Columbia University - Should it really count as a top tier university?

Columbia University has added a new class to its curriculum... Any of you Monkeys planning on taking this class next semester?

Does getting pepper-sprayed count as extra credit?
Columbia University is offering a new course on Occupy Wall Street next semester — sending upperclassmen and grad students into the field for full course credit.
The class is taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, who boasts about her nights camped out in Zuccotti Park.
As many as 30 students will be expected to get involved in ongoing OWS projects outside the classroom, the syllabus says.
The class will be in the anthropology department and called “Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement.” It will be divided between seminars at the Morningside Heights campus and fieldwork.

Dr. Hannah Appel

On her blog, Appel defends OWS, arguing that “it is important to push back against the rhetoric of ‘disorganization’ or ‘a movement without a message’ coming from left, right and center.”
Addressing the safety risks of fieldwork among protesters, she writes on the syllabus, “I can say with absolute certainty that there is no foreseeable risk in teaching this as a field-base class.”
She said her allegiance won’t keep her from being an objective teacher.
“Inevitably, my experience will color the way I teach, but I feel equipped to teach objectively,” Appel told The Post. “It’s best to be critical of the things we hold most sacred.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/colu…

 

assuming they are taking 4-5 courses in the semester, students will be paying $4300-$5300 on this class just in tuition (so excluding other costs associated with attending college).

money well spent, clearly.

 
Best Response

It's entirely appropriate for an anthropology class... especially if they want to consider an "idealist" view of the movement and it's effects / causes and contrast it to an "empirical" view of the same cultural and social issues that form modern American society... I don't see how it's different from an anthropologist studying the uprisings in the Arab world, or any other social movement that is still in progress...

I don't see how this is a less valid academic form / area of study than that of organisational behaviour, industrial relations or the like within the business school... how are you guys going to invest / do business without understanding these issues in your own back yard, never mind doing business overseas... don't be myopic

broaden your horizons guys, it's not like they're going to get credit just for hanging out with a bunch of hippies for sex, drugs and rock n' roll...

 
Relinquis:
broaden your horizons guys, it's not like they're going to get credit just for hanging out with a bunch of hippies for sex, drugs and rock n' roll...

i don't know if you actually read the syllabus, but 40% of your grade is attendance, and another 30% consists of two very short papers where you write about your "field work" aka chilling with the protesters.

you're not going to get the greatest grade, but you can definitely get credit for just "hanging out with a bunch of hippies"

 
Relinquis:
It's entirely appropriate for an anthropology class... especially if they want to consider an "idealist" view of the movement and it's effects / causes and contrast it to an "empirical" view of the same cultural and social issues that form modern American society... I don't see how it's different from an anthropologist studying the uprisings in the Arab world, or any other social movement that is still in progress...

I don't see how this is a less valid academic form / area of study than that of organisational behaviour, industrial relations or the like within the business school... how are you guys going to invest / do business without understanding these issues in your own back yard, never mind doing business overseas... don't be myopic

broaden your horizons guys, it's not like they're going to get credit just for hanging out with a bunch of hippies for sex, drugs and rock n' roll...

Seriously, anthropology? The professor clearly states that she's biased, sounds more like a bullshit political science class to me.

 
Ruxin:
Relinquis:
It's entirely appropriate for an anthropology class... especially if they want to consider an "idealist" view of the movement and it's effects / causes and contrast it to an "empirical" view of the same cultural and social issues that form modern American society... I don't see how it's different from an anthropologist studying the uprisings in the Arab world, or any other social movement that is still in progress...

I don't see how this is a less valid academic form / area of study than that of organisational behaviour, industrial relations or the like within the business school... how are you guys going to invest / do business without understanding these issues in your own back yard, never mind doing business overseas... don't be myopic

broaden your horizons guys, it's not like they're going to get credit just for hanging out with a bunch of hippies for sex, drugs and rock n' roll...

Seriously, anthropology? The professor clearly states that she's biased, sounds more like a bullshit political science class to me.

Someone could say the same thing about Harvard professor of history Nail Ferguson's work on "the Ascent of Money" considering his political diatribes... Ultimately that work should stand on it's academic merit and how it holds up to criticism.

Back to OWS, even in the NY Post article in the OP (NY Post... really?) they quote her as saying she will endeavour to be objective when it comes to class or something to that effect.

Other posters have made valid points questioning how rigourous the assessments would be and whether conflicting political views would be tolerated if they held up academically. All fair points. What I don't get is the hostility towards subjecting the OWS movement to anthropological or other academic study...

Would you call "bullshit" if some MIT professor tried to model the OWS movement mathematically or economically?

 

Haha, “Inevitably, my experience will color the way I teach, but I feel equipped to teach objectively,” Appel told The Post. “It’s best to be critical of the things we hold most sacred."

Epic fail, unless she is questioning her own objectivity.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

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