Brave New World in Colorado Higher Ed

As a Denver native and Colorado State University grad, I am elated to see that Gov. Bill Owens has a new cause. Fresh from the decimation of the Colorado Council on the Arts and the debacle over mandatory “Pledge of Allegiance” in the classroom,  Owens now wants to ensure that the state’s institutions of higher learning hire more conservatives as faculty members. This will presumably lend a more “fair and balanced” tenor to our collegians’ classroom experience. According to Owens, professors tend to be dangerous leftists stuffing our kids heads full of anti-American nonsense. Who says so? Such neo-con pundits as David Horowitz, who visited Colorado last summer to speak to Owens and fellow conservatives about dangerous campus trends. Leftists have taken over the academy! Sixty percent of the state’s political science professors are registered Democrats! Liberal profs make conservative students wear dunce caps and sit in the corner!

I am shocked by these allegations. Naturally, Horowitz, director of Students for Academic Freedom, has done extensive research into the situation in Colorado. After being paid a hefty sum, he imparted this knowledge to our state’s conservative leaders. They were shocked, too, and now want the legislature to approve a bill called “Academic Bill of Rights” that was featured in last Sunday’s Rocky Mountain News out of Denver.  While the wording seems harmless enough, don’t expect it to make it out of the Republican-dominated legislature without some extras, such as mandatory loyalty oaths, classroom surveillance cameras, armed conservatives monitoring poetry readings, etc.

I eagerly await future academic catalogs my kids in Wyoming will receive from Colorado’s colleges and universities. Some top-notch conservatives, left unemployed after the 2004 elections, might be lured to the state. As a public service, I offer this potential list of courses:

Political Science 320: “How We Did It: The Neo-Con Miracle in Iraq,” taught by Paul Wolfowitz, a recent addition to the University of Colorado faculty, hired surreptitiously and at an undisclosed salary.

Music 412: “Writing Song Lyrics that Don’t Make You Feel Bad about the USA,” taught by former C&W star Toby Keith, recent addition to the Western State College faculty. Course includes mid-semester bonfire of “feel-bad CDs” by the Dixie Chicks, Steve Earle, French musicians, etc.

History 201: “How the Liberals Ruined America,” by Lynne Cheney, former Second Lady of the USA and one-time director of the National Endowment for the Humanities, now on a tenure track at UNC in Greeley. A sampling from the syllabus lists these topics: “How FDR Crippled the U.S. Economy;” “Liberal Lies about Vietnam (“We Lost!”);” “Clinton: An al-Qaeda Spy?” Mrs. Cheney will occasionally channel the spirit of her dead husband, former V.P. Dick Cheney, who unfortunately passed away from a heart attack when he resumed the reins of the Halliburton Corporation following his electoral defeat.

Forestry 101: A basic forestry course taught by Gale Norton, who returns to her home state to teach at CSU in Fort Collins. In anticipation of her arrival, the CSU buildings and grounds staff has been busily thinning dangerous campus undergrowth that could fuel a raging wildfire at some future date.  Many new roads now criss-cross the campus to give crews access to trees, bushes, patches of dry grass, tumblin’ tumbleweeds, etc.

English 340: “Reading Poetry the Conservative Way,” taught by former librarian and First Lady Laura Bush, a recent hire at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Poets to be discussed include the non-gay texts of Walt Whitman, the non-feminist poems of Emily Dickinson, and the non-black poems of Langston Hughes. Her husband, former president Bush, will join her in dramatic readings. First up: “Leaves of Grass, expurgated version,” by Whitman.

Physical Science 220: “God vs. the Godless: The ABCs of Creationism,” taught by Focus on the Family's James Dobson at the CU Health Sciences Center in Denver. This course was prompted by a bill passed by the 2004 Colorado Legislature mandating creationism in all science curricula, from kindergarten through grad school. Dobson will debunk the myth of evolution. Those who ask questions in class will be burned at the stake.

There will be more offerings. But you get the idea: Owens is opening up a Brave New World of education.