Educational resuscitation

Re: Saving Western education. Conrad Black, Nov. 25

Praise to Christie Blatchford, Barbara Kay, and Conrad Black for their prompt, thorough, and intelligent commentary on the recent travesty at Wilfred Laurier University regarding Lindsay Shepherd.

Their stand is necessary to challenging the insidious spread of “progressive” ideology and its corrosive effects, in particular upon education. Mr. Black’s logical and sensible recommendations for restructuring and revitalizing education overall are long overdue and should be taken seriously if we are to salvage the minds and character of our younger generations.

Unfortunately, an adept and unified educational administration capable of invoking those recommendations appears to be altogether unavailable. Mike Scapillato, Wakefield, Que. There are two basic means of saving Western Education from the postmodern, neoMarxist, totalitarian mindset that currently controls the university humanities departments.

First, a rise to prominence of rational intellectuals to debunk the post- moderns., Second, an end to forcing taxpayers to fund the postmodern professors.

The first has started to happen thanks to both private institutions and also social media shows led by Dave Rubin, Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Yaron Brook, etc., that have quickly been gaining widespread popularity. Unfortunately, the second has not begun, thus leaving the post- moderns free to censor rational ideas and discourse. It’s bad enough to be forced to pay for services one does not want to fund; it’s morally obscene if such services are socially destructive. Glenn Woiceshyn, Calgary Conrad Black’s recommendations for the resuscitation of education at Canadian universities are completely reasonable yet he may have overlooked how to respond to the problem of self- regulation.

The flip- flopping at WLU to public opinion points to the incapacity of some institutions to effectively apply existing policies, objectives and missions statements. The solution to universities falling below their own standards is not a change in leadership, but instead a change in organizational structure that will ensure accountability and consistency.

One step in that direction might be the creation of a Human Resources department with staff trained to undertake responsibilities for which most academics do not have any training or professional experience, including selection of candidates, interviews, hiring, discipline, job analysis, performance evaluations, job descriptions and dismissal.

Unless this measure is undertaken, personality cults, social recruitment and insider influence rather than the rule law will have the last say in determining the resolution to disputes and policy outcomes, which is also a form of self-inflicted cultural genocide. Andrew Fuyarchuk, Markham, Ont.