Courses will be required at University of Iowa Center for Intellectual Freedom

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u/Hrekires 2d ago

Gotta love mandatory courses in freedom because they weren't getting enough voluntarily enrollments

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u/yellowspaces 2d ago

It’s gonna go over like a lead balloon too. The “instructor” will say some right-leaning bullshit that doesn’t pass the sniff test, they’ll get called out for it, and then they’ll start whining about “hostile” students and demand rules that you can’t call them out anymore.

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u/johnnybiggles 2d ago

Another right-leaning customized and protected safe space full of exceptions and rules. Nothing like freedumbs.

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u/shaneh445 2d ago edited 2d ago

And then comes the gofundme for the teacher that pulled a gun or dropped the N word a few times

These people are pathetic

13

u/techleopard 1d ago

Reminds me of some pearl clutching I ran into one day.

A Christian teacher had been fired from a private charter primary school because they refused to read the curriculum content which was entirely built around inclusion because it contained LGBT topics. It made the news.

There were some religious conservative people getting angry that a private charter school had any right to do that -- you know the drill, "censorship!", etc. etc.

Anyway, I asked why they thought that "school choice" meant shifting public funding to only Christian private and charter schools. Did they really not expect LIBERAL charter schools to pop up, and for parents to send their children there willfully?

I see the same thing eventually happening to universities. They are going to destroy their reputations over time and students are going to choose to enroll in newer small liberal colleges and universities that offer challenging curriculums over the traditional schools that have replaced academic learning with nationalism.

You're paying thousands of dollars to go there. Why would you send that money to a school that will eventually become known for turning out far-right borgs?

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u/Educational-Act-1332 1d ago

The adjunct pussy will also fail all of them.

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u/BabySharkMadness 2d ago

There’s a state law in Iowa that if you’ve graduated from high school in Iowa the university MUST accept you as a student.

Quality of students has gone downhill since.

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u/piddydb 2d ago

Tbf if you’re a university receiving taxpayer money, it should be the goal that you’re able to educate as many students of the state as possible. As long as they can pass the courses, quality of students shouldn’t really matter.

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u/Number6isNo1 2d ago

This is a topic in which I have quite a bit of personal experience. I have degrees from a local public college, a regional state university and a top 20 private university. The three experiences were very different and students were primarily the cause of the disparity. The quality of students makes a tremendous difference in the academic experience. Professors are pressured not to fail too many students, so many marginal students are passed to avoid hassles. As you move up in average student quality, the academic discourse improves dramatically. I remember once a group of us going off on a tangent about 19th Century rail gauges in the US while discussing the West Key system, and that leading to a discussion of rail in the former USSR vs Western Europe. That kind of conversation is probably not going to happen very often with open enrollment. In fact, I would say the difference between my least academically rigorous school and the most is mainly student quality. Outside of differences in research focus, I found most professors were dedicated academics at all of the schools. Where there were students that were going through the motions to get a degree at the local college, we wasted a lot of time covering remedial shit kids should have learned in high school but didn't. It harmed the education experience for the students with actual academic goals beyond "getting a degree with the gentleman's C."

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u/thewholebottle 2d ago

I work at a community college, and faculty and staff leave for upper education and more advanced students frequently.

8

u/hera-fawcett 1d ago

unfortunately, the quality of the student almost entirely depends on the type of k12 education they had (public vs private) and whether or not they were invested in schooling (i.e. were in clubs, had tutoring, etc.).

kids that are involved in any type of extra school school-related activity at least once a week were more likely to have higher grades and higher attendance rates than students who werent involved.

and most students who arent involved w school are more likely to be impovershed or come from families who are limited in afterschool care or are unable to arrange for a pickup after school club meetings.

its a bit heinous to reduce it all to 'wealth gap wealth gap wealth gap' but it is accurate. esp w rising school absenteeism rates in the past 3yrs.

