On Teaching How to “Narrow Gaps” at Liberal Universities: An Open Response to Bryan Stascavage

, by Antonio Gonzalez, Contributing Writer

Mr. Stascavage’s claim that somehow what he has learned at Wesleyan University could cement his vote for Donald Trump seems to make sense only within the framework of a self-proclaimed partisanship. As he suggests in his New York Times op-ed “My Liberal University Cemented My Vote for Trump,” Trump’s victory is, for Mr. Stascavage, vindication for Republican losses in 2008 and 2012.

The notion that a “widening gap” can somehow justify Mr. Trump’s election or that the University’s “liberal education” may be seen as the logical path toward this thinking deserves to be challenged. As the Director of Wesleyan’s new Center for Global Studies, I have been charged with rolling out a high-profile educational project aimed at “helping all members of the Wesleyan community achieve the knowledge, language skills, and sensitivity” needed for exercising “effective and responsible citizenship in an increasingly inter-dependent world” (wesleyan.edu/cgs). The center represents a template for advancing a mission that our first president, Willbur Fisk, outlined in the 1830s in the following terms: “Education should be directed in reference to two objects: the good of the individual educated and the good of the world.”

Most importantly, this project is based in a pedagogy that is profoundly ethical. We sharpen our students’ critical acumen while challenging them to develop the values that will serve them best in an increasingly interconnected world. We invite them to think about how governments might reconcile their responsibilities to their own citizenry with our obligations, as human beings, to humanity as a whole: how to reconcile national sovereignty with global citizenship. At no time do we compromise our commitment to the social decency that is the foundation of the bridges we must construct, in order to transcend the very borders that define us.

In short, we work tirelessly through our liberal education to narrow gaps—by teaching a diplomacy of both thinking and action. Our students learn to see the many ways in which human beings perform who they are and what they believe. With the deepest respect to Mr. Stascavage’s apparent partisanship, I challenge him to explain to us how Mr. Trump’s performance represents an embodied commitment to Wesleyan’s liberal values and to the principles of intercultural understanding and mutual respect that are so needed for narrowing gaps in today’s inter-dependent world.

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  • johnwesley

    Ah, there’s that pesky word, “liberal” again. Perhaps, before we shift the burden of proof to Bryan we should at least establish why liberal learning must always equate with a liberal political choice? I’d tread carefully before making that assertion.

  • Hughlon Thornbury

    “In short, we work tirelessly through our liberal education to narrow gaps—by teaching a diplomacy of both thinking and action.”
    No, you don’t. There is no diplomacy in the leftist universe. It is violence perpetrated by narrow minded bigots and racists who feel it is their right to touch other people without their permission and to destroy property that doesn’t belong to them. All else is just political window dressing and puppet theater.
    “I challenge him to explain to us …represents an embodied commitment to… the principles of intercultural understanding and mutual respect”
    You first. Consider yourself challenged to explain how leftist faculty and teachers teach understanding or mutual respect? Back to the touching a person or their property without their permission. That is your Achilles heel. Your kryptonite. Your don’t teach these children to respect the right or others to hold and express ideas and beliefs they don’t like or agree with. Worst of all, you teach them it is okay to violate the personal safety and property of others as a form of expression. You will never win because you don’t respect the fundamental sanctity of the life and liberty of other people you disagree with. Now, explain that’s not true. Better yet, show us.

    • Ralphiec88

      This is a bizarre inversion of reality. You claim to understand the “leftist universe” and then lay out sweeping generalizations that are out of step with the right. For example, you claim to be against “Touching a person or their property without permission”? Do you mean state-mandated physically invasive and unnecessary tests on women as manysupposed conservatives have advocated? Or supporting socking someone who disagrees with you, as the president-elect has? “Fundamental sanctity of life and liberty”? The president-elect believes that’s not fundamental, it’s only reserved for certain religions.Perhaps instead of making angry claims about some nebulous “other”, you should spend a little more time looking at whether your own views are truly conservative.

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