Another study on why few conservative profs

[Guest Len]

We had another thread about this topic going somewhere, but for the life of me I can't find it. Anyway, this new study is interesting and in general supports a position I have at least informally had for some time, that of self-selection. I would go so far as to also suggest that since many MBAs attain their degrees later in life (in other words they decide to get an advanced degree at a time later on then their senior year in college), this may help explain why the MBA pool is more politically diverse. I have not fully read the original study yet, but so far it seems intriguing. I know we have some college students on TGO, I'm wondering what you think.

The Conservative Pipeline Problem

Colleges have been increasingly competing to offer “family friendly†policies — in the hopes of attracting the best academic talent from a pool of Ph.D.’s that includes both more women than ever before as well as many men who take parenting responsibilities seriously. A new study suggests that such policies may be important for another group that believes its needs aren’t fully addressed in academe: conservatives.

The study — “Left Pipeline: Why Conservatives Don’t Get Doctorates†— argues that the much debated minority status for conservatives in higher education may be the result of differing priorities of graduating college seniors of different political persuasions. The study presents evidence that conservatives are significantly more likely than liberals — at the point when college students decide whether to apply to graduate school — to value raising a family and having money. In contrast, liberals at that point in their lives are significantly more likely to value writing original works.

The authors of the study do not dispute that conservatives are a distinct minority in academe and that the imbalance is problematic. They also hold open the possibility — much proclaimed by other authors at the conference of the American Enterprise Institute where all of the work was presented — that there may be bias against conservatives (although they question whether this has been proven). But the authors of the work on the pipeline say there is considerable evidence that could show conservative self-selection out of academic careers.

“We’re not suggesting causality,†said Matthew Woessner, an assistant professor of public policy at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg. “There’s much more work that needs to be done.†But he said that the evidence in the paper pointed away from any one explanation for the ideological imbalance. “There’s a lot of nuance in the findings. What we are showing is that there are a lot of little pieces that contribute to the overall imbalance, not one single thing,†he said. Woessner wrote the paper with April Kelly-Woessner, an associate professor of political science at Elizabethtown College.

The husband-and-wife social science team based their findings on analysis they did from national surveys of freshmen and seniors conducted by the University of California at Los Angeles’s Higher Education Research Institute. They found that in both choices of majors and in personal values, conservatives seem to be taking themselves off the track for academic careers well before graduate school. The authors did not find evidence of statistically significant differences in grades or measures of academic performance, so most of the report is based on the premise that interests and experiences are at play, not aptitude.

For starters, the paper finds that conservatives are much more likely to pick majors in professional fields — areas that tend to put students on the fast track for an M.B.A. (or for a job) more than a Ph.D. Only 9 percent of students on the far left and 18 percent of liberals major in professional fields, compared to 33 percent of conservatives and 37 percent of those who identify as being on the far right.

Further, the study finds that not only (as has been reported many times previously) do students who identify as liberal outnumber those who identify as conservative, but that those who are liberal are much more likely to consider a Ph.D. The UCLA survey of seniors found that only 13 percent of all students were considering a Ph.D. But the numbers were significantly higher for those on the left (24 percent of the far left and 18 percent of liberals) than on the right (11 percent of the far right and 9 percent of conservatives).

The study also finds significant differences among colleges seniors in values that they care about — including values that might make someone more or less likely to enter a Ph.D. program. For instance, in a values study, the seniors were asked to rank certain experiences on a four-point scale (with 1 as not important, 2 as somewhat important, 3 as very important, and 4 as essential). The results show a divide.

Student Values and Ideology

Raising a Family

Being Well Off Financially

Writing Original Works

Developing Meaningful Philosophy of Life

Far left

2.58

2.05

2.19

3.03

Liberal

2.98

2.50

1.81

2.75

Moderate

3.22

2.73

1.60

2.51

Conservative

3.40

2.55

1.53

2.55

Far right

3.39

2.79

1.63

2.53

It’s not that conservatives don’t care about philosophy or that liberals don’t like kids, the paper suggests, but different underlying values that may frame decisions.

“Conservatives appear to be very practically oriented,†said Woessner.

Kelly-Woessner said that for many who want to raise a family, academic life may be daunting — what with both graduate school’s relative poverty and the long hours and stress of the tenure track. “The path up to tenure is perceived as very hostile to family,†she said, adding that colleges would do well — for all kinds of reasons — to become more family friendly.

In keeping with the overall paper, Kelly-Woessner suggested that a cumulative effect may be visible in explaining lopsidedly liberal departments. “You are just starting with the choice of majors,†she said, and then go on to what students value at the point of graduation.

In terms of suggestions, the paper argues both for family-friendly policies and for less politics in the classroom, expressing hope that the latter might attract more conservatives to the social sciences and humanities.

But the authors stress that — to the extent liberals and conservatives finishing colleges have different values — imbalances among college faculties may be permanent.

“Ideology represents far more than a collection of abstract political values,†they write. “Liberalism is more closely associated with a desire for excitement, an interest in creative outlets and an aversion to a structured work environment. Conservatives express greater interest in financial success and strong desires to raise families. From this perspective, the ideological imbalance that permeates much of academia may be somewhat intractable.â€

— Scott Jaschik

The original story and user comments can be viewed online at http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/16/conservative.

[Marswolf]

Meaning no animosity toward those who choose an academic profession (I have a lot of friends in academia), but is this not, at least to a degree, summed up by the old saw that:

Those who can - do.

Those who can not - teach.

It seems to me that there is probably a lot of truth to the author's comment that, "there is considerable evidence that could show conservative self-selection out of academic careers." The lack of conservatives in collegiate teaching circles is probably less an overt bias against them than just having fewer of them to select from among qualified candidates. The qualified conservatives are doing real-world activities, like starting businesses or working in industry, rather than wanting to teach. OTOH, only about half the department heads I know at universities, who largely determine who teaches there, are people I consider competent and unbiased.

I've had a number of people who have asked me why I didn't become a professor since I'm fairly bright and grossly over-educated. (Modest too. ) The short answer is that teaching rather than doing stuff in the raw and real world would drive me up the wall. Mixed in with that was a realization that doing what was needed to put myself on “The path up to tenure", as the author calls it, was essentially butt kissing - an activity I never have been willing to do. Few of my college teaching friends have achieved tenure either. They aren't butt kissers. Maybe that is also why they are my friends.

Perhaps a question that needs to be asked is how good the education is that the students are receiving from many of their professors who are in their position because they don't want to work in the real world. In my experience, the isolated Ivory Tower stereotype is more real than imagined at many institutions. Perhaps it would be good for parents to investigate the percentages of actual doers to those who imagine doing teaching on the college staff before letting their kids enroll.

Colleges are a business who have to attract customers (students) in order to survive. Maybe the customers just need to become more savvy and choose a place of higher education that offers the best real value. A loss of customers will generally make a business re-think its customer service model. That would be really good for a lot of academic institutions.