University of Chicago President Robert Maynard Hutchins:
Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.*
News Item, July 12, 2006: Nass Seeks Resolution To Fire Barrett
Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, is sponsoring a resolution in the Assembly calling for the UW-Madison to fire a controversial lecturer. The resolution condemns Kevin Barrett's theory that the United States was behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and chides Provost Patrick Farrell for allowing Barrett to teach his course on Islam this fall.
News Item, September 1, 2006:
Researcher, grants leaving UW for lack of partner benefits
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is facing a hit to its pocketbook and brainpower after a researcher announced that he is leaving because of the state's refusal to provide domestic partner benefits.
News Item, November 20, 2007 UW researcher reports stem cell breakthrough
The UW-Madison researcher who grew the world's first human embryonic stem cells in a lab has performed what he considers an even greater achievement: creating similar cells without using or destroying embryos.
It will be interesting to see how those who exploited the Barrett story push their faces onto the front pages of the local and national newspapers and television screens to capture attention on the new breakthrough in stem cell research.
Universities are complicated places. Divergent views are expressed every day on more subjects than legislators have press releases. The oddity, the silly, and the blasphemous often attract more attention than the profound.
In this modern era, there are politicians more concerned with votes and power than learning. They gladly compromise a great university.
High sounding legislative committees mete out fiscal punishment rather than furthering academic inquiry. The talk show hosts, and the legislative parrots they feed, will continue to repeat their political tripe. All the while, the University of Wisconsin stands alone in the Big ten in not providing partner benefits to faculty and staff.
Meanwhile, the damage to the state continues so long as we do not recognize the rights of all, regardless of sexual identity or preference. The damage to the state continues so long as the UW's fiscal heath is in the hands of charlatans.
Now, in the shadow of the bashing that has gone on for the past two years, I am sure we will see those who attempt to exploit the stem cell research to prove a political point: embryonic stem cell research was unnecessary. That, sadly, is an erroneous unscientific conclusion that will only further confuse the matter.
*Perhaps, a more profound observation from Hutchins:
The three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty.