Collegiate Times

Evidentally Devin has a word of the day toilet roll in his toilet if the number of times he used "epistemological" in his above musing is any indication.

What a ridiculous and fatuous article. In a free society BB&T is entitled to donate to any academic organization of its choosing whether "biased" or not. Why should its donation go elsewhere where it is used for the dissemination of ideas with which it disagrees or even regards as evil?

Let me get this straight. In a university environment, which is supposed to foster open debate, people "will be allowed to give high-profile public lectures?" Holy crap! What is my beloved university coming to?

Devin is right, the question of bias is not liberal vs conservative, or marxist vs capitalist but statist vs individualist. It is the individualist that BB&T (via Ayn Rand) brings to academia to balance Devin's squalid laundry list of statists: Feyerabend, Rawls, Ackerman, Walras, Nozick, and Keynes who have been enjoying their near monopoly status for the past century or so.

You made the choice to come to this university as well as you made the choice not to take the free market class, which is by no means necessary for graduation at all. It is simply there to present ideas. The lectures that BB&T will give are also for the audience's benefit: no one is forced to attend. The beauty of an individualistic system is that you can make your own decisions, even if that means going to a different school because you disagree with corporations trying to make the school better.

Good ideas don't need banks to prop them up. Rand and her followers oppose religion and the Principles of Community endorsed by this University. One of her followers, Alan Greenspan, wrote the following in support of "Atlas Shrugged": "Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should" (NY Times, 11/3/57). Let Virginia Tech students and faculty examine Rand's work freely and openly, in the light of day.

Yes--thankfully--Ayn Rand's ideas do constitute "an insult" to multiculturalism. The fatuous, adolescent, millenia-old nonsense of multiculturalism cries out to be "insulted." Much as Devin Stone pretends otherwise, Objectivism is a fundamental challenge to the rigid orthodoxy that prevails in the university Establishment. Have you heard any of your professors saying: self-sacrifice is evil, your own life is your highest value, reason is man's means of survival, making money is virtuous, certainty is achievable in regard to facts and values, conquering and re-shaping the natural environnment is a moral achievement to be applauded, existence exists as an objective absolute independent of any consciousness, you have free will and control your own life and character--"race, class, and gender" be damned, "society" is only a number of individuals interacting, the political ideal is pure, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism, with zero government regulation? You hear that all the time, right? Sure.

I don't see the elemental difference between a bank contributing money for this purpose and, say, scientific research grants, be they from corporations or the government, to spur research in particular areas. Both exist because some entity, be it government or business, believes that it is useful to harness the brain power in academia. I hardly think that a $1 million grant "buys" Pamplin for BB&T, nor is it likely to turn otherwise untenurable faculty members into gods within the department. So I'm not sure I see a huge problem here.

When scores of government-succored intellectual pontificates spend their careers concocting new ideologies consisting of nothing but dressed-up rehasements of collectivism's most basic assumptions, it is not just corporate bias that demands they be glossed over or flat out ignored, it is also demanded by logic. There is a reason that corporate bias, logic, and profits tend to align so often. The answer is that unlike in the realm of public eduction, illogic does not guarantee to big business an endlessly renewable stream of government money. By holding the purse strings, the coercive power of governement, and the ability to reproduce, the still confused, now cynically indifferent alumni of these ideas guarantee to their mentors that a new generation of eager, impressionable young minds will be exposed to any type of unreality they are fed. This editorial is a case in point.< br> Good for BB&T for at least trying to salvage at least a few independent, sane, intellectually certain students from the intellectual cesspool their corporate income taxes have been supporting for decades. Even if that means they have to pay a one million dollar premium to do it.

Quit school and learn on your own. In the woods. You will then be free to learn or even discover anything on your own, firsthand. Duh, you overlooked the most obvious solution to all your problems. I guess you might half (lol) to walk a long way to hang out at the Cellar. This school really does have bigger problems though. How about the fact that Coka-cola has a massivlely disasterous partnership with the school which entails that all students MUST buy, or at least pay for coke products exclusively. This BB&T class is optional. At least....for now.

It's as though, in Devin Stone's world, all learning takes place inside the classroom and none at all takes place during the other 12+ hours per day you spend outside of class. I believe it was Mark Twain who said "I never let schooling interfere with my education." Cynicism aside, it's an important point to consider - there are numerous opportunities at college, both 'explicitly' educational and 'implicitly' educational. The most highly effective people learn to use their 'outside the classroom' experiences to put their 'inside the classroom' experiences in context. That's why effective people read both Rand and Marx, seeking to understand and decide for themselves. I for one am tired of Mr. Stone's insulting drivel being printed in this newspaper - it is indeed tiring to read, week after week, about how my 'indoctrination' at the hands of this fine university is clouding my judgment.