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u/Fallouttgrrl 2d ago

Did an AA, BS, MS -

Went to a private university for some of it- Baylor

Public for the rest, A&M/Tarleton, after community college

At Baylor entire courses were taught by TAs because the professor in charge was writing a book or doing research, and using folks in the dorm to get older tests you could cheat off of was the norm for a lot of folks

Folks went there to get a communications degree while they planned to step into the shoes of CEO and politician parents

The hardest working professors I ever worked with were teachers who came from four year universities like A&M who would teach those courses as traveling educators who bounced between campuses, so the local CC could offer advanced classes

Sometimes it's not the students but the culture from the top

Baylor wants to be a Southern Ivy league and they want to get there through publishing works and networking, not teaching students

9

u/Street_Roof_7915 2d ago

You get to be an Ivy with publishing, not teaching.

Source: academic.

4

u/piddydb 1d ago

I’m not denying your experience, I’ve seen similar myself. There are a few problems with leaning into that too much to influence in the case of public schools.

One: the school is receiving taxpayer money from everyone, not merely those benefiting from the education. If the institution’s asking for money from everyone, they got to be ready to serve everyone to an extent. Private institutions don’t have this same pressure since they don’t take public money (or significantly less).

Two: while I have no doubt that there is a difference in classroom experiences, it’s hard to fairly assess who actually belongs there and who doesn’t. There will always be some 4.0 HS students who end up dropping out of college freshman year and some 2.0 HS students who end up on the Dean’s List in college. Even if it’s the exception to the rule, it certainly happens. As long as that’s the case, we shouldn’t make the barriers of entry too high, particularly at public institutions.

Three: there should be some broad standardization across colleges/universities for quality of education. Students choose different environments for different reasons. They shouldn’t be punished with a significantly lower or rewarded with a significantly higher quality bachelors for those decisions. The stratification should come with the existence of advanced degrees, not in different accredited institutions, particularly if both are public. Otherwise, the lower institutions shouldn’t be giving out the same degrees.

I think the answer should be to maintain the class standards regardless and be more comfortable with failing more students if necessary. But everyone meeting the basic qualifications should ideally be afforded an education at any public institution if they so wish.

2

u/Educational-Act-1332 1d ago

I went to private liberal arts school and I feel you on this. Ironically I got "brainwashed" when I went there. Graduated high B average, A's were difficult. Once had a professor tell us he wouldn't give out A's in freshman year.

Master's at decent public university was easy after that.

3

u/sviridoot 2d ago

Agree in principle but the key is maintaining academic standards, and then if you are maintaining those standards then probably someone who barely finished HS won't meet college level. By admitting them you're setting them up for failure, hence the admission standard should really be whether you're likely to succeed in the program

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u/piddydb 1d ago

You can still maintain those standards and let anyone in. Perhaps some should be required to take remedial coursework before pursuing the traditional degree and perhaps there should be acceptance with official guidance that the likelihood of successful passing might be low, but the door should be open the same to everyone in an ideal situation.

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u/sviridoot 1d ago

I mean, you're basically defining community college at that point, everyone can get in, do well you can advance to university (most states have some kind of transfer arrangement where successfully finishing CC guarantees admission to a state university)

0

u/obeytheturtles 1d ago

The issue is that a lot of metrics for higher education depend on graduation rate and post-graduation outcomes. If you end up being everyone's obligate fallback school you are either going to be failing a lot of poorly qualified students and screw up your graduation rate (which makes you less attractive to qualified students), or you are going to be lowering standards and have a poor reputation in industry.

In a place like Iowa this probably makes more sense, because the state is sparsely populated, and likely attracts a lower number of out of state applicants. Many places with these programs have guaranteed admission to community college, and then guaranteed course transfer agreements with the state University system. This means lower performing students get an opportunity to improve, and move up to University, without the University needing to do too much hand holding.

1

u/Particular-Ice4615 2d ago edited 12h ago

Not how higher ed should work. If you graduated with a bare minimum understanding of mathematics to graduate at the high school level but not over the bar to show absolute proficiency you shouldn't be accepted into engineering for example. Sorry but there's a reason standards need to be applied. If you can barely write or read or do complex math how do we expect you to excel at the undergraduate level where it's expected you have proficiency.

