Safe and Sound - Part II

In my last post, I wrote about ways to ensure that you'll be able to keep a "safe body" while on campus. This week I'll write about the "sound mind" portion of the equation.

In his pamphlet, "What is a College Education? (and How to Get One)" published by the National Review Institute, Jeffrey Hart, professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College, writes about Allan Bloom's, The Closing of the American Mind. Hart states that,
"Bloom's great theme throughout is that ideology has invaded
the academy to an absolutely unprecedented degree, closing the
American mind - at least the academic American mind - to the
truths about human nature as it actually is and has aspired to
be."
Often on college campuses, speech codes and victim group sensitivies trump the rights of the individual to express, debate or even examine ideas that run counter to the pervasive campus ideology. It is important to know if your school of choice is tolerant of and, even better, fosters individual intellectual freedom. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE, is an organization whose mission
"is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's
increasingly repressive and partisan colleges and
universities. These rights include freedom of speech,
legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and
sanctity of conscience - the essential qualities of
individual liberty and dignity. FIRE's core mission
is to protect the unprotected and to educate the
public and communities of concerned Americans about
the threats to these rights on our campuses and about
the means to preserve them."
The Foundation has taken an active role in adjudicating specific cases where a student's Constitutional rights have been violated. One such case involved a student who actively and openly opposed the construction of a parking garage on campus. While this issue may seem mundane, the student was expelled. He filed suit in cooperation with a First Amendment attorney who is a FIRE Legal Network member. Not only was the student's expulsion reversed, the university president was held personally liable for damages owed to the student.

By going to FIRE's website, theFIRE.org, and surfing FIRE's Spotlight, you can find information on speech codes and rights violations at over 400 academic institutions. Each school's page also displays FIRE's red, yellow or green light speech code rating and links to the campus' current policies "restricting individual rights, as well as that campus' advertised commitments to freedom of expression".

Another way to judge a college's adherence to the philosophy that it is a "marketplace of ideas" is to see who has been invited to speak on campus and what the reception of the speaker was like. Were they allowed to present their views or heckled and disrupted to such an extent that they were unable to present? College, among other things, is supposed to be a place for the civil exchange of ideas - a place where one is encouraged to perfect how to think not what to think. If your college won't encourage that, you're not going to get your money's worth!

Safe and Sound - Part I

One of the suggestions that unigo.com makes on its campus tour checklist is that you tour the city and town around campus. While you are not planning to buy a home, you will be living in or near this community for the better part of the next four years and, as with real estate, one of the prime considerations is location, location, location! Depending on the distance the campus is from your family home, you may not be able to leave the environs often during your college years so you need to know as much as you can about the area surrounding your campus.

A site which is actually geared for prospective real estate buyers is invaluable for those searching not only for a college that fits their wants but a community that suits their needs, specifically safety. www.neighborhoodscout.com is touted as a "Neighborhood Search for Home Buyers and Real Estate Investment". You can search an address or neighborhood by city, state or zip code or actually click on a state on the map. You will be taken to information about the area which includes a "Crime Rates" tab. You will be able to locate the "10 Safest Cities" in that state. If you put in the college's actual address, (You can use the location of the admissions building.) you can get details for that specific area. These details include a shaded map of the area which denotes the safest to least safe areas.

You could and should visit the college's security division and ask for this information but keep in mind that they are part of the institution. The local police department or precinct would also have these statistics but someone may not be available to you on your visit. Another source would be the school paper but not all security incidents may be reported. Overall, www.neighborhoodscout.com might provide the most detailed and accurate information regarding the degree of safety and security you can expect in a specific locale.