Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ Cooston's met video.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Al Griffith, as we move into
Speaker 2: the nine o'clock hour here on Nightside. Last I guess
Speaker 2: it was last Saturday. I read a pretty interesting essay
Speaker 2: in the New York Times Colleges have to be much
Speaker 2: more honest with themselves, and it was penned by the
Speaker 2: president of Assumption University, which is a great school in
Speaker 2: central Massachusetts, I think technically in Worcester, Massachusetts. And with
Speaker 2: me now is the president of Assumption University, President Greg Weiner.
Speaker 2: President Winer. Welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 3: How are you, sir, I'm time, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I thought this was a very interesting take
Speaker 2: at a time when there's a lot of controversy on
Speaker 2: various college campuses and university campuses around the world. You
Speaker 2: are the president of a school which is a Catholic university.
Speaker 2: I think you mentioned in the article that you're the
Speaker 2: first president of the school who's Jewish, which, as as
Speaker 2: someone who is Catholic, it seems to me to be
Speaker 2: pretty logical. I don't know if everyone would agree with me,
Speaker 2: but we all come from a Judaeo Christian tradition those
Speaker 2: of us who follow either Judaism or Christianity. I always
Speaker 2: like to tell my friends that the guy that found
Speaker 2: that my religion happened to be Jewish. So I think
Speaker 2: it's great that that you you were bringing a different
Speaker 2: viewpoint to a Catholic university. And and also I thought
Speaker 2: it was great that you would take the time to
Speaker 2: write this article. This clearly is something you strongly believe in.
Speaker 2: Let's just talk about the headline and will ease into this.
Speaker 2: Colleges have to have to be much more honest with themselves.
Speaker 2: I've read the article, I know what you mean. For
Speaker 2: those who haven't read the article, just give us a
Speaker 2: quick synopsis and we can get the conversation going.
Speaker 3: Sure, we're in an environment in which higher education is
Speaker 3: under attack, and a lot of what is motivating that
Speaker 3: attack is a perception of political bias on college campuses.
Speaker 3: And my belief is that the attack is the wrong
Speaker 3: way to approach the problem. But we are at colleges
Speaker 3: and universities are having difficulty getting that message through because
Speaker 3: we are denying the fact that our critics have a
Speaker 3: point about political bias. Not all, and I would say
Speaker 3: not on ours, but on many campuses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I have sensed that for a long time.
Speaker 2: I've covered I don't know how much of a chance
Speaker 2: you've got to listen to this show or we talk
Speaker 2: about this a lot, not a lot, but we talk
Speaker 2: about it frequently. And college campuses, not all college campuses,
Speaker 2: but there are a lot of college campuses. Is where
Speaker 2: if you happen to be a conservative professor, you're in
Speaker 2: the distinct minority, or if you happen to be a
Speaker 2: conservative student, you're in the distinct minority. You make so
Speaker 2: many great points in this in this essay, and obviously
Speaker 2: you know I've said the same thing. You're right, there's
Speaker 2: neither conservative chemistry nor progressive calculus that is saying that same.
Speaker 2: The same is true of honest efforts to reflect on
Speaker 2: the great works of literature or philosophy, and and that
Speaker 2: is true. But a lot of college professors bring their
Speaker 2: own viewpoint. Matter of fact, I think you said fifty
Speaker 2: five percent of faculty members said that they have discussed
Speaker 2: climate change or other issues that are not involved in
Speaker 2: the in the in the course that they're teaching. I
Speaker 2: think what has happened, and I think you agree, But
Speaker 2: you have a much better perspective than I do, is
Speaker 2: that a lot of the universities or the universities as
Speaker 2: a whole, have become kind of echo chambers, where if
Speaker 2: everyone in the faculty thinks the same way, whether they
Speaker 2: teach science or the humanities or in the athletics problem,
Speaker 2: and if they all feel the same way, they then
Speaker 2: to come to the people that they interact with, they
Speaker 2: assume the rest of the world feels or the rest
Speaker 2: of the country feels that way. Is that part of
Speaker 2: the problem.
Speaker 3: I do think that's part of the problem. I think
Speaker 3: the more significant problem is that it really shouldn't matter
Speaker 3: what a professor's political beliefs are in the classroom. They
Speaker 3: should be teaching as I think we do well at
Speaker 3: assumption the subject matter of the course. And I've said
Speaker 3: often I wouldn't care if every member of our faculty
Speaker 3: voted Democrat or every member of faculty voted Republican, as
Speaker 3: long as they were excellent teachers and scholars of the discipline.