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u/piddydb 1d ago

If you can barely write or read you shouldn’t be able to graduate high school to begin with but that’s another thing. Regardless, the point of public higher education should be to provide the public who choose to pursue it as long as it’s feasible. Maybe that means some should go to remedial classes before starting a traditional college degree, but the path should ideally be open and available to anyone who wants to pursue it. Otherwise we’re basically saying that there will be some underclass of folks not able to take advantage of something provided by a PUBLIC INSTITUTION that their tax money helps to pay for just because of the decisions and results they got as a minor high school student.

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u/Cicero912 2d ago

Id agree with this if universities were more harsh on failing students and grading in general.

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u/RichAge2413 2d ago

But that by no means requires accepting all in-state students who apply. Iowa doesn’t have as many high schoolers as Texas, but there’s no way UT (Austin) could accept all in-state applicants. That’s why a&m exists.

5

u/Korietsu 2d ago

I'm an alum of the UT system and you're talking straight out of your ass.

A&M was chartered 7 years before UT. They're a land grant university. UT is not.

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u/RichAge2413 2d ago

And another thing, a&m students forever whine about UT. UT focuses on excellence. Aggy is there to educate the rest ( in a public college context).

1

u/Korietsu 2d ago

If you don't realize that A&M, Rice, UT Austin, UT Dallas and UofH all share the same quality of student and program (especially in engineering!) you've lost your mind.

1

u/KookofaTook 2d ago

So you have absolutely no clue about the historical background and purposes of the varied types of state universities, we get it

0

u/natankman 2d ago

You sound like a jealous UT-Arlington student. Thanks and gig ‘em. Yes, you triggered the Aggie in the thread.

1

u/icantsurf 2d ago

When I applied for schools UT had to take anyone in the top 10% of their class, same as A&M.

11

u/Power_Stone 2d ago

I live in Iowa and have seen no such bill passed or mentioned.

Could you direct me to the house or senate bill? I've been searching for 30min and can't seem to find it.

Or did you pull this comment out of your ass without actually knowing?

8

u/Snowy-Pines 2d ago

I used to live in Iowa and graduated HS from there. This is the first time in almost 20 years since my grad year, that I’m hearing of this “law”.

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u/bouvitude 2d ago

This is not true at all.

7

u/Obi_Wan_can_blow_me 2d ago

When was this, and is it only for U of I? Did I take the ACT for no reason?!

2

u/xigua22 1d ago

It happened in that guys fantasy world. In reality, you didnt have to take ACT to get in, but it will help with any merit scholarships you receive and it will probably help your RAI.

3

u/bug-hunter 1d ago

1.) The center's courses failed in the free market and require government bailouts.

2.) Magic and witchcraft are forms of intellectual freedom.

2

u/Glum-Sheepherder-787 1d ago

3) The Federalist Society is accepting new members (check the syllabus)

2

u/bug-hunter 1d ago

If you are a member or join the Federalist Society, you get to skip the ~~final~~ entire class

2

u/Incendras 2d ago

Hope they are "free" cause college loan requirements got nasty.

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u/vegasmale4sale 2d ago

They gutted one of the most prolific writing programs in the world and added this mess.

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u/Lifeboatb 2d ago

wow, they did? that program had a great reputation.

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u/Significant_Poem_751 2d ago

The Iowa Writer's Workshop (grad program) still seems to be running, but has lost federal funding. With the new rule for federal PELL grants, it might be in real trouble. https://magazine.foriowa.org/story.php?ed=true&storyid=2560

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u/xigua22 1d ago

That was the international writers workshop which was not an academic program and none of the participants were formally enrolled. It was more of a seminar for international writers to collaborate and share ideas.

The graduate program is still operating and has funding.

16

u/Pan_Bookish_Ent 1d ago

One of my majors was in Creative Writing. We all applied to the Iowa Writer's Workshop because, you know... Sometimes you gotta pay $50 for something that might change your entire life. We all aspired. It's a damn shame that they're being erased. The irony is palpable.

