College Professors: Are they Fair and Balanced?

For the last three years I have been attending classes all over this campus. I am a history major, but I have always tried to pick a wide variety of classes for my general education courses and other electives. I have also begun working towards a minor in communications and took a few upper-level English writing courses, aside from the general education requirements. I have taken many courses across the curriculum, although I have never stepped foot inside McConnell Hall, so I cannot speak on what that part of the student body has been taught. My history courses have ranged from ancient civilizations to modern U.S., which is my focus. Of all the classes I have taken during my time here, I feel as though I have been preached a few overlying messages: Fox News is the devil! Do not let yourself be brainwashed by corporate propaganda! We don't get paid enough money! Sometimes I feel a little sorry for the conservative students on campus and what they have to listen to all day.

While I tend to agree with most of my professors on those ideas, even I feel that sometimes our professors at UNH can be overly liberal with their beliefs and teaching agenda. Politically speaking, I am a pretty liberal person, but I also prefer not to have my professor's personal political beliefs affect the content of a class. When a professor tells the class "We won't spend too much time on President Reagan (or Bill Clinton or George W. Bush) because I am too bias to give a fair lecture," that really pisses me off. I have had all three of those situations happen to me with different professors. I am paying thousands of dollars to go to school here and you cannot give a fair lecture on major presidents of the United States? I am a modern U.S. history major and, whether you like Reagan, Clinton and Bush or not, they are incredibly important to my field of study. I am sorry, UNH, but that does not sound too fair and balanced to me. I cannot learn everything from Wikipedia, just a large majority of it.

Everyone knows that Fox News has a conservative agenda, but so does almost every other news channel, whether they are liberal or conservative. I have had professor after professor of all subjects speak out against Fox News, but never once have I heard a professor say anything negative about MSNBC's liberal side. MSNBC has tried to become the liberal news channel, but I find myself watching and paying more attention to Fox News than MSNBC. Granted, I think that is more for the entertainment value of watching Bill O'Reilly telling his guests to shut up or Glenn Beck creating some conspiracy theory, all the while being secretly terrified that thousands, if not millions, of people believe him.

Then I have professors telling me to be aware of major corporations, media conglomerations and their tricky marketing campaigns. But then I go out to the Durham Book Exchange to buy my semesters worth of books, and when I finally sit down to study the night before the first exam of the year I see that my professor co-authored or edited the book, or it was written by one of his or her old graduate school buddies. Universities have become giant machines like most of the corporations our professors tell us to watch out for.

I do not want to come off as a conspiracy theorist (although I do have a life goal of gaining access to Area 51), but I think it is important for students to step back once in a while and really think about what we are being taught. One major learning tool that has been beaten relentlessly into my brain has been to look for bias in every source, document and article I read, and try to be fair and balanced with my analysis and interpretations. But is it truly fair for students to be expected to do that when the professor directs the class in one direction? I believe overly liberal or conservative professors can be just as damaging as overly liberal or conservative news channels, especially for students who are too afraid to question the answers. I will be the first to admit I have an open bias and agenda on my blog and in my columns - we all do in every conversation we have. But when those biases or agendas keep professors from giving a fair and balanced lecture it is not any different than a conservative school board editing what is said in high school textbooks.

Stay classy, not UMassy,
The New Hampshirite

My two cents: Think for Yourself

I'm gonna start this post off with two quotes, which happen to come from one of my professors:

"If you watch Fox News... you shouldn't..."

and he soon followed that up with:

"I wish I could protect you from people like O'Reilly and Hannity."

If you haven't figured out by now I (like the majority of UNH students and professors) tend to be more on the liberal side of politics, so needless to say I laughed out loud at both of those quotes. That sad thing  is that my professor actually has a valid point with these statements. Sure, those quotes may be bias, much like Fox News, but at least he is being honest, much unlike Fox News.

I have nothing against people with conservative viewpoints, as long as they know what they are talking about and are being truly honest when they talk.  Honesty is key. That is what disturbs me so much about Fox News. Fox calls themselves a "fair and balanced" network. Really, Fox? Really?

Many people, including college students, tend to believe a lot what we see, hear and learn on TV or in news in general or even in the classroom. This is why "news" organizations like Fox can be so destructive. I am not saying that conservative politics is terrible, wrong or immoral, but what I am saying is to learn to think for yourself. I would never enter a voting booth without carefully examining all the candidates' policies and beliefs. I would never vote for or against someone strictly on their party. In a way I guess I'm actually pretty moderate when it comes to politics.  Think about what the news anchors, journalists, teachers and politicians of all sides and parties are saying. There is a lot most people don't know about America and politics, and a lot of what we learned in elementary through high school isn't exactly the entire truth. For example:

How many of you learned that in 1492 Columbus sailed into the Caribbean, thinking it was Asia, in the search of spices and that he made peace and traded with the local natives? That is what I learned, and I'm guessing it is what the large majority of you learned too.