Speaker 3: I do think there is on a lot of campuses
Speaker 3: that are I would say more out of controller, at
Speaker 3: least out of touch politically. There is a I take
Speaker 3: an echo chamber, and it almost results from an attempt
Speaker 3: to be charitable toward others. So if the assumption is
Speaker 3: all good people agree with me, then Dan, I'm doing
Speaker 3: you a favor by being charitable to you by assuming
Speaker 3: that you agree with me, because I think you're a
Speaker 3: good person. So I do think there are campuses out
Speaker 3: there where there's genuine surprise that there are diverse news
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting different schools took different approaches. Harvard University
Speaker 2: is now sort of the target rich environment for the
Speaker 2: Trump administration, and I think the Trump administration is out
Speaker 2: over the skis. I think that they're threatening Harvard, which,
Speaker 2: of course an endowment that every university would I would
Speaker 2: love to have. The Trump administration, I guess, is threatening
Speaker 2: to withhold some nine billion dollars. I mean that's a
Speaker 2: lot of money. And there's an article that's going to
Speaker 2: be coming out in the Globe in the next few days.
Speaker 2: I think it's already been up digitally by a woman,
Speaker 2: a young conservative Globe editorial writer. She actually the core
Speaker 2: of people on the editorial page. Her name is Karine Hajar,
Speaker 2: and she points out that conservatives should not be thrilled
Speaker 2: that the Trump administration is trying to force colleges to
Speaker 2: heal because the shoe could be on the other foot
Speaker 2: four or eight years from now. I assume that that
Speaker 2: you're concerned about what the administration is trying to do,
Speaker 2: not HARV but other universities around the country.
Speaker 3: I'm a student dan of American political thought, and there
Speaker 3: are two beliefs that have traditionally been associated with conservatism.
Speaker 3: One is that generally speaking, the private sector does things
Speaker 3: better than the public than the public sector does, especially
Speaker 3: when there's a variety, a great deal of variety in
Speaker 3: the market. Is there is an higher education. The second
Speaker 3: conservative belief, at least it's traditionally been associated with conservatism,
Speaker 3: that it's important for there to be a layer of
Speaker 3: civil society between the individual and the state, and that
Speaker 3: that layer needs to be independent. So I'm not inclined
Speaker 3: to think that these are the ideal ways to handle
Speaker 3: this problem, especially when things like medical or scientific research
Speaker 3: or collateral damage. But we have to be honest with ourselves.
Speaker 3: There's a significant extent to which higher education has brought
Speaker 3: us on ourselves by refusing to acknowledge what I think
Speaker 3: is clearer to most people and probably to most people
Speaker 3: on college campuses, which is that there really is a problem,
Speaker 3: and if we want to be independent, as we should,
Speaker 3: we have to we have to be better about addressing
Speaker 3: it ourselves.
Speaker 2: My guess is the president of Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: Assumption has grown in recent years. I did a little
Speaker 2: bit of research on it today, but I want you
Speaker 2: to just brag on the school a little bit. You
Speaker 2: have undergraduate as well as graduate students, correct, we do.
Speaker 2: So give us just a little sense of it, and
Speaker 2: we're going to go. We're going to take a break
Speaker 2: in a minute or so. But I just wanted to
Speaker 2: have people get a better sense of the school that
Speaker 2: you are now the president of.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of unique things about Assumption, but
Speaker 3: I will mention too quickly what one is that we are.
Speaker 3: There are different types of Catholic institutions, and of course
Speaker 3: different types of Catholic universities. We're one that expresses our
Speaker 3: Catholic identity through the nature of the education we provide,
Speaker 3: which combines enduring ideas with professional skills. And it's the
Speaker 3: enduring ideas that make things, make that understanding last, that
Speaker 3: discernment last when technology changes. The second is we have
Speaker 3: extraordinary students and some of them have extraordinarily high test scores.
Speaker 3: Others of them don't. But what they all have is
Speaker 3: which I hear from employers is highly valued, is a
Speaker 3: grit and a determination and a feeling that the world
Speaker 3: doesn't owe them anything, that they're they're in college to
Speaker 3: learn and they know they've got to work for what
Speaker 3: they have.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that that is the type of university
Speaker 2: that anyone should be interested in. Again, I know it's
Speaker 2: you've been there now how long? If I if I
Speaker 2: could ask, I did not do a deep die your CV.
Speaker 3: Oh sure. I started teaching an Assumption in twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: and I became an interim president and then president about
Speaker 3: three years ago.
Speaker 2: Okay, again, you're listening to Professor to President Greg Weiner,
Speaker 2: the president of Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He wrote
Speaker 2: a really interesting piece in the Boston in the New
Speaker 2: York Times. Colleges have to be much more honest with themselves.
Speaker 2: I'm going to at some point in the next break,
Speaker 2: in the next segment, I should say just quote a
Speaker 2: couple of the lines that I think are particularly pertinent,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to invite all of you to join
Speaker 2: the conversation and let us know what you think about this,
Speaker 2: and as I say, we will certainly reference what the
Speaker 2: Trump administration is trying to do. And I think it's
Speaker 2: pretty heavy handed and I'm not sure that it sets
Speaker 2: a good precedent. I think that a lot of universities
Speaker 2: probably are like the President of Assumption and recognize that
Speaker 2: maybe the colleges and the universities this country need a
Speaker 2: little bit more philosophical balance or philosophical diversity. But we'll
Speaker 2: see where the conversation takes us. Back on Nights Side,
Speaker 2: if you'd like to join the conversation, you know, the
Speaker 2: numbers is six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty
Speaker 2: or six one seven, nine three one ten thirty. Back
Speaker 2: in a couple of minutes after a couple of commercials
Speaker 2: with President Greg Weiner of Assumption University of Worcester, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2: By the way, a quick apology to the president of
Speaker 2: Assumption University. I have mispronounced your last name and I
Speaker 2: apologize for that deeply, Professor, mister president. It is Greg Wiener.
Speaker 2: I should have gotten a pronouncer before we spoke, and
Speaker 2: I apologize for that, but.
Speaker 3: Not at all. Dan when you have a name lake
Speaker 3: wan or you don't mind it being mispronounced.
Speaker 2: Well, also, my name it's spelled r A, And I
Speaker 2: can tell you as a kid how many teachers rea
Speaker 2: orrera or something it got badly got mangled. A couple
Speaker 2: of excerpts from the column that you wrote. We must
Speaker 2: confront the fact that the culture of prevailing political opinion
Speaker 2: on campuses is also complicit in limiting free expression. Can
Speaker 2: you amplify on that a little bit for the audience.
Speaker 3: If you read political thinkers like John Stuart Mill, who's
Speaker 3: a progressive hero, Alexis to TOEFL and others, they note
Speaker 3: that Toko actually says that the ability of majority opinion
Speaker 3: to crush descent is more than that of any absolute monarch.
Speaker 3: It is a different dynamic, certainly with government suppression of speech,
Speaker 3: and I'm absolutely opposed to that as well. But peer
Speaker 3: pressure is a very powerful thing. And when there is
Speaker 3: a single dominant opinion that has a way, whether it's
Speaker 3: intended or not, I think often it's not that has
Speaker 3: a way of simply shutting down descent by the sheer
Speaker 3: force of consensus. People don't want to sense of themselves,
Speaker 3: They don't want to speak up they you know, Tokefel
Speaker 3: explainings will when you hear so many other people saying something,
Speaker 3: you think something must be wrong with with you for disagreeing.
Speaker 3: We have a responsibility as scholars and as educators to
Speaker 3: challenge ourselves and also to draw out a diversity of
Speaker 3: abuse from our students and from one another one other.
Speaker 2: And some of this is is argument supporting. But this
Speaker 2: understanding of academic freedom of freedom and again, President, quoting
Speaker 2: from your article from the audience in the recording from
Speaker 2: your article in the New York Times of last Sunday,
Speaker 2: last Saturday, this understanding of academic freedom is rooted in
Speaker 2: the virtues associated with teaching and learning, the humility to
Speaker 2: know one's own views may be wrong, the courage to
Speaker 2: chat consensus opinions, and the charity to assume that those
Speaker 2: whose ideas trouble us are our allies in pursuing truth.
Speaker 2: I think that is a very powerful statement. And again,
Speaker 2: if we could just have you amplify on that a
Speaker 2: little bit from my audience, I would appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Courage and humility, Dan may seem like they don't go together,
Speaker 3: but there are really two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 3: In an educational setting. You know, I often say, and
Speaker 3: I said it quite a lot more during some of
Speaker 3: the campus protests class spring, there are two reasons to
Speaker 3: go to college. One is that you already know everything
Speaker 3: and you just want to tell everyone, and you can
Speaker 3: do that for free. The others that there are things
Speaker 3: you don't know that that you want to learn, and
Speaker 3: that's that's that's the reason to go to college. That's
Speaker 3: that's also, by the way, the reason to teach in
Speaker 3: a university setting, and that that begins with with humility
Speaker 3: and courage comes into it when we're we're talking about
Speaker 3: an environment of consensus, and you want people to be
Speaker 3: the one person in the class who raises their hand
Speaker 3: and says that doesn't sound right to me. That doesn't
Speaker 3: have to be about politics. Might be what what does
Speaker 3: Aristotle mean? And in his book on Ethics that it
Speaker 3: might be, But what's what's the meaning of a particular
Speaker 3: passage in literature or an event in history? Purity I
Speaker 3: think is so important. There's certainly there are things we
Speaker 3: hear from other people that are objectively offensive and that
Speaker 3: that we shouldn't tolerate, but it's so important in education.
