robogun Anonymous

Actually, University of Dallas was established in 1958 and the University of Texas at Dallas was not established unitl 1969. UD not only has the School of Ministry but also a well respected Arts college. Your argument that UD is somehow trying to piggyback recognition from UTD is not warranted and just stupid. Do your homework.

1 year, 4 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

J_Mortimer Anonymous

Actually UT Dallas started as Southwest Center for Advanced Studies in 1961.

If you compare the so called liberal arts programs of University of Dallas vs UT Dallas, then University of Dallas wins hands down. UT Dallas has some good people in that respect but overall University of Dallas gives students a much more rigorous and focused program in those areas.

University of Dallas has excellent language programs so that students can expand themselves in the usual ways other languages offer. UT Dallas is lacking in that department.

Having actually taken classes at both places I can say that University of Dallas is not to be confused with some sort of "religious zealot" (to use Mr Kaufman's phrase) bible college. Their courses in liberal arts areas are quite open without losing sight of the literary, historical, and philosophical path of Western civilization. UT Dallas, on the other hand, is influenced far too much by post modernism.

There are some great people at UT Dallas but in those areas University of Dallas has the upper hand.

J

1 year, 4 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

atlasslipped Anonymous

\"Having actually taken classes at both places I can say that University of Dallas is not to be confused with some sort of \"religious zealot\" (to use Mr Kaufman\'s phrase) bible college.\"

Then why is it that as late as the late ninties, a single friend of mine who was a student there had to take a leave of absence to hide her pregnancy. She had the baby and it was adopted, mind you. She wasn\'t even having an abortion or anything like that. But she said that she would have been expelled from the school if anyone had learned she was pregnant.

Real rational policy. That reads of zealotry to me, and a rather un-Christian attitude.

1 year, 4 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

J_Mortimer Anonymous

I was comparing the academics in a particular area. I was not making a comment at university policy which, in my experience, usually sucks at any university. The fact that this person has certain issues has nothing to do with the content in the classroom I alluded to.

If you want to play a game of hasty generalization, we can go onto discuss how Humanities professor Robert Nelsen at UT-Dallas got slammed because he displayed some Robert Maplethorpe photos in his Aesthetics class. A Christian student objected and the administration sided with the student. The administration, in essence, treated the student's experience at a University level as if the university was Burger King and you can have it your way. I find that incident just as dogmatic and smacking of zealotry as the pregnancy story. Believe me there many more are stories of public university idiocy I can say about UT-Dallas.

The public university has its own sort of dogma. And These are more indicative of the universal idiocy which occurs when humans get together in large groups than it is because one is Catholic and the other public.

Mr Kaufman you are concentrating far too much on the Catholic label. The University of Dallas is not the "catholic community" and what the "catholic community" generally has to say to Rick Perry isn't relevant when studying, say, Proust in the classroom. I'm not Catholic. I'm not even Christian. When you are in a classroom dealing with the topic at hand -- be it Latin, Roman history, Nietzsche & Heidegger, or whatever -- the overall Catholic picture doesn't mean squat. Plato is still Plato and I have to figure it out. The fact that Catholics have some positions that I might object to does not at all change my comments about the relative merit of the areas mentioned.

Further, the faculty is not at all entirely Catholic. I'm not even sure if the faculty I've dealt with is a majority Catholic. Sure, you might have a Thomist being a department chair, but the professors are Jews, protestants, and I suspect even (gasp!) closet atheists. Yes, of course, they have theology classes, and classes in other departments about catholic subjects, but I've seen no requirement to take those classes.

Lastly and as discussed earlier, the areas mentioned simply are not covered in the depth and quality at UT Dallas as compared to University of Dallas. As I said, I've been at both and there is simply no question.

So although you might have an ax to grind about how catholics conduct themselves elsewhere, as I have gone through the experience of being there I wouldn't even have noticed that University of Dallas is a Catholic university if it wasn't for the occasional person in catholic garb on campus and the chapel on campus. It certainly doesn't come off that way in the classroom.

J

1 year, 4 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

kirk Anonymous

"When someone goes to apply for a job, citing a degree from a church school would make it tougher, rather than easier, for the applicant to appear qualified."

Yeah, those zealot slackers from Boston College, Georgetown and Notre Dame clog the unemployment line. Same with graduates from Baylor, BYU and SMU.

1 year, 4 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

J_Mortimer Anonymous

Mr Kaufman,

I am having a hard time following your moving point.

SMU recently changed their MLA program to Masters of Liberal Studies. UNT was once NTSU. TSU was once Southwest Texas State University. UTD has recently had departments change names but I am too lazy to look up the exact references. UTD in fact was not originally UTD. Are they all deceptive and evil? Who cares if they change the name of this one obscure department that most students will not have contact with?

Mr Kaufman said:"Here in Dallas, and elsewhere as well, we have serious problems with the Catholics."

Do you realize how much that sounds like "We have a problem with them nig*s" and "We have to keep those Irish down"?

So are you giving up on your previous points that its not a "real university" and that a degree from a "church school" is less useful?

J

1 year, 4 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )