LOL. I'm a cult leader & a big bad bully as I'm not interested in arguing whether his silly insult was an insult. He tried to get back at me, to accuse me of insulting, by googling up a poorly done editorial in my old school's student newspaper! Anything but taking responsibility— Dale Tuggy (@DaleTuggy) October 15, 2018
Here's what Dale said about business majors in his own words (verbatim):
Letter to the Editor: Dale Tuggy: A response to our previous editorialA recent unsigned editorial here excoriates me for pointing out that business and education students are, collectively, weaker students than the overall student population. But this is a fact, unpleasant though it may be. The average SAT and GPA numbers for students with those majors is lower; look it up. I know that takes longer than lazily lobbing a charge that my truth-telling is “unfair, unjustified and cruel,” but still, you should run the numbers. Pointing this out is not attacking those students, as if they were not trying or as if they shouldn’t be at Fredonia. Rather, it is to point out that the quality of intellectual life at Fredonia has been degraded under the poor leadership of presidents Hefner and Horvath.The intellectual abilities of your peers here matters a lot to the quality of the education you get here. In point of fact, professors in many of the more challenging disciplines have been pressured by both themselves and by administrators to dumb down the material in classes, so that not too many students fail.
A related problem is Dale Tuggy seems to hold a huge grudge against Steve due to how past debates with Steve have gone for Dale.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, Dale is not focusing on the actual debate which should be about Dale's exegesis of Mt 5:22 (which is the precise verse Dale himself originally brought up!).
To clarify, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with broadening the debate, but Dale shouldn't forget to substantiate his original allegation against Steve. Among other things, this would initially involve accurately exegeting Mt 5:22 in the context of the Sermon of the Mount.
DeleteYep, no insult there, so not relevant. That editorial related to an email I sent to former colleagues, about the direction of the university.
ReplyDeleteYou attacked business majors as intellectually inferior to other students.
Delete1. You said the author was "lazily lobbing a charge" against you, even though you would have no idea how much effort or time the author spent on their piece. It could be the author made a false charge against you, but it could also be they weren't doing so "lazily" but after careful consideration (even if it was mistaken). At the very least, to say that it's a lazy lob presumably isn't something you would be in a position to know given you said it was an "unsigned editorial".
Delete2. You characterized business and education students as being "weaker students" relative to "the overall student population" and that they had less "intellectual abilities" than other students. You based that on their high school GPA and SAT scores. There are several issues involved. Here's one I noticed. According to SUNY Fredonia's website, most admitted and matriculating SUNY Fredonia students do not have to declare a major on their very first day at SUNY Fredonia. Most students are allowed to declare a major at a later date, as long as it's before they reach 60 hours. Given most SUNY Fredonia students can and do declare a major at a later date, which presumably includes some or many business and education majors, then your comparison isn't necessarily comparable. It may be an unfair comparison. You're comparing "the overall student population" (i.e. undifferentiated students admitted and matriculating at SUNY Fredonia) with business and education majors who declare their majors at a later date, even though the students who later declare their majors in business and education would have presumably been part of the original pool of undifferentiated students admitted to and matriculating at SUNY Fredonia! The very fact that these students are presumably part of the original pool of "the overall student population" could skew the data. Sure, it might not, but it could, and the possibility that it could is enough to cast reasonable doubt on your comparison in the first place.
I think a key issue is Dale wants Steve to be agreeable rather than disagreeable. To be cordial rather than adversarial.
ReplyDeleteHowever, a basic problem is Dale conflates being disagreeable or adversarial with being unethical or immoral.
Not to mention Dale's positions are themselves disagreeable or adversarial positions from the perspective of traditional Christianity (e.g. Dale is a unitarian, Dale doesn't believe Jesus is God incarnate).