Speaker 3: And I would argue in politics, to listen for what
Speaker 3: people are trying to say, and that most a charitable disposition.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, there are things that are objectively offensive,
Speaker 2: and I think that there is a genuine consensus on
Speaker 2: things that are objectively offensive, and there will be some
Speaker 2: people who will identify with what everyone would agree with
Speaker 2: is objectively offensive. And to those people I often apply
Speaker 2: the phrase often mistake and never in doubt. And what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about there are, you know, the people who
Speaker 2: are extreme racists from one point of view or another,
Speaker 2: and do not celebrate the individuality of people which should
Speaker 2: be celebrated on college campuses. You conclude by saying this
Speaker 2: colleges and universities a compelling story to tell, but we
Speaker 2: will have neither an audience for that story nor the
Speaker 2: moral authority to tell it until we are as fearless
Speaker 2: about examining ourselves as we are about decrying interference from
Speaker 2: beyond our walls. Now again, I think that's pretty clear
Speaker 2: to me. But if you want to just you know,
Speaker 2: amplify on that a bit, so my audience understands they
Speaker 2: haven't had the opportunity to read the article as I have.
Speaker 3: Sure, I'll go back to my former wife as a
Speaker 3: political consultant. It's very hard to engage on a solution
Speaker 3: when what you're actually doing is denying the problem. So
Speaker 3: the administration really has the floor to itself because colleges
Speaker 3: and universities are gone into lockdown mode, at least in
Speaker 3: many cases. And as a result of that, I think
Speaker 3: most Americans look at colleges and no is I thinkrepin
Speaker 3: all about it, But no, there's some political bias, and
Speaker 3: when all we're doing is denying at there's just no
Speaker 3: room is for a constructive conversation about solutions.
Speaker 2: My guest is the president of Assumption University school university,
Speaker 2: you're what about it? I think is it about one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five years old? Now, not you personally,
Speaker 2: but the school.
Speaker 3: Is that I feel one hundred and twenty five. We
Speaker 3: were founded in nineteen o four by the Augustinians of
Speaker 3: the Assumption. So the class where recruiting right now will
Speaker 3: be the the for this fall. We'll graduate in our
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty fifth year.
Speaker 2: Great, great, great tradition. Okay, we're going to get to
Speaker 2: phone calls, and I ask folks, if you've never had
Speaker 2: an opportunity to speak with the president of a university.
Speaker 2: Please be respectful as you are to all of my guests.
Speaker 2: I think it's an extraordinary article that President Wiener has written.
Speaker 2: I would commend it to you. Colleges have to be
Speaker 2: much more honest with themselves, and we will be talking.
Speaker 2: I see that Harvey Silverglade, our great friend from Harvard,
Speaker 2: has has called in. I reached out yesterday to Professor
Speaker 2: Steve Pinker at Harvard University, who is a conservative, and
Speaker 2: there is there are a group of self identifying conservatives
Speaker 2: at Harvard University. And I look at this, but I
Speaker 2: also look at what the Trump administration is doing, and
Speaker 2: I think that sometimes the reaction can be more than
Speaker 2: it is justified. And so I'm pretty conservative guy. I
Speaker 2: consider myself a right of center, but I don't think
Speaker 2: that it's helpful for government, either Democrats or Republicans, to
Speaker 2: use the force of government to make universities come to heal.
Speaker 2: So that's the conversation. Love to have you join the conversation.
Speaker 2: We'll introduce you to Harvey Silverglate, who I'm sure Professor
Speaker 2: rather President Wiener knows well. And I suspect Harvey probably
Speaker 2: has written some columns like this, and I would be
Speaker 2: very surprised if Harvey didn't read this in the New
Speaker 2: York Times last Saturday. We'll be back on nightside if
Speaker 2: I got a couple of lines one at six one, seven, two,
Speaker 2: five four ten thirty and one at six one, seven,
Speaker 2: nine three one ten thirty. We will change topics at
Speaker 2: ten o'clock. The proverbial elephant in the room is what
Speaker 2: happened again today for the second day of the row
Speaker 2: on the stock market, and we want to know how
Speaker 2: you're handling it. We'll be back on nightside, and by
Speaker 2: the way, we'll finish tonight at the twentieth hour. I'm
Speaker 2: going to ask everybody to tell me something positive, something upbeat.