If it was Wachovia, cheerleader for NAACP, instead of BB&T, I doubt Devin would have any complaints

$100,000 in the tenth year in order to "fund" a class? In ten years, I'm gonna run this school with my $875,000 and hour janitor wage.

Wow. Reading these comments, it occurred to me that what this school really needs is a course in Academic Freedom 101. Devin is not making an argument about what should or should not be taught, but about how that kind of decision should be made. It is bad for academic freedom and bad for the quality of teaching at the university of such decisions are influenced by wealth or power. Money for a specific purpose can only be accepted if there is an academic rationale, and if the donor has no control over content. There are real questions whether that was the case here.

Daniel, I think you need to be careful about calling things "bad" without justification. BB&T is wealthy for a reason. Perhaps those of us interested in making money (read: all business majors) could stand to learn something from lecturers that such a successful company deems worthwhile. We're talking about guest lecturers. It's not like profs are being pulled from other classes to teach the BB&T course instead. The diversity of the course offerings is not likely to suffer. If anything, this is supplementing departmental offerings, not replacing them.

Ah, I reread. I didn't realize that the lecture series and the course were separate. This may actually invalidate the last part of my previous statement. I stand by the fact that this is not necessarily evil. Take this example. If industry finds a great use for a particular class of chemical, wouldn't it behoove a school to prepare its chemists to enter a job market knowing how to synthesize these chemicals? Wouldn't it then make sense for companies at the forefront of such development, say DOW or Gore, to sponsor these types of programs?

Jason, I really like your example, because it shows exactly where the line should be drawn. The curriculum has to keep up with what's going on in the real world, but what is really going on has to be determined independently of wealthy donors. So I would answer your two questions yes and no. Your first comment is not related to the case Devin is describing. Business schools must bring in people with practical expertise in business and finance. If fact, they often pay executives, who already have crazy salaries, to give a guest lecture. Devin is talking about corporations buying their way into the curriculum (if that is indeed what is happening here). If you are a student at VT, you should be concerned about this, because allowing corporations to influence the curriculum with their gifts is not going to help the school's reputation. Ultimately, the degrees it gives out will decline in value.

Dear Mr. Stone: Surely you didn't mean to write something quite so infantile. Didn't your philosophy professors (and your history, literature, political science professors) tell you that it's ok for VA Tech to accept tens of millions of dollars in government money to promote the government's agenda? Didn't they tell you that it's ok to accept millions of dollars in corporate money to promote various multicultural and environmentalist programs? Didn't they tell you that it's ok for the thoroughly homogenous liberal-socialist faculty to scream about faculty oversight given that they control what's taught at VA Tech and would never hire someone who taught ideas different from their own? No I suppose they didn't teach you these things--not openly and explicitly. Instead, they taught you that it's wrong for VA Tech to accept a gift from BB&T to explore ideas different from those propagated by your philosophy professors. You really ought to explore the ideological hegemony and indoctrination of your professors who fear the introduction of new ideas into the curriculum.

Daniel, thanks for the response. I understand what you mean - that the difference lies in whether Tech is paying for, or being paid for, these lectures. This is sort of like how it worked when I was a government contractor. My government counterpart was allowed to treat me to lunch, etc. but I couldn't return the favor because of ethical issues. However in this case I could still see it as a symbiotic relationship either way. I understand that the appearance of impropriety is greater when the company is the one seeking out VT and not vice versa, however I don't think the curriculum itself will actually suffer as a result. Also, the argument about a degree declining in value is one I believe is overhyped. I am currently a graduate student at Florida State, and when I tell people here that I went to VT, there is a sort of awed reaction, as if it is the most prestigious school around. We both know this is not the case, even though it is a very good school, but there is name recognition. Something like this issue will not even show up on the radar for most people, and I doubt it will have any significant impact (even if it begins happening more) unless some national news program picks up the story and scolds the school. There is a great deal to be learned from corporations, both from the business and from the R&D perspective, so however they get on campus, as long as the curriculum they influence has value, I think it's a winning situation.

"Eddie, what do we care about people like him? We're driving an express, and they're riding on the roof, making a lot of noise about being leaders. Why should we care? We have enough power to carry them along--haven't we?" - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged