Education In The United States

"Black studies does not adhere to the requirement that black people can be studied only in a larger context. It assumes that black people can be studied on their own terms-that their behavior can be evaluated with respect to the standards and requirements prevalent within the black community, whether or not they are the same as in the white community."

"The militant advocates of black studies fail to recognize that the purpose of the humanities and social sciences is, at the very least, to teach critical methods of thought. But this cannot be achieved in a black studies program whose ideological assumptions are ethnocentric, culturally xenophobic and authoritarian."

"Now is the time for the NRI community to choose its leadership carefully. It needs people who are aware of the depth of the problems. Otherwise, it will succumb to the demands of American pluralism. It will waste its energy on irrelevant concerns borrowed from Christianity: ‘Who speaks for Hinduism?’; ‘Who has the authority to represent our religion?’; ‘Should only insiders be allowed to do so?’; ‘What are the true teachings of Hinduism?’ Events like the California textbook controversy indicate that the NRI community is at a crucial juncture: either it will become a driving force behind the rejuvenation of the Indian culture and her traditions; or it will repeat the mistakes of three-hundred years of colonialism. In the last century, we have seen the endpoints of the latter route: a growing fanaticism in Indian society; intellectually superficial movements; the threat of bankruptcy of an entire culture. The other route promises to allow the NRI community to play its role: become a rich and vibrant challenge to American pluralism. Not so that pluralism and tolerance might disappear from the American society but so that a pluralism, worthy of its name and liberated from the biblical straitjacket, might come into existence. Perhaps it is time we explore this route…"

"But on Truschke’s own side, the dividing line between bullies and academics is not so neat. Why stoop to street bullying if you have tenure? It is far more effective, then, to resort to academic bullying. Thus, in their intervention in the California Textbook Affair, where Hindu parents had sought to edit blatantly anti-Hindu passages, the explicitly partisan intervening professors even managed to get themselves recognized as arbiters in the matter. This would have been unthinkable if those bullies had not been established academics. (And this I can say eventhough my criticism of the Hindu parents’ positions exists in cold print.) Her focus on street bullies has the effect of misdirecting the reader’s attention, away from the more consequential phenomenon of academic bullying."

"During the cold part of 2005-2006, the Hindu community in the USA livd in expectation of a school history textbook reform in which Hinduism would get a fairer deal and no longer be reduced to hateful stereotypes. After all, Christian, Jewish and Muslim lobbies were having a decisive say in the portrayal of their own belief systesm, with the irrational or inhumane points whitewashed or kept out of view. ... A CAPEEM spokesman reported that a lot of evidence of the close cooperation between the court-appointed "experts" and anti-Hindu groups including Evangelical Churches and terrorist groups came to light. But that was not enough for CAPEEM to score a courtroom victory regarding the political issue at stake here, viz. the blatant inequality between the Abrahamic religions and Hinduism, which alone gets to suffer a schoolbook description imposed by its declared enemies."

"Disparity of treatment between Hinduism and other Faiths in these textbooks is the key issue here."

"There is an incessant and even anachronistic dwelling on the negatives of Hinduism, which seems to have been singled out as a religion for unfair treatment, when one reads the contrasting more balanced, even glowing narratives about Abrahamic faiths (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) in these and corresponding texts from other grades. Hindu sacred narratives are referred to as stories or myths, whereas Biblical and Koranic narratives are presented as historical facts. Most textbooks also describe the subtle Karma and rebirth related principles of Indic faiths in a minimal and essentially caricaturist manner (“according to this theory, if you do bad deeds, you will be reborn as an insect”)."

"A Muslim or a Christian person is termed a religious fundamentalist if he or she participates in initiatives that advocate or incorporate subversive physical violence or verbal threats. Hindus have it much easier, as demonstrated by the California textbook controversy. All that is required for a Hindu to earn the label “Hindutvawadi “ … is to raise her hand in defense of what she knows and say “Yes, but…”"

"The structure of American pluralism and the nature of the Hindu traditions give rise to two options. These options present themselves as routes that can be traveled by the NRI community in the coming years. On the one hand, the pagan traditions of India could renounce their true nature and transform themselves into variants of biblical religion. Then they will soon fit in as well in the American model of pluralism as the Jews and Muslims. On the other hand, these pagan traditions can remain true to their nature and explicitly represent themselves as completely different from the religions of the book. Then they will turn into a major challenge to American pluralism: the very structure of this model will require rethinking in order to accommodate the Hindu traditions. Currently, the NRI community is succumbing to the first option. It has accepted the American model of pluralism as the structure to which it should adapt itself. This could be seen very clearly in the California textbook controversy. A limited number of foundations have been appointed (or have appointed themselves) as the representatives of the Hindu traditions in the U.S.: the Hindu American Foundation and the Vedic Foundation are most prominent. These foundations play according to the rules of the notions of church and religion that are intrinsic to American pluralism. They challenge the unfair portrayal of the Hindu traditions in the American educational system. But they do so in a manner which advances the transformation of these traditions into inferior variants of Christianity. They intend to present the true doctrines of Hinduism and do so by making it look respectable to American Protestants. That is, the many devatas are transformed into different ways of worshiping the one true God. Hinduism becomes a proper monotheistic faith. A variety of pagan Indian traditions are excluded because they are embarrassing to the sanitized biblical model of American pluralism. These Hindu foundations have become the representatives of the ‘Hindu church’ in America: they will decide the true nature of the Hindu traditions for the American public. The way they are going, however, they will end up with a secularized variant of the old biblical understanding of the Hindu traditions as false religion."

"Since 1889, dialectologists in English-speaking North America have affiliated themselves with the American Dialect Society, an association which in its first constitution defined its object as "the investigation of the spoken English of the United States and Canada, and incidentally of other non-aboriginal dialects spoken in the same countries.""

"The initial hope of the American Dialect Society was to provide a body of data from which a dialect dictionary or series of linguistic maps might be derived."

"The American Dialect Society was founded in 1889 with the goal of compiling a dialect dictionary of the United States."

"Since 1990, the American Dialect Society has included in its annual meeting a vote on Words of the Year, the words that were most notable, prominent, and characteristic of the discourse of the year just past."

"Systematic American dialect research began with the formation of the American Dialect Society in 1889."

"It's a very old word, but over the course of just a few months it took on another life and moved in new and unexpected directions, thanks to a national and global movement. The movement itself was powered by the word."

"Yeah, that was a surprise to me. I thought it might be something like texting or blog, but people decided that Google - and the argument from the floor from one of our members was that a lot of people blog, millions of people blog, but everybody googles, young and old. It's so generic that people go to Yahoo and google. So, it's google with a lower-case G."

"When you have investment companies losing billions of dollars over something like bundled subprime loans, then you have to consider whether it's important. You probably also want to think about paying off that third mortgage."

"We dismissed one potential problem—that newspapers wouldn't print the term if it won—on the grounds that we shouldn't censor ourselves. And indeed, in the afternoon's voting, santorum did win, but many newspapers simply skipped this category in their coverage. So much for academic freedom."

"Language changes, and you cannot stop it. It's just like any other part of human culture."

"There is no scientific method of determining which words or phrases will be named words-of-the-year. It's kind of like Time magazine determining the whistle-blowers were the person-of-the-year. There is no objective way of determining it. It's all done with a show of hands."

"The term goes back 50 years, but you can't turn on the radio or television without hearing about 'weapons of mass destruction'."

"You'd have to ask Bill Clinton or Bob Dole why it was so important. We are merely recognizing its importance."

"[D]edicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it."

"Today, if somebody comes up with a new phrase or word, it is spread instantly. Instead of weeks and months, now it takes milliseconds. It doesn't mean these terms will last forever, just that they're suddenly here."

"The American Dialect Society (ADS; americandialect.org), identifies the most influential words of the year. For example, ADS members voted tweet as the Word of the Year for 2009 and google as the word of the decade. Ten years earlier, Y2K was the top choice, web was the word of the decade, and jazz was the word of the century."

"While astrophysicists were downgrading the cosmic object we call Pluto, the American Dialect Society, which is more than a century old, was upgrading the status of the word Pluto to a verb, making it their 17th annual 'Word of the Year' for 2006."

"Serious wordinistas will be waiting for the linguistic Oscars, when the American Dialect Society makes its selection in January."

"The early work of the American Dialect Society reflects the wide reach and the overlapping linguistic and literary interests centered on language study at the end of the century."

"Members of the American Dialect Society (www.americandialect.org) study English language use among people living in North America. They analyze how other languages influence English-speaking North Americans, and how, in turn, North Americans influence speakers of other languages."

"Flexitarian was voted Most Useful Word in 2003 by the American Dialect Society, a fact widely publicized in the press."

"This ol' guitar taught me how to score, Right there on that Lambda Chi porch, Mary Ann taught me a little more, About wanting what you can't have."