Speaker 2: This has been a tough week in so many respects,
Speaker 2: so many respects, and other than the Red Sox winning
Speaker 2: at home today, there's been little to sell it. We'll
Speaker 2: be back on night's side right after the news at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the hour with my guest, the President
Speaker 2: of Assumption University in Worcester, President Greg Wiener.
Speaker 1: You're on night Side with Dan Ray on w b
Speaker 1: Z Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Suzanne. We are joined and delighted
Speaker 2: to be joined by the President of Assumption University School
Speaker 2: of in Worcester, right outside or in Worcester. Let me
Speaker 2: get that straight. Are you physically in Worcester? Are you
Speaker 2: contiguous to Worcester.
Speaker 3: We are in Worcester at five hundred Salisbury Street.
Speaker 2: Gotcha? Okay. The President of Assumption University, Greg Wiener, joins
Speaker 2: us and we're talking about his column op ed Peace
Speaker 2: guest essay in the New York Times last weekend of
Speaker 2: March twenty ninth, last week ago tomorrow. Colleges have to
Speaker 2: be much more honest with themselves. And by the way
Speaker 2: you worked in the in the essay, you may who
Speaker 2: worked in democratic politics before. So I think that gives
Speaker 2: you even greater credibility to to express the opinions. I mean,
Speaker 2: you have a right to express your opinions no matter what.
Speaker 2: But I do think that it gives you even greater
Speaker 2: credibility because you were basically saying, hey, colleges have to
Speaker 2: have to recognize that maybe there is an imbalance. Someone
Speaker 2: who I think will agree with you in large part
Speaker 2: is my dear friend, Harvey Silverglade. Harvey, I hope you
Speaker 2: have perhaps met President Wiener before, but if not, let
Speaker 2: me introduce you to Professor Greg Wiener of Assumption College,
Speaker 2: Assumption University, Harvey Silverglade from Princeton and Harvard Law School.
Speaker 4: Gentlemen, right, we have not met before, but we agree completely.
Speaker 5: I may have said this before in a prior phone call,
Speaker 5: but I was invited by Dean James Warrenberg or the
Speaker 5: Harvard Law School back in the early nineties to teach
Speaker 5: a course in criminal trial practice. They didn't have a
Speaker 5: course in criminal trial practice, and it was very popular.
Speaker 5: The students gave me high evaluations. They were very interested
Speaker 5: in the course, and Warrenberger called me into his office
Speaker 5: at the end of the semester and said, Harvey, I'd
Speaker 5: like to offer you a tenure track physician and I
Speaker 5: turned them down. He said, what nobody's ever turned me
Speaker 5: down for an author of a tenure track physician. I said, well,
Speaker 5: I'm turning you down. The ideological uniformity of the faculty
Speaker 5: back then was stifling. It was all progressives and I'm
Speaker 5: not a progressive. I'm I'm a libertarian liberal, but they
Speaker 5: doesn't matter what I am. I thought it was stifling
Speaker 5: that everybody agreed. I was at faculty meetings, I was listening,
Speaker 5: and you would think there was only one point of
Speaker 5: view in the world, and so I turned it down.
Speaker 5: And I agree completely with President Wiener the the they
Speaker 5: talk about diversity and inclusion, but there's only it's only
Speaker 5: race when they talk about diversity and inclusion, they didn't
Speaker 5: they do not talk about ideological diversity.
Speaker 2: I think that President Wiener will be able to identify
Speaker 2: with that. Professor your comment on on what Harvey had.
Speaker 3: To say, a couple of comments.
Speaker 2: One is I.
Speaker 3: Can't quite to know anything about criminal trial procedure, but
Speaker 3: I can't imagine there's a democratic or republican or liberal
Speaker 3: or libertarian way to.
Speaker 4: Teach it.
Speaker 3: And I think that's so important in the concept of
Speaker 3: that academic freedom is that and this is from the
Speaker 3: American Association of University Professors, which is no one's idea
Speaker 3: of a reactionary organization, and it's certainly one that's been
Speaker 3: holding by the banner of academic freedom. That there's a
Speaker 3: power relationship they say in the in the classroom between
Speaker 3: teacher and student, and for that reason it's important that
Speaker 3: that scholars not abuse their classroom authority, whether deliberately or not,
Speaker 3: by introducing extraneous material into the in the course work.
Speaker 3: I think there are a range of ways to look
Speaker 3: at diversity and belonging, and I think they're all important.
