Tiny Towns: Let's Compare the Quality of Education Received at Williams Compared to a Traditional Ivy League School

Someone on Quora recently asked me the following question: "How would one compare the quality of education received at Williams compared to that of one received at an Ivy League school such as Harvard or Princeton?" There were a number of interesting answers in addition to mine. Nevertheless, here's my take on the advantages and disadvantages of a Williams College education compared to a traditional Ivy League education.

Of course, I am an ex-political science professor who taught at Williams in the 1980s and who was a teaching assistant (TA) at Cornell. My sense is that Williams College provided a higher quality education in the sense that the courses I taught there were designed to make everything absolutely clear, creative, and easy to understand for the students. Compared to my TA experience, I did a much better job of teaching while I was at Williams College.

As I recall, I gave students examples of successful papers, provided clear directions, and picked the best possible reading materials. I was among the top teachers on campus according to the reports I received which compared my student ratings with those of the other professors. While I was at Williams College, I was at the top of my game. I completed my doctoral dissertation while I was there and won the William Anderson Award from the American Political Science Association.

Accordingly, the students I worked with at Cornell and at Williams College were both dealing with the same somewhat exceptional scholar and teacher. The difference is that the teaching at Williams College was much better, I mean ten times better.

That being said, I have to say that Harvard, for example, is much harder to get into than Williams College. Williams is in a God-forsaken, hostile, rural area. It is overwhelmingly cliquish and quite unfriendly to conservative or even Republican perspectives. It is the sort of place where a young Christian or conservative can quickly become socially isolated, even disdained by their fellow students. In my experience, the liberal/leftist students at Williams College seem to have a “you’re either for us or against us” attitude which leaves a lot of the students hating each other by the end of four years.

If you run afoul of the liberal establishment at Williams College you have almost no alternative social or intellectual outlets for yourself. At least at Harvard, where my niece graduated, you have a whole city around you and opportunities to get relief from ideological oppression by venturing off the campus into the larger community. This escape is not possible at Williams College and I think that undermines the quality of education you receive out there.

Of course, Cornell University is also in a God-forsaken, hostile, rural environment. Nevertheless, the college is large enough that there are a variety of students to hang out with. One of the students I worked with as a teaching assistant at Cornell was Ann Coulter. I don’t Ann Coulter would have been happy at Williams College.

So, I don’t know if that helps you much at all. I would say, without a doubt, that the teaching is better at Williams College. Nevertheless, this advantage may not make up - in an educational sense - for the restricted ideological and social life associated with the school.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Dr. Drew Asks: When Exactly Did Barack Obama Renounce Communism?

As an ex-Marxist I am somewhat hypersensitive to the conversion stories of other ex-Marxists. In my case, I remember where I was the exact moment I realized I no longer believed in the ideals of Communism: I was walking through the basement of McGraw Hall at Cornell University in September 1983. I had just finished an argument with my radical thesis advisor, an argument which left me thinking he was ideologically blinded and alarmingly out-of-touch with reality.

For previous generations, such moments of clarity often occurred in the wake of a violent, oppressive event. As Whittaker Chambers describes it in Witness, that moment arrived with an unheeded cry in the Moscow night. As David Horowitz describes it in Radical Son, that moment arrived with the recognition that the Black Panthers had murdered an accountant he had placed with them. For Barack Obama, however, that moment never arrives.

My visceral reaction to Obama’s lack of a conversion story was the topic of an interview I did with a film crew I met last week. I am grateful they took their time to get my face-to-face report on young Obama’s faith in a coming Communist revolution.

As I understand it, the producers will eventually add this footage into a larger documentary called “Simply America” which is “…a journey across our country to give a voice to the American conservative.”

I am still embarrassed for having once wanted the USSR to win the Cold War - even though I last thought this way over 30 years ago. I have a conversion story which explains how I dropped my faith in Communist ideals and how that decision changed my friendships, my mentors and my career goals.

In contrast, President Obama has never expressed remorse for the Marxist revolutionary views he defended during his sophomore year at Occidental College. He has never shared the conversion story that highlights the exact moment when he realized he disagreed with his sophomore year Marxist roommate, Hasan Chandoo.

“If Barack Obama has a story about how he stopped being a Marxist socialist,” I told the film crew, “I’d like to hear it.”

Later, I pointed out that “We never hear where he (Obama) turns to Caroline Boss or Hasan Chandoo and says: ‘Look. You’re wrong. It’s crazy. Communism would actually make us worse off - not better off.’”

“We never hear the story where he confronts Bill Ayers or Alice Palmer or Rev. Wright and tells them ‘Look. You guys are wrong.’”

I am still ashamed of the dangerous, alien and un-American views I once shared with Barack Obama. Nevertheless, I am happy to share my conversion story. Eventually, I expect swing voters will want to hear Obama’s conversion story too – if it exists. For now, however, the details of Obama’s conversion story seem as scarce as Mitt Romney’s tax returns.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Quick Thoughts on Keith Olbermann and the Ideology of AZ Shooter

I was at a meeting of Republican activists this morning when I saw the news regarding the mass shooting in AZ. It is sad that liberals like Keith Olbermann so quickly sought to use this violent event as a tool to silence independent and conservative voices.

For the record, I just checked out Jared Lee Loughner's YouTube site.

It's a mixed bag of foolishness. He favorited a YouTube video that features a flag burning. One of his videos concludes with the phrase, "I'm able to control every belief and religion by being the mind controller!" He says one of his favorite books is The Communist Manifesto. As far as I can tell, he looks like a pot-smoking atheist addicted to nonsensical syllogisms. Folks should review Keith Olbermann's comments attacking Hillary Clinton in 2008 before they start blaming the innocent for the actions of a "mind controller."

In the meantime, our thoughts and prayers are with the victims in AZ tonight.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.