Wednesday, November 23, 2005
I am an Orientalist not a "Diversity Consultant"
One of the jobs I was going to apply to has the following statement in its job advertisement. The University is committed to building a culturally diverse education environment. Applicants are requested to include in their cover letter information about how they will further this goal. It is too bad too because it is one of the very few tenure track jobs that mentions Central Asia. But, it took me forever to rewrite my current cover letter and I have no idea what they mean by "culturally diverse" yet alone how I could further it as a history lecturer. This type of politically correct nonsense is why Johnny can't find Tashkent on a map.
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3 comments:
the silliest one i have seen lately was an advert for someone to build scaffolding. the post was described as a 'tubular technician'
I don't know, JOP, I don't think the poor grasp of geography today can really be blamed on political correctness. Frankly, I rather suspect that Americans have NEVER been all that geographically conscious.
Frank, it was meant sacarastically. But, placing ideological requirements on lecturers does not help anything. For one thing they have ensured that most serious scholars such as myself will not even bother to apply for this position. Honestly, I do think higher education was better in this country when it was run by old style Cold War liberals rather than the 60s radicals who succeeded them.
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