research group dedicated to this subject). Part of the reason I wrote this column is because I know how outrageously inflated college tuition is, and every new course drives up the cost of tuition. Therefore, I am completely against these non-academic courses ("Journal Your Ass Off" is a real class, btw), partly for political reasons, but also because I know they are helping to make college unaffordable for the lower and middle classes. Do you know how much cheaper tuition would be if colleges stuck to the basics? (I encourage you to check out the Center for College Affordability)

Also, for the record, I used to be a hard-line conservative, but for a variety of reasons (including some extremely negative experiences with the far right when I was living in DC, although I still love Clare Boothe Luce because my friends work there), I'm not anymore. But I do think many feminists are very condescending to women like me--who haven't bought feminist dogma hook, line and sinker.

But regardless, I enjoy the site and will continue reading it, even if I get banned.

Final note: after being exposed to Feministing, I was inspired to write this column about "Purity Balls":

http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/Columns/2008/05/29/24791/

Well, I think it might help for you all to know where I'm coming from. I've recently become very interested in the issue of college affordability and accountability (one of my professors, Richard Vedder, started a research group dedicated to this subject). Part of the reason I wrote this column is because I know how outrageously inflated college tuition is, and every new course drives up the cost of tuition. Therefore, I am completely against these non-academic courses ("Journal Your Ass Off" is a real class, btw), partly for political reasons, but also because I know they are helping to make college unaffordable for the lower and middle classes. Do you know how much cheaper tuition would be if colleges stuck to the basics? (I encourage you to check out the Center for College Affordability)

Also, for the record, I used to be a hard-line conservative, but for a variety of reasons (including some extremely negative experiences with the far right when I was living in DC, although I still love Clare Boothe Luce because my friends work there), I'm not anymore. But I do think many feminists are very condescending to women like me--who haven't bought feminist dogma hook, line and sinker.

But regardless, I enjoy the site and will continue reading it, even if I get banned.

Final note: after being exposed to Feministing, I was inspired to write this column about "Purity Balls":

http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/Columns/2008/05/29/24791/

Ashley,

You can see from my comment upthread that I was particularly unhappy with your discounting sociology. This is because I think it is absolutely CRUCIAL for us to address our assumptions about human and group behavior in order to learn how to be good people.

I also think it is deeply unfair to assume that people teaching courses about certain topics are politically correct, biased, or trying to indoc. instead of open minds. I went from a very conservative undergrad. to a very liberal one (I won't identify the former, b/c it would make it pretty easy to out me) and I learned that I could not predict how close- or open- minded people were based on what they taught or what their politics were. I also never had a problem separating my feelings for individuals who were jerks who happened to belong to a certain political party--and everyone else in that political party.

The truth is, a lot of our history classes exclude the viewpoints and history of women and minorities. Another truth is, the civil rights and women's movement has really changed this country, and this change has been particularly dramatic in the past century and a half. For people who want to understand HOW societies change, studying these movements is pretty important.

I guess I have a hard time getting past the stereotypes in your article, and how you may be extrapolating from the bad experiences you have had, or some of your friends have had, with liberal professors or classmates. And I completely don't get the anti-sociology thing.

-Ismone

PS--I just read your column on purity balls, thanks for posting it, and I think you got it exactly right how children should be encouraged to make healthy or safer choices (i.e., abstinence before they can handle the reality of sex) FOR THEMSELVES. The best way, IMO, to raise healthy children is to do the best you can to model values, and give them increasing responsibility and control over their lives, so that they gradually learn how to take control and become adults. I've known a few parents who try to program their children to be obedient, and I've seen the fallout when the obedient kids get away from mom and dad (usually in college) and either start doing everything that mom and dad were against, or (more heathily) start rebelling and establishing themselves, which causes the parents to feel rejected, and hurt, and to worry about their children.

Sorry, /rant, but it is just nice to know that other people don't think children are robots who should live for their parents.

How funny to open Feministing and see the name Ashley Herzog. I thought that it sounded familiar, and then I realized I read her columns in the Post every week. Hi, Ashley! I'm a sophomore at OU. Initially I had an immediate, negative reaction to your columns, but as the year went on you demonstrated that you were open-minded enough to admit when your opinions had been swayed. I really respect that.

