An article in The Tucson Weekly reported that the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, among other conservative foundations, have made significant donations to the University of Arizona’s FreedomCenter.  Most people would commend the Koch Foundation for their generous financial commitment to higher education.  However, there are a few left-leaning ideologues who have chosen to attack the donations on the basis of partisan distrust and personal politics, rather than placing the interests of students first.

David Gibbs, a professor of history and government in University of Arizona’s Political Science Department, is just such a person.  He makes the outlandish claim in the article that these donations are an “attempt to place the seal of academic legitimacy on their extremist libertarian views” and falsely accuses the Koch brothers of trying to influence academic opinion.

Gibbs makes these claims, despite a statement by the University of Arizona’s Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences, John Paul Jones III, who said that “there has been no donor influence over the hires we’ve made at the Freedom Center.”  As the Dean of the School, Jones’ statement offers credence in putting to rest any fears that the Koch Foundation might somehow be infringing on the University’s academic independence.

This is not the first time that Gibbs has made radical statements.  In the past, he has written about a vast conspiracy by the CIA to influence academia.  He went as far as to claim that there exists “books in the library that were secretly edited by the CIA with no indication that this has been done.”  If there was no indication that the CIA edited these books, how can Mr. Gibbs factually claim to know that the CIA did indeed “secretly” edit books?

Unsurprisingly, Gibbs says that people within the political science department were unhappy with his statements regarding the connection that he was trying to establish between the CIA and academia.  After all, the comments did resemble those of a paranoid conspiracy theorist.  As a result, Gibbs left the political science department and transferred to the history department, where he had more liberty to tell his “unique” version of the past.

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In just a few days, a fresh group of teenagers will descend upon America’s college and university campuses, eager to sip from the cup of knowledge and to take their place among the next generation of leaders.

At least that’s the hope.

But a new report from the editors of “Choosing the Right College” and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute finds that students need to be careful about choosing where to study.  A poor decision could leave graduates with more debt than knowledge, and a place in the unemployment line instead of on the fast track to success.

CollegeGuideReport–Final–08.05.2011

The report is titled “Rating America’s Colleges: A Ranking of Academic Excellence and Intellectual Freedom on Campus.” In it, the authors make the case a new approach is needed for assessing the quality of our institutions of higher learning.

They cite a study which finds that corporate leaders are increasingly dissatisfied “with the quality of U.S undergraduate education.” Ninety percent of employers want employees who are skilled in written communication, critical thinking and problem solving, but fewer than 30 percent of applicants meet those expectations.

The authors argue that part of the problem is found in the way the nation’s colleges are evaluated. They take aim at U.S. News and World Report’s popular college rankings, and suggest that schools are evaluated by meaningless criteria such as “peer assessment,” “freshman retention and graduation rates,” and “per-student spending.” Those measurements don’t reveal much about what goes on inside the classroom.

The authors of “Rating America’s Colleges” do something radically different: they assess “how well (or badly) a school does at providing the classic ‘liberal education’ suited to a free citizen and a well-rounded adult.”

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As expected, I won few friends within the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) administrations by exposing the communist indoctrination that occurred in their respective classrooms.

In response to a threatening letter I received from UMSL demanding that I meet with them for questioning, I submitted a Sunshine Law records request to the University of Missouri system. The emails below constitute UMSL’s reply.

UMSL fix ii

Large portions were redacted under the questionable pretense that they contained privileged communications between UMSL and its attorney.

What I learned from the visible portions was quite disturbing: numerous high-level university officials conspired in an attempt to punish me.

When this strategy proved unsuccessful, they engaged in a smear campaign against me, partly relying on inaccurate liberal blogs as “evidence.” Because senior UMSL administrators refused to take responsibility for their blatant failure of oversight in their labor studies classes, they resorted to maligning the student who spoke out about the unprofessional behavior of his professors. (more…)

Phil Christofanelli, the student who leaked videos of a radical “Introduction to Labor Studies” course at University of Missouri-St.Louis (UMSL) and University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), has obtained internal emails that reveal UMSL’s attempts to mislead the public and target the whistleblower.