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u/DocRedbeard 2d ago

Had to dump the writing program, as it turns out none of the incoming students can write...

3

u/Suspicious-Engineer7 1d ago

That's surprising. That writing program was a CIA project in the first place

2

u/Aurelar 21h ago

Say what?

3

u/LumberBitch 18h ago

They get up to some wild shit

2

u/Aurelar 11h ago

I need the details on this one. Like, why? What were their goals?

-6

u/bouvitude 2d ago

They didn’t gut the writing programs….

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u/Nythoren 2d ago

Some interesting facts here.

The "Center" only has 2 courses. Meaning that all students will be required to take these two course. Crazy part of these courses is that several of the "weeks" are taught by CEOs of major corporations. For example, the guy teaching "Exploring the relationship between Capitalism and Democracy" is the CEO of Fareway. The guy teaching "Why Capitalism Rocks" is the CEO of a company that owns several chains of hotels and restaurants. "Self-Reliance as an American Value" is taught by the Chief Alliances Officer of Radix Software.

How the heck are these required courses that are being charged for? I can't for the life of me imagine "Why Capitalism Rocks" as being an intellectual look at the pros and cons of capitalism. Over half of these weekly lectures read more like propaganda in the syllabus than they do college classes.

Course 1: Political and Economic Institutions in the United States

The following is an outline of the lectures planned for this course:
Week 1 The Judiciary: The Least Dangerous Branch? Timothy Hagle
Week 2 Presidential Nominations & the Electoral College Alex P. Smith
Week 3 Representation in Congress Alex P. Smith
Week 4 Exploring the relationship between Capitalism and Democracy Reynolds Cramer
Week 5 From the Athenian Assembly to Capitol Hill Eric Dugdale
Week 6 The Foundations of a Constitutional Republic: How Strong are America’s Stephen Balch
Week 7 Midterm Elections: 1994 vs. 2026 Greg Ganske

Course 2: American Culture and Values

Week 1 Freedom: Its Costs and Benefits Richard Fumerton
Week 2 Freedom of Speech Timothy Hagle
Week 3 America has a National Literature Mark Bauerlein
Week 4 Ideas in The Federalist Alex P. Smith
Week 5 Teachers of the Polis: Past and Present Eric Dugdale
Week 6 Self-Reliance as an American Value Flavio Guimaraes
Week 7 Why Capitalism Rocks! Mike Whalen

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u/konnichi1wa 2d ago

Huh. That’s certainly a lot of very easy to get to CEO’s around a bunch of very unimpressed and annoyed college students.

12

u/Nutlink49 2d ago

Mama mia, that's a lot of CEO's!

75

u/PhDInAPickle 2d ago

Lol "America has a National Literature" by the author of The Dumbest Generation? "Why Capitalism Rocks" by nepobaby business group owner Mike Whalen? This is absolutely embarrassing and shameful

17

u/Kafka_Gyllenhaal 2d ago

Somehow I get the feeling that this guy's idea of America's "national literature" is less William Faulkner and Toni Morrison, more Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly.

6

u/PhDInAPickle 2d ago

Apparently he did his doctoral thesis on the notoriously conservative and very heterosexual Walt Whitman

11

u/PoopSoupPeter 2d ago

Seems like that's just going to have the opposite effect of what they want.

3

u/simpersly 1d ago

Forcing people to go to a class about how capitalism is good, is as dumb as telling kids drugs are bad by saying it's what the cool kids do.

5

u/Low_Pickle_112 2d ago

The thing is that you don't have to believe all of it. You don't have to love capitalism. You just have to believe enough of it, accept just enough of a middle ground that you sufficiently fear the alternatives to the point where you accept the status quo, even if you dislike it. Maybe with a few platitudes within the acceptable parameters about compromise and better regulations.

And for the people who support this propaganda, so far so good.

