There was one common fear at a panel hosted by the USC Open Dialogue Project Friday, despite the panelists being from a range of backgrounds: that USC students would lose the ability to think critically for themselves.
Panelist Richard Green asked the audience to guess how many of his business class students, when he asked the class, were aware of the Trump Administration’s compact.
The audience guessed two out of 28.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Green said. “Three.”
He said that his biggest fear was students not participating in these critical conversations.
“I would way rather have a student express an idea that I find ideologically hostile to me than not have any opinion at all about anything,” Green said.
The event, titled The Compact for Excellence in Higher Education: Faculty Reflections on USC’s Next Steps, was an attempt to expand access to discussion and understanding of different beliefs on campus. It was free and required no registration for the USC community, and offered a virtual Zoom option for those who could not attend in person.
The event gathered four faculty members to speak about their views on the state of USC after declining to join the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. They were Richard Green, professor at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and the Marshall School of Business; Anna Krylov, USC Associates Chair in Natural Sciences and professor of chemistry; Ryo Sanabria, assistant professor of gerontology; and James Moore, professor emeritus of industrial and systems engineering.
“Don’t hold back,” Robert Rasmussen, the J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in law and political science, and moderator of the speaker panel.
The event is part of Interim President Beong-Soo Kim’s focus on free speech on campus. USC earned an “F” grade on free speech from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression this year.
The professors had mixed views on USC’s rejection of the compact, although all of them agreed the document had flaws.
“I’m sure that people who have read through the compact have noticed many hypocritical things that are in it. For example, it says that we want open discourse,” Sanabria said. “It says that we want to have communications and accept all types of ideas, and then it completely erases the existence of certain people.”
Green agreed that he was relieved the compact was rejected. Moore, while acknowledging that the compact had flaws and ambiguity, had hoped Kim would accept its terms.
“I think universities have – to a large extent – lost their way and made them caricatures of what they’re supposed to be,” Moore said.
Later, he added that he thought the compact might bring a “refreshing” change.
“I thought the compact might be the jolt necessary to get us up over that berm where we can explore that different destiny than the one we’re trapped in right now,” Moore said.
Krylov also hoped to see the compact bring change, although she did not explicitly state she wanted it instituted.
“I was a little bit disappointed [USC rejected the compact] because I was hoping that USC could take a strong leadership role instead of outright rejection to come in with proposed changes to the compact, to be part of the conversation,” Krylov said.
She said that she wanted standardized tests reinstated and more feedback in admissions, especially for STEM students.
“Every year, we see a mixed cohort of STEM students coming in. Some are excellent, and they do well, and it’s a pleasure to help them develop. And some are failing really badly, and the reason is not their fault,” Krylov said.
She wanted to end grade inflation and report grading information, as well as provide more feedback on syllabus content.
“We should also institute incentives for faculty to be honest graders, not to give everyone an A,” Krylov said. “This is a little bit difficult because, as we all know, when students write their evaluations, very often they will say, ‘Oh, it’s a great class. I didn’t do anything and I got an A.’”
Green agreed that grade inflation was an issue and stated that he was upset that Marshall chose to get rid of their grade average maximum, commonly known to students as the “Marshall curve.”
Sanabria, while promoting Krylov’s hope for meritocracy, found that the compact lacked flexibility in implementation. Sanabria, who teaches an MCAT and GRE prep class, said that they teach students how to take standardized tests, rather than requiring actual skills, such as knowing math.
“The fact that you can afford $3,000 to take this class and learn a completely useless skill that will get you nowhere in life, that is not merit,” Sanabria said. “That is the ability to buy your way into something … merit has to be flexible.”
A primary focus of the conversation was the experiences of conservative students and faculty on campus. Krylov cited a working study done by professors at Claremont McKenna College that found three controversial issues to be taught with overwhelmingly liberal-leaning texts across America.
Moore said that conservative members had difficulty finding footing at USC. He said that he was one of the only faculty members willing to advise conservative groups on campus and that these conservative clubs were the only sources of invitations for conservative speakers. He criticized the deans for – in his personal experience – marginalizing conservative faculty in policy and personnel decisions.
“USC really is a miserable place to be outwardly, actively, openly conservative,” Moore said. “We don’t tend to confront this.”
Sanabria said that USC still had its share of conservatism. They said they had been told at donor events to dress more masculine and use pronouns that were not they/them.
They said that conservatives on campus feel as if they are losing, but they said that liberals felt the same way. Sanabria brought the discussion back to the first rule set by a moderator: don’t try to “win.”
“We are currently in a campus where both sides are losing,” Sanabria said. “Which is a really depressing and sad thing … we can coexist, disagree on essentially everything, as long as we are not hurting each other or oppressing each other in any way.”
Many faculty members also took a practical spin on the compact, recognizing the current budget issues USC is facing.
“I do like the tuition freeze,” Moore said. “The profitable student loan program has influenced administrations to be careless in how they budget. I think we’re all living through some of that right now … If I look at the cuts that have been made, and where they’ve been made and how they’ve been made, I can think of a bunch of people I would fire before the people we’ve already fired.”
Rasmussen asked the panelists, with their final thoughts, to share how individuals on campus could more freely express their views.
“I think we should lead by example,” Krylov said. “From my own experience, when I started writing about controversial issues, a number of students were reaching out to me privately and saying how they were happy to see that someone was putting out ideas which are going against the mainstream, and that they now feel more confident to discuss their views.”
Green said that he would give USC more credit for its ideological diversity. He said he has two close friends on USC’s campus: one who would consider him a “crazy right-wing economist” and the other who would call him a “crazy left-wing socialist.”
“But more broadly,” Green said, “I do worry about people not giving each other enough grace. There is a, ‘Oh, you used the wrong word, I’m now going to think less of you as a human being.’”
If you wish to learn more about USC’s Open Dialogue Project, the department is hosting USC Open Dialogue Project: What Is It? And How Does It Work? on Nov. 7 in Taper Hall, Room 114.