I'm sorry that you've had negative experiences in some of your classes; luckily, all of mine have been excellent. Then again, we have vastly different opinions on this matter--I took Gay and Lesbian Lit last year (I am an HTC student, so I was able to take it despite the fact that it was 300-level) and really enjoyed my experience. I felt the professor presented the material, which was often explicit!, openly, with the knowledge that it would make some people uncomfortable, and always allowed for differing opinions (there weren't many in our class, I'll admit) and discussion.

At any rate, I hope that you continue to explore your opinions and eventually feel more comfortable speaking your mind in the feminist community. We could all use a little reminder from time to time that how we express our opinions may not be entirely effective.

Talk about an intellectual lightweight. I read Bronte my sophomore year in high school. Is Herzog not past a 10th grade reading level?

Ashley, I appreciate your concern about the rising cost of college and I agree that inflated tuition is a major concern. But I do think that there are many other factors to consider. First, for students who attend school full time, their tuition is not paid on a class by class basis. They pay for a semester and can then choose, within reason, what and how many classes to take. The classes that you find suspect are, then, offered based somewhat on demand. Students choose to take them and therefore they are offered or vice-versa. I presume that no one is required to take "Journal Your Ass Off" (what was this class about, I still can't figure it out!). The class may fill a general requirement, but the student could have taken courses more in line with what you call the "basics."

Another issue to consider is the competition between university and more trade-oriented schools and programs. A university education is by design supposed to be well-rounded and shapes individuals as critical thinkers. However, increasingly students enroll in university with the expectation of receiving only job training for their future chosen career. This career oriented training has historically been provided by institutions whose goals are more narrowly focused. For me, the issue is that Americans have come to de-value the education received at a trade school, for instance, and assume that the university will take up the mantle. I think that career oriented education is immensely valuable and important. However, I also think that a university education is always beneficial as well. I think that students should prepare themselves, if they choose to attend college/university, to receive an education that may not have direct immediate monetary value after graduation (though it may, of course) but will prepare them to be better citizens, scholars, thinkers, teachers, etc.

Lastly, another issue that I would like to point out in the rising cost of universities is the increasing number of part-time and non-tenure track faculty. Universities over the past several decades have been reducing the number of full-time faculty to whom they provide benefits and hiring more adjunct and lecture faculty. This is symptomatic of the rising corporatization of the university. It becomes a pay-by-class experience both for the student and the professor. Thus, education is valued based on budgetary concerns and not on actual educational value.

Ok, I will stop rambling now. But the point is, I agree that college is terribly and prohibitively expensive and steps should be taken to change this. I do not, however, think that we can blame certain classes or disciplines for this phenomenon. Finally, I take issue with your description of these courses as "non-academic." In part because I am not clear what this means, and in part because it assumes that there is an unchanging standard of knowledge that matters. What does it mean for a course to be academic, if these courses are not?

Ashley -

Have you ever taken a history course at the college level? I'm asking this because you wrote that one should avoid any history course with Howard Zinn on the syllabus.

One of my majors was history. One of our required courses was a seminar in historiography, aka 'How to 'do' History.' We talked about the various frameworks in which one can view the past - it included some of the theories you decry - feminism, Marxism, etc., but also things like macro vs. micro history, various models of world history, etc. We learned about how to analyze both primary and secondary sources and to always, always ask questions about the orientation of the narrator of any given work, i.e., who is telling the story, and what biases does s/he bring with her/him? What are the sources used? Who recorded those sources?

We read stuff by every possible kind of historian INCLUDING THOSE THE PROFESSOR DID NOT AGREE WITH. Including stuff that students, as individuals, and sometimes as a whole class, did not agree with. Often, the historians had a unique, provocative, or challenging way of viewing their subject, and that's what we examined. Not just names, places, and dates. Just because you know the dates of the US Civil War does not make you more knowledgeable than someone who has actually taken university history classes, even if - especially if - those classes assigned a Marxist author or two.

Every single history course at my school used that kind of analysis, no matter what the personal leanings of the individual professors.

In fact, the American history survey course was taught by a prof. who framed US History as a series of conservative movements (and this at one of the most liberal schools in the US).

And the kicker?

Howard Zinn was on the syllabus.

You're a journalism major, no? You have to dig deeper than a list of books assigned if you want to accurately report what goes on in a class. Go beyond the course title or the name of the department. Get quotes from students other than those you already know agree with you. Don't dismiss entire departments or academic disciplines that you (clearly, in the case of history) don't know much about.

If you had been a student at my college and followed your own advice, you would have missed out on a class that examined conservatism throughout American history. So watch out the next time you call feminists knee-jerkers.

I agree wholeheartedly with what nilbog has so eloquently stated.

Seconding her claim that these courses Ashley finds objectionable are not to be blamed for the rising cost of tuition, I would point to the example of my own college experience, where courses were canceled if enrollment wasn't high enough. While I may have not agreed with this, it certainly shows that many universities are in fact very concerned with the bottom line when it comes to course offerings.

Additionally, there are an overwhelming amount of other factors that contribute to the astronomical cost of a college education today - the pressure to be continuously building new student centers and other facilities or the money spent of sports, and the list continues. It seems like courses offering otherwise untaught knowledge and points of view are the last thing one should look at cutting - education is after all the primary goal of a university.

Finally, Ashley suggests schools should "focus on the basics" in order to cut costs. I think a general tenet of women's studies, along with many other disciplines whose integrity she questions, is to put into question that very notion of "basics." A literature course focusing on women's or queer literature has about the same "real world" value as one focusing on the "traditional" canon. Unless one is going to define "the basics" as the practical, trade-oriented sort of knowledge nilbog discusses, it seems that Ashley is using this term to mean "traditional" rather than "basics."

Ashley:

It's incredibly disingenuous for you to attribute your opinions to a desire to lower tuition costs. Your list isn't about removing the pointless non-classes from universities. If you think ping-pong class is a bad use of education funds, I will totally get behind you, but saying that "Non-Western" classes are non-classes indicates nothing but a hopelessly biased approach to teaching.

I'm all for encouraging people to vote with their tuition money, but many of us go to college to have our lives enriched by finding out what life is like outside of the United States, making non-Western classes not only desirable but a necessity. Someone who wants to be an international banker wouldn't be able to do their job as well if they couldn't study the politics and culture of other nations. It's not always about politics, and you can still believe in something while knowing how other people live.

People who are worried about tuition costs and want a trimmed down experience can go to tech schools or community colleges, which require and offer less diverse classes and either charge less money or at least take less time (not to denigrate the quality of those institutions, they're just different). I pay a lot for university so I get the full package, and that includes learning about viewpoints, such as yours, that I disagree with, because I find it to be a worthwhile and vital part of my education.

Oh, and by the way, if you really consider GLBTQ to be an "allegedly oppressed" group, I suggest you try walking down a street holding hands with another woman. You won't catch the gay but you just might learn something.

keshmeshi-

Studying, or wanting to study, the Bronte sisters at the college level, does not make someone an intellectual lightweight. I studied the Brontes in both high school and college. People write Ph.D. dissertations on the Brontes all the time.

"Vilette" was one of my favorite assigned readings in college!

Yep, my other major was English :)

That was supposed to be "Villette" not "Vilette". Doh!

First of all, thanks Ashley for backing up your arguments. It's good to know where you're coming from, and it definitely takes some guts to take a conservative stand around here.

I am very liberal, and I have to say I'm sometimes disappointed in the overt liberal biases of my professors. Even if I agree with what they're saying, it would be nice to have an opposing viewpoint in there. I think we sometimes forget that WRONG ideas are not necessarily BAD ideas, and that there is value in introducing many points of view. Even if some ideas are not that valid (and I'm not saying all conservative ideas are invalid, either), elements of them can still be used to create a more complete worldview. At the very least, they make us examine and strengthen our ideas in order to stand up to them.