Christofanelli, who had cross-registered in the UMSL course and has since graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, will release the emails later today on BigGovernment.com.

UMSL and UMKC were plunged into crisis on April 25, 2011, when BigGovernment.com published an article about violent union tactics being taught in the course (see related posts below). The post included a video of highlights from the course, as prepared and provided by Insurgent Visuals.

UMSL Chancellor Tom George and UMSL Provost Glen Cope defended the course–which included instructions on how to carry out industrial sabotage and personal intimidation; in-class recruitment by the Communist Party; and pro-union propaganda. George and Cope claimed to have watched all 30-plus hours of course video.

Internal emails reveal, however, that Cope had not even begun to view the videos when she prodded UMKC Vice Provost and Chief Information Office Mary Lou Hines Fritts for the name of the student responsible for “ripping” the videos. “Since the semester is nearly over, we need to act quickly,” Cope wrote to Hines Fritts on May 4.

Hines Fritts could not provide Cope with any direct evidence. However, she and her staff quickly singled out Christofanelli for his political views. She sent Cope a list of links about Christofanelli, highlighting his leadership of the Washington University Young Americans for Liberty, as well as his conservative opinions. (more…)

My name is Philip Christofanelli. I was a student in the University of Missouri’s “Introduction to Labor Studies” course.  The class was taught simultaneously by Professor Don Giljum of University of Missouri-Saint Louis (UMSL) and Professor Judy Ancel of University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) through the use of a live video feed that linked the two classrooms. The class met every other Saturday for seven hours, including breaks. All of the classes were recorded and put on the class website.

Class slide by Prof. Judy Ancel instructing students on how to "re-frame" messages for "State Battles" against right-to-work legislation in Missouri and elsewhere

Since that time, an organization known as Insurgent Visuals has released videos of the class, which have gained considerable media attention.  To be clear, I am not Insurgent Visuals, nor am I associated with them.  I did not edit any videos or put them online. I did, however, download the original videos off of the class website and give them out in their entirety to a number of my friends in order to obtain other opinions on the propriety of what occurred in the class, and of the steps I should take moving forward.

In this post, I will try to describe, with careful attention to context and accuracy, what occurred in these public classrooms over the course of the semester.  I believe that any reasonable person who takes the time to read this post in full will come to the same conclusion that I did: Professors Giljum and Ancel used a public university class to promote their own radical political opinions and organizations, and to train students and union members in negotiating tactics that are apparently illegal, and profoundly unethical.  Their behavior was highly unprofessional and inappropriate, and the University of Missouri should simply admit that fact and take steps to ensure that classes are not taught in that way ever again.

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The University of Missouri-Saint Louis (UMSL) has released the following statement about its review of lecture videos from the “Introduction to Labor Studies” course taught at UMSL and at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). Today, BigGovernment.com will publish the first-hand account of a student who participated in the UMSL course and who has, in the face of threats and intimidation, come forward to describe in full what went on in the classroom.

Dear Colleagues,

We have finally completed viewing the videos originating at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) from the UMSL course Introduction to Labor Studies. The excerpts that were made public showing the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) instructor Don Giljum and students as well as the UMKC instructor and students were definitely taken out of context, with their meaning highly distorted through splicing and editing from different times within a class period and across multiple class periods.

As stated previously, our campus supports academic freedom, civility, diversity, open discourse and the pursuit of knowledge. We support the academic freedom of faculty, staff and students at UMSL. Contrary to some reports, Don Giljum has not been fired from the campus faculty, and in fact, is completing the course; he remains eligible to teach at UMSL. We sincerely regret the distress to him and others that has been caused by the unauthorized copying, editing and distribution of the course videos.

During the past two weeks, we have received communications over a wide spectrum of viewpoints, and we appreciate people letting us know what they think. We have learned more about video and Internet technologies that can be beneficial or detrimental to positive, civil discourse, and security issues related to the use of such media. We shall explore ways to improve security in the use of electronic media for instruction, research and other activities.

Sincerely,
Tom George
Chancellor
Professor of Chemistry and Physics

Glen Cope
Provost
Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Administration