"Kappa Kappa Psi operates principally as a service-recognition society whose chief aim is to assist the Director in developing the leadership and enthusiasm that he requires of his band. Our goals are to not only provide the band with organized and concentrated service activities, but to give our membership valid and wholesome experiences in organization, leadership, and social contacts. The honorary nature of membership is based on our premise that "it is an honor to be selected to serve"—this band, its department of music, its sponsoring institution and the cause of band music in the nation's colleges and universities..."

"Let us ever strive for the best and highest there is in us and in wishing every Kappa Kappa Psi the most bountiful success in all that he undertakes, let me venture this for our watchword: "Let every worthy group of College bandsmen in the country know about our ideals so that they too may be admitted into our Fraternal circles.""

"The very name "fraternity" breathes friendship and communion of souls and I am very proud of my membership in Kappa Kappa Psi. … We, as I have repeated before, must look in the future for talent from the college and high school bands and surely a great many excellent players will no doubt grow out of the instruction received by bright American college men."

"Brothers, I have received medals and honors from every civilized country, but I feel this honor above all, due to the fact that this is given to me by a group of university bandsmen who are furthering the great work to which I have dedicated my life. The ideals as set forth by the Fraternity could not help but make better men and better college band musicians."

"Alcohol is the No. 1 issue on every college campus I've been on. [But] it isn't just the No. 1 issue in fraternities and sororities. It's the number one issue for all students."

"In the earlier days when the 'college secret societies' were tabooed, the undergraduate members wore no pins or concealed them. Now these are worn constantly over the members' hearts."

"Tau Epsilon Phi has a sweetheart so shy, She's a dream, what a dream of a girl. Each brother she holds as the emeralds unfold In her heart she's as pure as a pearl."

"I found in my chapter companionship and guidance from older men, discipline and true fellowship. The fraternity is more than just a boarding house. It is a temple of good will, of mutual assistance and enlightenment. The benefits derived are constant companions with alert fellow students in all activities of university life, and it tends to create more mature, responsible and intelligent citizens."

"I took a great deal more from my fraternity than I gave — but what I took was a very great deal — companionship of the highest order, self-confidence born of belonging to a group of which I was proud, enrichment of my personal life, which gave all my college career added dimension, and even an extra bond to several life-long friendships that already existed."

"In my judgment the college fraternity has been of inestimable value in making men across the years... It is natural for men to come together in compatible, mutual friendship, and when they do so under the high ideals of a fraternity, it proves to be most beneficial."

"My chapter house was a place where deep friendships were formed. The bond of brotherhood within the chapters was always a sustaining force and an urge to do a better job scholastically and otherwise in campus life. The traits of character which were nurtured there ripened and increased my sense of being useful in later life."

"I shall never be able to compensate my fraternity for all that it has done for me, no matter what service I may be allowed to give. In it I have found my most intimate friends. As undergraduate chapter president, I gained broad administrative experience, and from my fraternity I have derived my most cherished ideals of conduct."

"Today, the American people, perhaps as never before, are in need of the unusual, the distinctive, the uncommon man and leader — men and women of character and courage who have undergone the disciplines and the experiences which develop their highest potentials. I sincerely believe that college fraternities are important institutions contributing to the development of such men and women."

"Fraternities and the fraternity system are a distinctive and praiseworthy feature of American college life. Both as a fraternity man and as an educator, I firmly believe in the value of fraternities when they are properly managed and under good leadership."

"The spirit of our oldest chapters, combined with the vigor of our youngest who join each year, should inspire all of us to maintain our faith in the principles which unite us, our determination to live by them, and our intention to continue to be the very best fraternity in the greek letter world."

"I don't think that college would be the same to me if I didn't have the backing and the help of the people in the Fraternity... I was a Phi Psi when I got here, and I left a Phi Psi."

"...One of the things that the Phi Kappa Psi has to offer a young man is not to feel like you're ever going to be a cookie-cut stamped out sort of figure...To have that wonderful kind of anchor of a fraternal group is a great help to a undergraduate student trying to find his way in this tough and rather impersonal world today."

"I certainly didn't have the high school background, in math for example, to be in engineering school. and yet a couple of my fraternity brothers, who were brilliant scholars - electrical engineers, sort of took me under their wing, and without that personal tutoring and help, I wouldn't have gotten out of Valpo."

"Let us be what we say we are: a fraternity, not a club, run by men, and not boys, and based on ideals, not expediency."