I do wonder where the idea that non-western POV classes are "non-academic" comes from, though, since I've seen that viewpoint advocated in a lot of places. I guess it's just a simplistic notion of "common sense," but it makes no sense to me. Hmm.

Keshmeshi:

I agree with Kathleen. I too have studied the Bronte sisters quite a bit in college, once in a class examining protofeminist lit, and another for my single author study (which ended up about all three sisters). It is pretty unfair of you to make that judgment.

I personally liked Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall the best.

I always had my major in mind when I chose my electives. I was a psychology major and I want to become a licensed professional counselor. So I took a Women's Studies course to learn more about gender bias (which changed my life). I took Civilization of Hispancis in the United States to learn about the largest ethnic minority (which I am part of). I took Social Inequality to learn about how other groups are screwed in America (which also changed my life). I even took Judeo-Christian Scriptures to learn more about the Bible (horrible experience, but I learned a lot).

It's very important to know the perspectives of other people, because chances are, you will be interacting with other people and serving other people in your profession. And it's not like you have to agree with those perspectives. You just have to understand that others have them and why. To advise college students against any sort of multicultural studies does a huge disservice to these students, since they will be much less qualified in their professions than their (dare I say?) liberal counterparts. Besides, it is almost impossible to get away from multicultural studies, as they are required in almost every liberal arts program.

I'm just glad I took Adrienne Rich's advice and claimed my education instead of taking Herzog's advice and wasted it.

Ashley: I'm a journalism major, too, and I feel compelled to give you (admittedly unasked for) advice. Taking these classes can only make us better journalists. They give us a broader cultural framework (and, as professors are fond of saying, communications majors need something about which to communicate) which can only help our writing. I find that every class that gives me a new way of looking at people makes me a better writer and a better interviewer. Also, members of the media must be very careful to not fall into the traps of sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, etc that are frequently highlighted on sites like these. By taking classes that make you uncomfortable, you are less likely to alienate members of your audience in the future. Also, the more you know about subjects that other journalists ignore, the better you will look to a hiring editor. As much as I love my journalism classes, whenever I get a job or an internship, all people want to talk to me about is my African Studies minor. It makes me stand out from the other applicants.
Instead of avoiding the classes you talk about, you should be approaching them with journalistic curiosity and impartiality.

Also, to some other posters, just because some people study Jane Austen in high school doesn't mean she isn't the BEST AUTHOR EVER. Just sayin' ;)

Ms. Herzog:

Your column might have more merit if it were satire.

I have been biting my tongue for too long about dumb ass Ashley Herzog and her stupid fucking columns. I went to OU for 4 wonderful undergraduate years - then I start my graduate program and I have to hear about her fucking columns. Please do not give her credit for anything. All she has ever tried to do is cause controversy for controversy's sake. She writes/wrote (I'm no longer at OU) for the university paper and they were looking to increase circulation to try and compete with the other papers. She doesn't even agree with half of what she writes. She picks something that will piss off the feminist community in Athens, then sits back and watches. I am horrified that she has received so much coverage - no one at OU takes her seriously and no one agrees with her. I am ashamed to say we went to the same school - not because of what she believes in, but because she represents herself as educated and informed. People compare her to Ann Coulter, but even I think Ann has at least has a few brain cells.

Ashley, first, let me say congrats for having the courage to defend your views online. As a former opinion columnist for my newspaper (UT's Daily Texan), I know what it is like to see a piece you worked on reacted to negatively, and I never did confront people that disagreed with me. It takes a certain strength to do that.

With that in mind, however, I think you're missing exactly what people are disturbed about with your column. You want, arguably, students to take "core" classes without being exposed to political viewpoints. This is the central tenet of many conservative college organizations, who feel that professors should not express their political viewpoints from the lectern.

For several reasons, this is folly. The first is that everything is politicized. Even the call to supposed political "neutrality" is itself a political statement, the statement that politics ought to be sanitized away from education. Presumably, this is meant to make sure that everything is taught from an objective, "just the facts, please" viewpoint. The problem is that this viewpoint doesn't exist. Everything has a political dimension; how one approaches a subject like history, economics, philosophy, law, political science, literature, art, music, etc., without involving politics ignores the fact that politics surrounded the event or idea being discussed.

