An article by Janice Shaw Crouse looks at the sometimes tense relationship between colleges and parents.
… the University of Minnesota holds a separate reception for parents so that their sons and daughters can meet their roommates and negotiate dorm room space without the parents around. Grinnell College has the new students sit on one side of the gymnasium and the parents on the other with all speakers talking to the student side — a symbolic way of putting parents in their place.
…Over the next four years, your child will sit under the influence of a few professors who enjoy tearing down the moral and religious views of their students. For such profs, teaching is a game, and the intellectual seduction of their students is the conquest that makes their teaching challenging. Their agenda is to separate students from their parents, thereby, they hope, removing the influence of traditional, Judeo-Christian values.
This article generated some email discussion and was suggested for the Plunder Pile. When I went off to Geneva College, my parents were on the opposite side of the world, and the greatest intellectual threat on campus was “Dr. Matt the Democrat” (as I referred to him in my letters home). When dropping me off at college, my mother told me what her father had said to her: “I hope you give up and come home, but I’m afraid you wont.” My grandpa’s joke was heartening as I’ve been on the verge of packing my bags and heading back more than once. As for the point that Crouse makes about pernicious teachers, the thrill of driving wedges between people is always good to acknowledge and guard against. Whether a mama’s boy or a prodigal, homeward is a good direction to be pointed throughout life.