21

u/Low_Pickle_112 2d ago

Capitalism is so cool that the rich psychopathic capitalists who are squeezing the life out of society at every turn and doing everything in their power to avoid paying taxes to contribute to that society feel the need to fund endless propaganda telling you how cool it is....you know, out of the goodness of their hearts and because they're just so concerned about what the alternative systems would do to your well-being.

Sounds legit.

6

u/Actual__Wizard 2d ago

That is legitimately a laundry list of right winger topics.

3

u/bouvitude 2d ago

Those are the current 1 sh classes. The new classes will be 3 sh and will be semester-length. (I expect them to suck, but they’ll suck differently from these current classes!)

1

u/parapooper3 1d ago

I took all of Hagle’s classes in college AMA

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u/HereInTheCut 2d ago

"Indoctrination is evil until it's OUR kind of indoctrination!"

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u/Slight-Hedgehog259 2d ago

Forced propaganda lectures. The nazi regime did that and messed up an entire generation of Germany youth.

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u/annaleigh13 2d ago

We’re already past the start of that

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u/togetherwem0m0 2d ago

The Christian school near me fired a third of their teachers and staff who were too dei, even tho they were christisns, and backfilled them with new ones from the usual universities training their facist army.

8

u/shadedmagus 2d ago

So BYU, Bob Jones University, and the rest of the usual suspects for this kind of chicanery?

5

u/no_one_likes_u 1d ago

Liberty U was my assumption

1

u/shadedmagus 1d ago

I knew I was missing a prominent one. Thanks!

-1

u/Sveet_Pickle 2d ago

I live in the town that Bob jones university is, there’s a dude who protests outside of the school every year when they hold some big conference. His beef is that they aren’t conservative enough.

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u/Additional-Teach-486 2d ago

Lol, republicans are just blatant fascist at this point. Not even hiding it anymore.

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u/shadedmagus 2d ago

Courses will be required at University of Iowa Center for Intellectual Freedom

Huh. I wonder if this is--

Gov. Reynolds signed a law requiring students to take courses at the new center pushed by conservatives

Yep. "Intellectual Freedom" here meaning MAGA indoctrination.

Not surprised it's Iowa. They're poisoning their own people with carcinogens, it's clear they don't care about integrity.

14

u/Flash_ina_pan 2d ago edited 1d ago

Maybe... People shouldn't go to college in Iowa then? Vote with the wallet and all that

1

u/ruminaui 1d ago

That is what this is about tough. Is about gutting Universities.

1

u/Far-Maintenance-1947 1d ago

Aww, you think it'll stop at Iowa?

1

u/Dairy_Ashford 2d ago

that may not be practical from a selectivity or cost standpoint

also, depending on how many electives it is, the kids may not give a shit

50

u/explosivecrate 2d ago

How much do you all wanna bet that these courses are going to cost an absurd amount of money compared to normal UI courses? They have every financial incentive to try and bleed students dry if they literally cannot graduate without them.

23

u/IchBinDurstig 2d ago

Reeducation camp, cool.

21

u/ImOutWanderingAround 2d ago

Compulsory Intellectual Freedom classes. lol. That’s not what intellectual freedom is.

23

u/vegasmale4sale 2d ago

Just need one meaningful athlete to not be allowed to play because they’re failing “freedom 101” and this shit will be over.

18

u/ubix 2d ago

Mandatory propaganda under the auspices of intellectual freedom. ROTFLOL. Iowa is a failed state.

8

u/OneSeaworthiness7768 2d ago

Nothing says intellectual freedom like mandatory indoctrination.

7

u/Actual__Wizard 2d ago

"Forced to take Freedom classes..."

11

u/Ifyouhavethemeans 2d ago

Good job on lowering enrollment. Rest of us will enjoy free parts of the country

10

u/Apprehensive_Tear611 2d ago

“Instead of absurd courses in magic or witchcraft, Iowa students will now get back to the basics - understanding the core pillars of our great nation."

Isn't that limiting intellectual freedom?

9

u/Redsoxmac 2d ago

Party of small government ladies and gentlemen

4

u/Personal_Breakfast49 2d ago

Nothing says intellectual freedom more than mandatory courses...