By glossing over the political, social and cultural realities of our study and trying to focus on "objective facts," we marginalize the viewpoint not encapsulated by the "official" story. Consider, by way of illustration, something like the Armenian genocide. If we present only the official Turkish version, it is quite different, and substantially so, from the Armenian version. A critical understanding would have us look at both viewpoints and contrast them.

I think that your piece is symptomatic of the treatment of education as training rather than an experience in itself. It is impossible that one should be able to stay in college long enough to take all of the courses to satisfy one's interests. It is also a bit naïve to think that one will receive exactly the training necessary for a career in college, outside of a few specialized fields. Rather, the point of an education is to make you a broader, more well-rounded person, to enrich your life and understanding of the world around you. By all means, read Bronte, but read Shakur too, and anyone else you can get your hands on. Rejoice in the multiplicity of viewpoints, passionately defend your own, but always challenge it by exposure to others. If you feel a professor is interjecting her politics in to the classroom, the solution to the "problem" isn't silencing her, but challenging her and yourself by thinking through your disagreement together.

I encourage you to abandon the idea that there is such a thing as a politically-neutral, objective set of facts that could be passed on by teachers, and that even if this existed, it would somehow suffice as "education."

Aren't a lot of the Arts based courses some of the cheapest college courses to run?

Take Engineering or Medicine - you need a huge amount of very expensive equipment, places to store it, labs, expensive supplies, health and safety controls, computers, very expensive computing programs, highly specialized maintenance staff, technicians and more. Not to mention more teaching lecturers for the rather heavy training burden.

Literature? Some books and a room... And I'm pretty sure that the lecturers in Literature aren't pulling in the remotely the same wages as the Med School professors either.

I'm not sure that concerns about high costs of education are the best objection to cutting electives.

Ashley,

I guess it was my use of the word dogma that made you use it in a couple if your subsequent posts; as a former columnist in the college that I graduated from's newspaper, I understand not wanting to be judged by one column; I have written some that I don't think fairly sum me up. I have been subjected to hate-mail and even threatening email and stalking behavior because of some of my work. Some of it I thoroughly stand behind; one column at least I regret and see now that I come across differently than I intended.

My point was that MANY of the classes you condemn are VERY useful and validating to MANY people in college. I majored in both English (yes, i love the classics, the basics) and in Gender Studies, and I think both are very important. I also minored in Philosophy.

I agree with you on some levels; my (fairly conservative) university offered a "ghost hunting" class. but I was more outraged by such unnecessary expenses as flat screen TVs in lobbies and expensive landscaping that is environmentally unfriendly anyway and MORE athletic facilities and a faculty lounge/club that most of the faculty couldn't AFFORD to belong to in the first place than about diversity in class offerings.

I think that being afraid of other perspectives isn't the answer. It seems by your offerings on this thread that that wasn't what you intended to convey; from reading your column, however, that was the message that came across. If it was a simple miscommunication or misunderstanding, believe me, as someone who once publicized a minor criticism of The Pope, I understand. I was attacked ENDLESSLY for that one, and my point was misconstrued like crazy. But as someone who is pretty liberal and has endured a conservative majority (in my region) and some VERY conservative (and yes, dogmatically so) professors, I don't think it's helpful to exclude classes that question one's experiences.

That said, I think we personally may have more in common than we know. you're clearly open-minded enough to read feministing and care about access to higher education. I do too. I hope you consider this comment an olive branch of sorts. You seem like just the sort of person I'd like to be able to talk some of the more "divisive" issues of our day with; I have a feeling we're not as divided as we're told.

Oh fer-Chisakes. I was in grad school at OU when Ashley Herzog was an undergraduate writing editorials for the school newspaper. It was column after column of conservative rhetoric. The liberal students on campus (most of the students/community are quite liberal in Athens, with a very small, very vocal conservative minority) called her Ann Coulter because of the physical resemblance and similar tactics: Liberals are godless heathens that don't support the troops and besmirch Jesus and abort babies and hate America!!1!"
I'm sad that she's getting internet famous.