Speaker 3: I think we all of us bring unique backgrounds. But
Speaker 3: I think one trap that we've fallen into in the
Speaker 3: academy it's just a fact that most administrators and factory
Speaker 3: members are white, is instead of in an attempt to champion,
Speaker 3: for example, people of color, we don't pause and say,
Speaker 3: what is it that you're actually bringing to this conversation,
Speaker 3: what do you need to help you succeed? And we
Speaker 3: forget what is obvious to anyone who's read exit polls,
Speaker 3: for example, from any recent election. But there's a diversity
Speaker 3: of views within all these groups themselves, which should not
Speaker 3: surprise surprise anyone. So I think we've got to take
Speaker 3: all those ideas of diversity into account.
Speaker 4: Okay, Can I also adds one thing? I agree with
Speaker 4: all of this, but I think it's very dangerous for
Speaker 4: the schools to knock alongo like Columbia did to the
Speaker 4: Trump administration. And what I would suggest at Harvard, for example,
Speaker 4: is that they tell the president to go to Hell,
Speaker 4: and that they eliminate ninety percent of their administrators whom
Speaker 4: I consider to be unnecessary and save some dough and
Speaker 4: just weather the storm.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think that's an interesting viewpoint, and I
Speaker 2: think that the president of the Subju University would probably agree.
Speaker 2: At the same time, what they're concerned about is that
Speaker 2: a lot of the programs that might be cut, and
Speaker 2: I think everybody should be concerned about it, liberals or conservatives,
Speaker 2: Democrats are Republicans. That some of the programs that there
Speaker 2: will be impact will be research programs that deal with
Speaker 2: medical areas of interest and research and concern. I just
Speaker 2: think that the Trump administration can continues to wield a
Speaker 2: sledgehammer when a scalp would be probably the better tool
Speaker 2: to to use under under these circumstances. Professor, it is
Speaker 2: is there a need, not necessarily at your school, but
Speaker 2: at any school for sort of an affirmative outreach to
Speaker 2: find professors, particularly maybe uh in certain courses that have
Speaker 2: some philosophical balance. I mean, is there is there almost
Speaker 2: an affirmative action I hate to turn the table on you, hair,
Speaker 2: but is there an affirmative action obligation to say, Okay,
Speaker 2: we have you know, within a within our history department, uh,
Speaker 2: twenty professors and uh we need to get a little
Speaker 2: a little balance in there. That that maybe every course
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be taught from the point of view
Speaker 2: that America is an imperialistic nation, from the moment that
Speaker 2: they that we were founded, at the moment that the
Speaker 2: pilgrims arrived on Plymouth Rock.
Speaker 3: I think the the obligation is to recruit a excellent
Speaker 3: scholars and teachers, and they should. If one does that,
Speaker 3: I would say, in an open, sincere search for excellence,
Speaker 3: that then some balance will result. But again I would
Speaker 3: say it really in most cases should not matter, because
Speaker 3: you know, I teach should or taught. I should say so.
Speaker 3: Occasionally teach American politics and American political thought, and an
Speaker 3: occupational hazard of that job is you tell somebody that's
Speaker 3: what you teach, and no matter what it was in
Speaker 3: the newspaper that morning, they'll say, oh, you must be
Speaker 3: having a field day with us and such. The reality
Speaker 3: is taught. I've taught, however, many hundreds of course meetings
Speaker 3: of an American politics and American political thought. I have
Speaker 3: never mentioned a current event because current events change that
Speaker 3: it doesn't do you any good to learn about something
Speaker 3: today that's going to change tomorrow. Much Rather, when I
Speaker 3: taught American government, I started with the with the federalist papers.
Speaker 3: I think those enduring ideas are much more important than
Speaker 3: than an orientation toward Corona mats.
Speaker 2: No question, Harvey. I appreciate you joining us again. Some
Speaker 2: other calls I'm going to have to get to. But
Speaker 2: as always, you you always, you always bring a point
Speaker 2: of view that's welcome here, and you know that.
Speaker 4: Okay, good night, can Good.
Speaker 2: Night, Harvey. We will be back with Professor Greg Wiener
Speaker 2: of Assumption University and some more phone calls six one,
Speaker 2: seven four, ten thirty or six month seven nine three one.
Speaker 2: We will change topics at the top of the hour
Speaker 2: and we will talk about, as I referred to earlier,
Speaker 2: the sort of the elephant in the room, and that
Speaker 2: is the performance or lack thereof of the stock market.