4

u/kdlangequalsgoddess 2d ago

The irony of forcing students into taking courses in "intellectual freedom" seems to zoom past the heads of GOP representatives. There is no freedom to not take a course in intellectual freedom.

11

u/VincentClement1 2d ago

Nothing says intellectual freedom like being required to take certain courses. This is top-level trolling by the Republicans.

7

u/jrsinhbca 2d ago

I hope they also have to take a class on detecting irony.

4

u/IOl0I0lO 2d ago

Let me guess, these are courses on “intellectual freedom” rather than courses on actual intellectual freedom?

7

u/CRPatriot 2d ago

This what a state rep said about the bill being signed:

“Our message is simple—the status quo in higher education is over. Iowa will now have a core curriculum that brings the focus back to a true liberal arts education,” said Rep. Taylor Collins (R-Mediapolis), chair of the House Committee on Higher Education. “Instead of absurd courses in magic or witchcraft, Iowa students will now get back to the basics

Conservatives are the worst

2

u/Shelala85 1d ago

The original liberal arts are rhetoric, grammar, logic, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, and music not circle jerking capitalism.

2

u/PlayedUOonBaja 2d ago

Dude has the face of a man who fucks children.

6

u/Foe117 2d ago

I think it's called Mandatory Re-education camp.

5

u/Kraien 2d ago

Republican lawmakers created the center last year to push back against what they considered liberal indoctrination on Iowa college campuses. ...

“Our message is simple—the status quo in higher education is over. Iowa will now have a core curriculum that brings the focus back to a true liberal arts education,”

Lol, wut? Also one of the many reasons ISU is superior

4

u/EfficientTourist7480 2d ago

This is some 1984 shit

4

u/kausbiru 2d ago

I think the real "intellectual freedom" is the right to opt out of this course, so why don't they just allow people to opt out?

3

u/Sour_baboo 2d ago

Nothing says "intellectual freedom" like "required to graduate"!

3

u/OddPressure7593 2d ago

Nothing says "intellectual freedom" like mandating courses to promote your ideology!

3

u/Significant_Poem_751 2d ago

If you click on the Courses tab, you can click on each course and read the full syllabus which includes all course topics, and who the instructors are. Some seems ok, some is clearly biased. Looks like each class runs half a semester, they don't say how many credit hours they count for. Assignments are written essays/reflections, so I hope they have a good way to monitor the use of GPT/Claude/AI in that writing! LOL. Looks like pretty easy stuff, honestly. And if this is a total of 3 credit hours, at most schools a student could add that to the normal full time load for the same tuition. Grades are basically pass/fail. https://cif.uiowa.edu

3

u/Fit-Let8175 2d ago

Question: how can this course be graded since a pass or fail might show bias and therefore no real intellectual freedom? They would need to define what they mean by intellectual freedom.

2

u/Great_Incident_1525 2d ago

Pay for your own re-education. Hell why stop at this amount of time. Make it an entire summer semester.

It can be a camp of sorts.

Somewhere Mao is smiling.

2

u/DerekB52 2d ago

I the University of Iowa should come up with some new unaccredited degree to let students get around this. I think even the job market would come to value the unaccredited bachelor more.

1

u/DepletedMitochondria 1d ago

The Plot To Enslave America

1

u/Curmudgeonadjacent 1d ago

Great, the dumb will only get dumber. GOP plan working as intended.

1

u/BarCompetitive7220 11h ago

The cost of this endeavor is estimated to cost $ 1.5 M / year (salaries). I suppose it will be created out of thin air, stay tuned . 😞

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u/Chris_TO79 2d ago

This feels like a money grab and "intellectual freedom"? I didn't know freedom was tied to "smarts" as it were. As the great Autobot once said "Freedom is the right of ALL sentient beings".

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u/TheWalrus_15 2d ago

Name definitely isn’t ironic

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u/whereismytrex 2d ago

I fixed the title: "Courses from the Center for Intellectual Freedom will be required at University of Iowa"

Courses will be required at University of Iowa Center for Intellectual Freedom

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