@Yoshimi: Also, to some other posters, just because some people study Jane Austen in high school doesn't mean she isn't the BEST AUTHOR EVER.

My thought precisely.

A further suggestion to Ashley, and to all you college students out there: I do think it is very good for you to be exposed to non-mainstream (i.e. non-white/male/straight/western/ets) material. I wasn't and had to catch up later in life. I also find it important that you attend courses where different points of views are exposed (some of those I did get).

However, please, consider taking also a course where there are no different views. Where men and women, gay and straight, people of all ethnic backgrounds agree and share. Take a serious mathematics/science course. Who knows, you might even like it.

Haha, I'm changing my major this fall from education to soc with a women's studies minor...my conservative father would be ashamed :)

Wow, that's insane. I attend University of Oregon and I didn't hear about any of those things going on at OSU last year. Granted I'm not a very avid reader of the school paper, but none of my friends said anything so I doubt they had heard about it either.

Herzog's attitude is a great reason for the requirement at U of O of having to take at least two classes that fall under the description of multicultural. It would be nice if you had to take four like you do with the science, social science and arts & letters requirements, but two is better than nothing I suppose.

I took a class on African literature spring term this last year and it was amazing. Herzog is a lunatic.

Ismone commented at August 27, 2008 12:56 PM: "I can think of no good reason to not take sociology. None."

Sadly, I can.

Schedule conflicts.
Too many wonderful eye-opening courses in too many interesting fields of study, too little time and money.
Premed requirements taking up all the elective classes a student can afford when she or he is majoring in history or economics and wants to be a doctor or dentist or veterinarian.
Going to university where there are no electives or distribution requirements, all your classes are in your major, and you're expected to have got the well-rounded part of your education out of the way during your A-Level years or whenever.
And so on.

Fortunately, students who can't take sociology classes can still ask the professors of those classes for the classes' recommended reading lists! :)

Entomology Girl commented at August 27, 2008 1:34 PM: "Whenever I have reached out to take ANY class beyond my major, I have seldom been disappointed."

Yeah! Also, my school let me reach out within my major to take classes that were jointly offered by my department and another. :)

lontana commented at August 28, 2008 4:16 AM: "A further suggestion to Ashley, and to all you college students out there: I do think it is very good for you to be exposed to non-mainstream (i.e. non-white/male/straight/western/ets) material. I wasn't and had to catch up later in life. I also find it important that you attend courses where different points of views are exposed (some of those I did get).

"However, please, consider taking also a course where there are no different views. Where men and women, gay and straight, people of all ethnic backgrounds agree and share. Take a serious mathematics/science course. Who knows, you might even like it."

Good points about diversity in education! Personally, I really liked having both the humanities and the sciences in my college education. :)

Also, aren't some of these subjects very relevant to the social sciences? A sociology major passionate about environmental justice might find an ecology class on air quality management very useful. A psychology major dedicated to fighting the stigma against mentally ill people might find a biology class on neurology very useful. An economics major devoted to fighting poverty might find a math class on statistical methods very useful. Then if the powers that be try to undermine them with shoddy science and fudged numbers again, they can speak truth to power even more.

I still can't get past the thought of any student, liberal or conservative, refusing to take classes that they believe would challenge their world view (let alone defining only one interpretation of history/set of literature as "standard"). Heck, take a class with a professor that holds opposing political views to you on purpose. It is one of the best ways to learn how to argue and stand up for yourself. I went to a fairly liberal college with mostly liberal professors, and I chose to take a constitutional law class with an extremely conservative professor my senior year to see how well my (liberal) ideas stood up to him.

I was the only liberal in the class (also one of three women in a class of 15) and therefore the only one who ever challenged his characterization of Roe v. Wade, same-sex marriage, and other issues. We never were able to see eye-to-eye on anything, but I gained an understanding of how the "other side" thought, and by extension how to argue my beliefs more effectively. So even though I could not disagree more with the prof's politics or interpretation of the Constitution, I have no doubt that I am a better thinker because of that class.