Speaker 2: Today was worse than yesterday, almost inconceivable to think of initially,
Speaker 2: but what happens Monday. We'll be back right after this
Speaker 2: break with our concluding segment with the President of Assumption University,
Speaker 2: President Greg Wiener.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WZ Boston's
Speaker 1: news radio.
Speaker 2: We have one final segment here with the President of
Speaker 2: Assumption University, President Greg Wiener. Let me go to Rob
Speaker 2: in Medford, Massachusetts. Rob, you are next door Nightsiger, Go
Speaker 2: right ahead with President Wiener.
Speaker 4: Halo, Sir.
Speaker 6: I was wondering if if you get shed in any light,
Speaker 6: I must confessed, Dan, I'm sorry. I was listening to
Speaker 6: another radio show host this afternoon.
Speaker 2: Well, as long as it wasn't between eight and midnight,
Speaker 2: that's all I care. Go right ahead. Please don't mention
Speaker 2: any other shows specifically, but I haven't okay, question.
Speaker 6: Go ahead, Okay. Well, Mcgilby University in Canada, I understand
Speaker 6: has been taken over and people are chanting from the
Speaker 6: river to the sea and all into genocide. And the
Speaker 6: same thing is going on some of us in Ottawa
Speaker 6: and Toronto Universities. But McGill is totally shut down and
Speaker 6: taken over at this point. Is am I in the
Speaker 6: twilight zone or is that really happening?
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Professor President President.
Speaker 3: Sure, I'm not sure. I'm familiar with those events exactly.
Speaker 3: There certainly have been rampages through Montreal and some other places.
Speaker 3: I think the the Jew hatred on American campuses has
Speaker 3: been shameful in Canadian the Canadian campuses where it's where
Speaker 3: it's happened as well. I think it's been an appalling
Speaker 3: failure of universities to to protect in some cases physically,
Speaker 3: they're they're students. And you know what, You often hear
Speaker 3: university presidents say as well, this or that is complicated,
Speaker 3: that this issue is not complicated. So some of the
Speaker 3: scenes that we saw at at places like Columbia are
Speaker 3: were pure, pure outrage that had had utterly nothing to
Speaker 3: do with with academic freedom. In fact, academic freedom actually
Speaker 3: imposes more obligations on scholars, including students, than a sort
Speaker 3: of freewheeling free speech. And we've developed this idea that
Speaker 3: universities are somehow political conventions or places where it's a
Speaker 3: that are a natural home of protest. Liberal education at
Speaker 3: its best should be a retreat from the contemporary, from
Speaker 3: the momentary, from the transient, to focus on ideas. And
Speaker 3: I think it's it's been a blight on American higher
Speaker 3: education and it is up to us to solve that
Speaker 3: promo I.
Speaker 2: Will I will tell you Rob that I am seeing
Speaker 2: on a number of websites that anti Israeli Israel protesters
Speaker 2: have blocked access to McGill university buildings, have disrupted classes.
Speaker 2: Uh and I see no reporting of this. I see
Speaker 2: I see it in Canadian papers. I see nothing from NBC, CB,
Speaker 2: CBS or ABC. I don't see the Times or the
Speaker 2: the Globe reporting on it as yet, and but it's
Speaker 2: been going on. I'm looking at some video right now.
Speaker 2: So you're correct in what you what you've mentioned, and
Speaker 2: I think that the President of Assumption has given you
Speaker 2: a pretty clear clear answer. Thank you, Rob, appreciate your calling.
Speaker 6: I appreciate that. And I wanted to say, for good
Speaker 6: men to do nothing, is it allows evil to succeed?
Speaker 2: Necessary for easy good men to do nothing? Correct? Absolutely,
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Let me go Lex to David
Speaker 2: in San Francisco. David been holding on. Go right ahead.
Speaker 7: Oh, thanks Dan and President. Yeah. I went to Wikipedia
Speaker 7: and looked up Assumption there and it was in nineteen
Speaker 7: fifty three. Tornado played a lot of import into the
Speaker 7: rise in development of the university in the so you've
Speaker 7: quite a project there. What I wanted to ask you, though,
Speaker 7: a lot of the problems with education that we've been
Speaker 7: hearing about for the last number of years seems to
Speaker 7: be tied to the textbooks and if American textbooks. As
Speaker 7: I understand that Texas is such a huge state that
Speaker 7: the textbooks of America have to pass the Texas school
Speaker 7: Book Commission.
Speaker 2: Are you talking about just clarification, David, are you talking
Speaker 2: about high school textbooks? You're not talking about college textbooks.
Speaker 7: I assume all textbooks sold in America have to make
Speaker 7: market forces, and the market forces of the Texas school
Speaker 7: Book Commission has been basically cheating America by forcing them
Speaker 7: to dance to their tomb. And I'm wondering if the
Speaker 7: President has an opinion about this.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's see, first of all, if the President is
Speaker 2: aware of that. I do know that a lot of
Speaker 2: schools have used If you suggesting that the implication is
Speaker 2: that maybe authors like Howard's In and Noam Chomsky have
Speaker 2: had trouble being published, I don't think that's the case,
Speaker 2: mister President Thomas Jeffers, let me do this, David. Let's
Speaker 2: give the President a chance to respond to our coolic.
Speaker 2: We go ahead, mister President.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Speaker 3: I'm very broadly familiar with the dominants of states. It's realy, Texas,
Speaker 3: I think also California in secondary school textbooks, I think
Speaker 3: one of the problems, and I'm venturing outside any area
Speaker 3: of expertise with some of the controversies we've had on
Speaker 3: the right and the left about the teaching of history
Speaker 3: is that we underestimate students. We underestimate their ability to
Speaker 3: deal with nuance and to understand that. If you look
Speaker 3: at political history, the greatest figures tend to have great
Speaker 3: virtues and great sins and the inability of it's ironic.
Speaker 3: It's it's the adults in the room who should have
Speaker 3: a sense of nuance. Don't trust the kids too. I
Speaker 3: think that's true on both the right and the left,
Speaker 3: and I think we really underestimate students.
Speaker 2: All right, David, I'm flat out of time. I appreciate
Speaker 2: your calling your question. It's always good good to hear
Speaker 2: from you. Thank you, mister President. A fascinating conversation from
Speaker 2: my perspect active. I had the president of Vanderbilt University
Speaker 2: on last spring. He handled the demonstrations that Vanderbilt a
Speaker 2: little differently than they would handled at Columbia. You may
Speaker 2: be aware of that, but this is a breath of
Speaker 2: fresh air for me. How can folks who may want
Speaker 2: to look at Assumption as a potential school for themselves
Speaker 2: or for their children or their grandchildren, what's the easiest
Speaker 2: way they get some more information on the school the university.
Speaker 3: Sure, the quickest way to me to go to our
Speaker 3: website to if you're looking for accounts to apply that
Speaker 3: Assumption dot edu and Assumption dot edu is our website,
Speaker 3: and we would we're very proud of our education, very
Speaker 3: confident in it, and we'd love to have a conversation
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The other thing, which is which is interesting to me,
Speaker 2: and this would be my last question to you, is
Speaker 2: that I always take the time to look at the
Speaker 2: commencement speakers at various colleges and universities every year, and
Speaker 2: there there seems to be a real bias in that.
Speaker 2: I'm just curious who have been some of the recent
Speaker 2: commencement speakers at Assumption over the years.
Speaker 3: Well, this year we have Lieutenant General Jeffrey Tally, who
Speaker 3: is very interested, retired lieutenant general, very interesting guy, has
Speaker 3: a PhD in engineering and while serving in the military,
Speaker 3: picked up a i should say picked up earned a degree,
Speaker 3: a master's degree in religious studies from Assumption, and I
Speaker 3: think it is a wonderful example of learning for the
Speaker 3: sake of learning. That was not a degree that was
Speaker 3: going to advance his career, and we're I think it's
Speaker 3: a terrific example for students, and we're very much looking
Speaker 3: forward to having it.
Speaker 2: That's great. Well, I've really I really enjoyed the article
Speaker 2: in the New York Times and enjoyed our conversation. I
Speaker 2: should have had a chat with you earlier in the day,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't sure if you would have been able
Speaker 2: to find some time on your calendar. And the next
Speaker 2: time I'm in the worst area, I want to get
Speaker 2: out and see the campus and make sure that people
Speaker 2: are aware of Assumption. There are great colleges. I certainly
Speaker 2: have newfound respect for Assumption I put it in the
Speaker 2: category of Endicott College, one of those great colleges in
Speaker 2: our you know, geographic sphere that people need to know
Speaker 2: more about. Everybody knows about Harvard and m I, T,
Speaker 2: b C and b U. But but people should realize
Speaker 2: there's a lot of great colleges and universities in New
Speaker 2: England that their children and grandchildren should think about. Mister president,
Speaker 2: thank you very much. President Greg Wiener of Assumption University,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your time tonight. Thank you.
Speaker 3: I've enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. When we get back, we're want
Speaker 2: to talk about the stock market today. You are you panicking? Yet?
Speaker 2: Today was worse than yesterday. Thank god the weekends here.
Speaker 2: Let's see what happens on Monday. We're going to talk
Speaker 2: about it on the other side of the break