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Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind Mark Bauerlein

Grades, Majors, and Ideology

The Chronicle has a write-up of the study of campus bias, and Robin Wilson emphasizes the conclusion that liberal students share values and interests that send them into graduate school, while conservative students do not. That helps explain the heavy ideological imbalance among professors. Conservative students just don’t care for the pipeline process.

Another aspect of the report discloses some interesting numbers comparing choice of major, GPA, and ideology. (You can see the report by going here, then clicking in the right column on “Why Conservatives Don’t Get Doctorates—Woessner.”) A striking finding that bears upon discrimination in the classroom is the relative grades students earn. Matthew Woessner and April Kelly-Woessner examine thousands of student responses and conclude: “Variations in reported grades do not vary as a function of conservatism, but rather as a function of moderation.” The data show that the more moderate a student is, the lower the GPA. Strong opinions, apparently, make for better work.

When they compared the GPA of “merely liberal or conservative” students, they came up with “effectively identical” numbers. But, students on the far left beat out students on the far right by two-tenths of a point—not an insignificant difference.

That bit of info supports some of the claims in the campus bias debate that conservatives are, simply, dumber than liberals. Or, at least, more inflexible and narrow-minded.

There may be another explanation, though. When they examined choice of major, the researchers found that “only 9 percent of the far left and 18 percent of liberals major in professional fields, as compared to 33 percent of conservatives and 37 percent of the far right.” In fact, when they counted far-right students in humanities majors, they came up with only 28 students out of the nearly 3,000 total. This, in itself, is an important and distressing situation whose causes are worth further inquiry. For now, though, it raises questions about grading standards in humanities fields and in professional fields. Do the professional fields produce lower GPA’s overall, on average? Is it easier to get a B+ in an English course than in an undergrad business-school course? If so, do far-left students avoid professional courses because they’re too hard, too competitive?

Posted at 10:26:39 AM on March 3, 2008 | All postings by Mark Bauerlein

Comments

  1. I would suggest—based on the experience of teaching for 25 years in a university that has a B school—that the truth is the opposite: that business courses generally do not require the kind of analysis and argument that courses in the humanities do.

    — Tom Couser · Mar 3, 04:26 PM · #

  2. Could the data be adjusted to reflect where liberal vs. conservative students are located with respect to the average GPA in their specific major courses as opposed to average GPA in the university overall? Suppose, for the sake of example, the average GPA in English courses (as it is where I am an English professor) is a B. Where, then, would liberal vs. conservative students fall in their English courses, specifically? Then, for the sake of example, let us suppose that the average GPA in a business course is B- (my institution does not have a business school). Where would liberal vs. conservative students be with respect to that average in business courses, specifically?

    — Keva · Mar 3, 07:35 PM · #

  3. I teach at a university with a B school and a colleague of mine was originally a Business major at the very same university where I teach. He told me some interesting stories about how easy the courses were, including a day devoted to “professional dress” where a guest lecturer from Men’s Warehouse came to speak about how to dress as well as handing out his business card for 10%. Although I don’t know the ranking of our B school, I do think that Tom is right to suggest that business courses “do not require the kind of analysis and argument that courses in the humanities do”

    — Jordan · Mar 3, 09:50 PM · #

  4. Numbers and speculation do not an argument make. The survey only measures students at the start and end of college. What about all the PhD students who go after college? “The numbers” show that these supposedly conservative students— trusting, of course, that the surveys ideologically tagged each participant correctly—don’t want PhDs that badly. Why? Not because the liberal thought police have banished them for being too conservative. Not because of the pipeline(?) either. Here it is. Money is king to many college conservatives. If all humanities professorships paid six figures—and the jobs were in abundance—no doubt conservatives would be there. After graduation, the conservatives will race to the corporate teat, and start milking it for their fill of American dream. That profit impulse is strongly reinforced by the dominant culture of our country that also probably made them sound-bite conservatives, in the first place. “Liberal” students may do a teaching or academic job track because they want to give their life to public service and not profit. Or, you know the liberal students may believe in the Liberal values of a Liberal Arts education as vocation in itself, instead of a minor speed bump on the way to an MBA, J.D., M.D., and by that I mean BMW guaranteed. In years of being in Academia as an English student and instructor, I never once heard of a brilliant, or even, competent student, who was conservative, being specifically excluded or banished or punished for their views. The idea that conservatives have been bullied or bored out of academia by an overly liberal faculty underestimates the faculty and the students themselves. Hello this is the market talking. It’s not a liberal conspiracy, but Liberalism—specifically Capitalism—that keeps more conservatives out of the humanities PhDs. A PhD is not a good investment. The cost to benefit profile is far from ideal, regardless of your political ideals.

