Steve McGuire Profile picture
May 15, 2024 19 tweets 6 min read Read on X
The Princeton protestors have to be some of saddest/funniest of all.

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First, they leaked documents (adapted from Columbia) outlining their plans and strategy before they even started:
nationalreview.com/news/princeton…
Then they set up an encampment…
…only to take it down five minutes later after being threatened with arrest:
Next they occupied Clio Hall with faculty members…
But the faculty members left before getting arrested and at least one later called herself a “non-participant observer”:
The students were immediately arrested:
nationalreview.com/news/chaos-at-…
In the aftermath, they shut down the “Black Princeton” group chat after messages were leaked to @abigailandwords and on Reddit:
nationalreview.com/2024/05/the-sa…
As the encampment continued, they began a hunger strike:
They were not allowed to have tents, BTW, and public safety even took down a tarp they had strung up:
So they were forced to sleep under tarps on the ground, sometimes in the rain.

They made Blair Witch Project clips updating their status:

Meanwhile, they infamously complained that Princeton wasn’t checking their vitals even though they were shaking and immunocompromised:

They did have supporters, though. Several non-participant observer faculty at Princeton wrote letters and op-eds, while others joined the hunger strikers for a 24-hour fast:
It turned out to be a “rotary hunger strike” (probably after the original strikers saw the faculty go out for brunch on Saturday): Image
Finally, President Eisgruber said the encampment had to end and made some shameful concessions that were still totally unsatisfactory to the protestors.
Image
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When admin showed up the next day to discuss clearing the camp, the students put out a call for their fellow students to encircle the camp but no one came. Image
Today they announced the hunger strike is over, noting the university administration has “been forced to tone down their violent rhetoric.”

Image
And while they have events planned for today, the encampment is expected to be shut down as the university plans for year-end activities. Image

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More from @sfmcguire79

Nov 17
Harvard Professor Jill Lepore says she almost left the academy during the height of wokeness and that she’s ashamed she didn’t speak up.

She says it was “miserable,” and she’s not sure why she stayed. Image
She recalls declining to publish (at the time) an essay critical of #metoo because she was told it would ruin her life: Image
And she says a sign that things have changed would be whether people would say that what happened to Professor Ronald Sullivan was wrong: Image
Read 5 tweets
Nov 16
“Although it once seemed like a good idea to give every child his or her own device, it’s clear that those policies have been a failure.”

💯

School-issued laptops distract students at school and home, expose them to things they shouldn’t see, and hurt learning.

🧵 Image
Great column by @jean_twenge:

She observes that “the decline in test scores started well before the pandemic, around 2012. One obvious culprit is smartphones, which became popular just as test scores started to decline.”
But “phones are not the only electronic devices students use at school. These days, nearly every middle and high school student — and a good number in the elementary grades as well — brings a laptop or tablet to school and uses it at home for homework.”
Read 8 tweets
Nov 11
NEW: UC San Diego has released a new report documenting a “steep decline in the academic preparedness” of its freshmen.

The number of entering students needing remedial math has exploded from 1/100 to 1/8.

They’ve had to create a second remedial class covering elementary and middle school math skills in addition to the one covering gaps from high school.

🧵Image
The report also shows that nearly 1/5 students fail to meeting entry level writing requirements. Image
“This deterioration coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on education, the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools.” Image
Read 15 tweets
Oct 30
These Harvard students…did not react well to the report on grade inflation:

“The whole entire day, I was crying. I skipped classes on Monday, and I was just sobbing in bed because I felt like I try so hard in my classes, and my grades aren’t even the best. It just felt soul-crushing.”

“What makes a Harvard student a Harvard student is their engagement in extracurriculars. Now we have to throw that all away and pursue just academics. I believe that attacks the very notion of what Harvard is.”

“I can’t reach my maximum level of enjoyment just learning the material because I’m so anxious about the midterm, so anxious about the papers, and because I know it’s so harshly graded. If that standard is raised even more, it’s unrealistic to assume that people will enjoy their classes.”Image
One more:

A student says harder grading “could take a serious toll on students’ mental health.”

“‘It makes me rethink my decision to come to the school,’ she said. ‘I killed myself all throughout high school to try and get into this school. I was looking forward to being fulfilled by my studies now, rather than being killed by them.’”
Read 5 tweets
Oct 27
Harvard reports that it is “failing to perform the key functions of grading.”

Its grading practices are “damaging the academic culture of the College.”

“Faculty newly arrived at Harvard are surprised at how leniently our courses are graded.”

Students say academics feel “fake.” Image
Grade inflation is out of control:

60% of grades are now A’s.

That’s risen from 26% just 20 years ago. Image
The median GPA at graduation has risen from 3.29 in 1985 to 3.83 last year. Image
Read 8 tweets
Aug 28
“They were cracking up not simply because grades had gotten so high but because they knew just how little students were doing to earn them.”

Harvard faculty recognize that grade inflation has become absurd: Image
“In 2011, 60 percent of all grades at Harvard were in the A range (up from 33 percent in 1985). By the 2020–21 academic year, that share had risen to 79 percent.”
“Outside observers might still think of grades as an objective assessment of a student’s work, and therefore a way to differentiate between levels of achievement. But many professors seem to conceive of them as an endlessly adaptable participation trophy.”
Read 9 tweets

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