However, did you know that when Columbus landed in the Caribbean, in search of gold, they raped, murdered and pillaged the local natives. They took whatever they wanted by force and enslaved and fought the natives.  On his second trip he returned with 17 ships in search of gold and slaves. They took women for sex and children for slave labor. In 1495 they caught 1,500 Indians and took the strongest 500 back to Spain for slaves. 200 died on the ship. In two years over 100,000 Indians native to Haiti had been killed from expeditions led or started by Columbus. And to think we celebrate Columbus Day every year...

But conservative school boards vote to keep that part of the story out of the state funded textbooks and classroom criteria.

Choose what you want to believe, but give it some thought. Think about it on personal levels, through other peoples eyes and for what is best for the entire campus or state or nation. Not one answer is always right, but the real right answer is to consider all the options and carefully choose a solution.

I used info from 3 classes I'm currently in to write this post. Yay for application of knowledge!

Stay classy, not UMassy.

PS: check back soon for a couple announcements in a new post...

Porn at UNH

You may not realize this but, I have the ability to see how people find, or are referred to, the blog. So if you do a google search and you click on a link to my blog I can see what you searched for. For example, many times people find the site by google searching terms such as "UNH Blog," "New Hampshirite" and many others. Often times people come across my blog by google searching terms found in one of my articles or the title. This gave me an idea for my first experiment. In case you have not noticed I titled this post "Porn at UNH." Haha fuck you if you're a pervert! Gotcha Bitch! I want to see if I have an increase in page hits or views by simply using the word "Porn" in an article. I had a feeling that "Porn" alone would not lead google to link the blog so I added "UNH."   

 I have noticed that several people have searched "Stay classy, not UMassy" and came across the blog. I'm not sure if they do this in hopes of figuring out what I mean by that or if that is all the remember about the blog. "Stay classy, not UMassy" is a play on "We're classy, not UMassy" a common term heard in the student section at UNH hockey games. It simply means "don't act like those douchebags at UMass, show some respect." (Apologies to any readers at UMass, I know there is at least one  because I can also see your IP address, internet provider and location. I know you are not all douchebags, but I thought it would be a catchy way to sign off after each post.) 

Now that I got that out of the way I can start off my weekend update post. Let's see... Swine Flu may be receding (or not), the Celtics beat the Bulls, Joakim Noah is a bitch, there was some type of concert at UNH Saturday night, the Bruins took game one against the Hurricanes, Wolverine owned at the box office, A-Rod has a needle dick, and Manny Pacquiao is a beast. 

After writing that, and in honor of Manny Pacquiao, I just got an awesome idea. I present to you the top five living people I would love to punch in the face:

1. Alex Rodriguez
2. Joakim Noah
3. Ryan Sheckler
4. The Jonas Brothers 
5. The Entire Fox News Team

Okay, maybe that constitutes as more than 5 people, but that was rewarding. Who would you like to punch in the face? Back to the University of Nonsensical Happenings. I was all over campus this weekend and I heard some extremely funny comments. I haven't done an "Overheard at UNH" in a while so I figured I would throw a few in. 

• Girl: "Why do you go here?'' Guy: "Marine Biology." Girl: "Are you gonna be a SCUBA diver!?!?"
  
• Girl: "I'm not gonna puke, I'm not gay!"
  
• Guy 1: "Do you wanna go to DHOP?" Guy 2: "...you.... have two mouths."
  

This weekend I also talked to the trumpet and banjo kids who play outside at DHOP. I gave them a buck told them I would be back with change but I don't think they believed me because when I returned an hour and a half later they were gone. I also witnessed a fellow drunk kid convince the owner of DHOP to tip them after he walked by. It was awesome. I asked if they knew "Dirty Old Town" and the banjo player told me he knows the Pogues and the song, but not how to play it. However, they did play "Toxic" by Brittany Spears; but they ignored my "Freebird" request. 

Okay, that was a long and rambling post. I wish I saved some of that for later use. Whatever, I have a couple of new ideas I will be posting about later in the week. Have a good last week of classes.

Stay classy, not UMassy.