    — hari · Mar 4, 03:00 AM · #

  5. My post-doctoral mentor at the University of Washington used to say “There are only two kinds of people—those who believe there are only two kinds of people, and those who don’t.” Personally, I’m not so sure the dimension that ostensibly runs from “conservative” to “liberal” really exists, even if we think of (maybe ESPECIALLY if we think of) the most “liberal” as being the opposite of the most “conservative.” Part of the problem with these labels is that they mean different things to different people. For some people who think of themselves as conservative, “liberal” means “permissive,” and it is not surprising that they might prefer to send their progeny to colleges that emphasize indoctrination in “the conservative arts,” rather than exposure to the diverse array of concepts and ideas considered to be the “liberal arts” tradition. It is this liberal arts tradition that, at its best, challenges students to engage in critical thinking, and to open themselves to a world of new experiences, as well as diverse cultural traditions. Experiencing other cultures and ideas and meeting people who have different traditions and values does not necessarily make one more tolerant or more permissive or more “liberal,” but it may. Exposure only to people and places where one’s own background and values are reinforced as the only correct ones, certainly does not promote attitudes of tolerance. My guess is that those who are singleminded about faith or money or vocation (or, especially, all three) are likely to end up in somewhat different places than those who are led by a drive to explore, to discover passion, or to take risks in search of understanding or wisdom. But people integrate all these aspects of life in a remarkable variety of ways. I’m pretty confident that there are more than just two kinds of people.

    — Joe Erwin · Mar 4, 08:40 AM · #

  6. I’m torn. On the one hand, I’d like to point out the bias of the Woessners, HERI, and Bauerlein, whose set of assumptions and data do not seem to include the experience of “transfer” students and/or “non-traditional” students. (My guess is that the experience of both students and faculty in “non-traditional” higher education would demonstrate that our generalizations about liberals and conservatives in academe are ideologically motivated over-generalizations. Which leads me to what I am torn about—) On the other hand, the whole discussion reminds me of the proverbial debates about how many angels could fit on the head of a pin.

    — Tim · Mar 4, 08:40 AM · #

  7. Why would far left students avoid the professions? The professions are mostly pillars of the Establishment—law, medicine, clinical psychology, teaching, dentistry, etc. Not much lattitude there.

    — david · Mar 4, 09:03 AM · #

  8. Hmmm…. So, David, I think your sarcastic comment refers not just to “liberal” or “left-leaning” politically, but the radical FAR left, and maybe that is what this discussion is all about anyway. I really do not identify any more with the extreme left than the extreme right—both, in my opinion, adhere excessively to the thinking of others; that is, they allow their thinking to be controlled by ideology and distortion rather than objective evidence and practical wisdom. There is a lot of room for independent thought and constructive action in the middle.

    — Joe Erwin · Mar 4, 10:18 AM · #

  9. Interesting article and discussion. I’m wondering if there is any correlation between opposed students and professors. Would a left-leaning professors tend to give lower grades to right-leaning students?

    I’m not sure capitalism is the answer. Perhaps, conservatives focus on family and find that getting the PhD requires too much sacrifice and too little monetary gain, and then decide: I want a family and ministry instead.

    Here’s another point. I believe for many years conservatives have flocked to conservatives schools seeking degrees in ministry. Those who have obtained degrees in bible translation, missions, youth ministry, music, and so on probably do so to make an impact in the now. The conservative focus has been and is currently on helping physically and spiritually not ideologically.

    — ACR · Mar 4, 10:31 AM · #

  10. Two tenths of one percent, “…a significant difference.” Perhaps the article should be about why liberal students avoid staitistics in Uni. lol

    — Michael · Mar 4, 12:11 PM · #

  11. I’m pretty confident “conservative” is not just one thing. Being “socially conservative” or “environmentally conservative” or “economically conservative” can mean very different things. Religious conservatism is not identical with national socialism. Being intellectually liberal is not the same as being socialist or communist. There is, of course, some correlation between being convinced that your faith, to the exclusion of all others, requires that you commit to an evangelical life, that is, spreading the truth to that vast number of people who are living lives of error. And yet, there is something analogous for those who seek to convince others to be critical thinkers (at least in the same thought style as they are). I also see much of the missionary zeal in environmental conservation field workers as in evangelical zealots. My own bias is that there is much more validity to the conservation cause, but that does not keep the idealistic people on the front lines from being similarly motivated by what they consider the righteousness of their cause.

    — Joe Erwin · Mar 4, 12:24 PM · #

  12. Michael, the post says, “two-tenths of a point,” not “two tenths of a percent.” The scale in the study was 1 through 6.

    — Mark · Mar 4, 01:04 PM · #

  13. Okay, this is two-tenths of a grade point, isn’t it? Where does it say the scale was one to six? It might have been, I just don’t see anything here that suggests that. Aren’t these scales usually one to four (or one to five at the places that give extra pointst for A+, and that brings up the issue of grade inflation and whether everything is on the same scale anyway).

    In any case, two-tenths of a point is not much of a difference—especially considering that this is self report data, which is not exactly the same as an objective measure. Is someone lying? How would we know?

    — Joe Erwin · Mar 4, 01:18 PM · #

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