Princeton’s Inane Guide for Teaching during the Election

A t Princeton University, the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning issued “Guidance for Teaching in Election Season” to offer some “considerations” for faculty members during such a “highly polarizing” event. One might hope that the academics at the Ivy League institution would be able to teach under any political circumstances without a bureaucrat’s advice, since they are described by the university as “renowned leaders in their fields, extraordinary teachers and dedicated mentors.” After all, most classes have nothing to do with elections, so presumably the content of most lectures is immune to whatever happens today. But no! According to the McGraw Center, the course materials might be construed to help students better understand politics “even if you are teaching something far removed from the topic.”

Forget the idea that a professor should deliver a substantive lecture or facilitate a robust debate. The McGraw Center believes that class is better spent by indulging in emotional confessions. The university, projecting its own anxieties, prompts instructors to “consider addressing the election in a neutral way” and further ask themselves, “How does your identity affect your experience of the election? Your own political opinions and beliefs? How are you currently feeling?” Instead of analyzing the ideas that students contribute to discussions, the instructors are prompted to categorize their students on the basis of immutable traits and evaluate their emotions: “Who are your students (e.g., first years; seniors; majors) and what are their needs? How might their identity characteristics have come into play during the election season? What concerns might they be grappling with right now?” The subtext: Abandon the syllabus and just have a cry session because the students — all of whom definitely got in on merit — can’t possibly have a civil discussion about the textbooks when millions of people voted for a literal fascist.

Any sane person could come up with a better and simpler suggestion for professors: Just teach about the topic without any regard to the election. Instead, the McGraw Center effectively tells professors, teaching assistants, and students to abandon their duties. Give students a “private journaling exercise,” the university suggests, to “personally reflect and refocus, or to connect their experiences to class material.” After all, why bother assigning reading material to students when they could just tenuously connect their political beliefs to the mathematics practice set? Rather than expecting assistants to do the job they are paid to do, professors are supposed to view them as sub-rational creatures incapable of being tasked with responsibilities: “What needs might [assistant instructors] have right now? What is reasonable to ask of them in the next few weeks and beyond?” In other words, lighten the workload and treat the rest of the semester as a vacation, never mind that students pay tuition upwards of $60,000 per year. The McGraw Center similarly suggests easing up on students, telling instructors to “record lectures around the election so that students can access materials they may be too distracted to catch.” Indeed, an undergraduate cannot be expected to write detailed notes during a 50-minute lecture when democracy — democracy! — is on the ballot.

By following the center’s suggestions, professors become de facto therapists. One might say that Princeton has devolved from a research institution into a mental institution that promotes emotional rehabilitation when the political climate troubles progressives. Aside from the obvious issue of reducing the opportunities to engage directly with what should be course material, prescribing emotional management in the classroom infantilizes students and educators alike by assuming an inability to discuss contentious topics without administrative oversight. The bureaucrats, empowered by narcissism, speak patronizingly to faculty members in the same soothing tone a preschool teacher adopts to resolve a dispute between two toddlers who don’t want to share. “Take care of yourself,” the McGraw Center tells grown adults at one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, and “try to stay calm.” I would like to believe that some faculty members read the guidance and thought, “Please, just leave me alone to do my work.” But without such pointless micromanagement, what would the bureaucrats do all day?