I am a recent ISU graduate who received a Ph.D. degree in Agricultural Education and Studies last year. After spending a few years at Iowa State, I realized that the ISU system of teaching isn’t targeting the most important parts of the educational process, and that’s a character building of people for the new world we live in.

Undoubtedly, we are a part of the university that hasn’t been able to re-evaluate its values according to the needs of the global world that we are a part of.

We can talk about globalization, but we can’t do anything about it unless we are able to link our minds and our life goals with the rest of a humankind.

I am originally from the socialist, Communist society of Russia, the former Soviet Union, and I believed that I’d discover a whole bright, new world for myself here in the United States when I came here ten years ago.

What I found was a lot of backward thinking (among ISU professors in particular), a lack of desire to admit new values and to adjust the educational goals according to the priorities of the global society.

Moreover, I found a tremendous degree of “red-neckedness” among Iowans as well as hidden fascist perceptions about the world and other cultures.

Iowa State makes next to none contribution to helping people to become an open society.

This alone doesn’t bother me, but why is the university so stubbornly cutting off such a great opportunity to change the world? Why are Iowa State professors afraid of openly saying what’s on their minds?

Why is there such an everyday conformist thinking that penetrates every course (with an exception of a few) at Iowa State?

The university, apparently, has become a money machine whose goal is not to concentrate on the quality of education (which I think is very low, compared to the former Soviet Union, where I got my undergraduate degree), but to gamble on the needs of a certain portion of the young generation that wants to acquire a higher social status.

The university is actually a self-centered egotistic parasite that is extracting money by luring high school graduates with the fuss of its former (or potential) successes.

And worst of all, it is not making people prepared to change their perceptions about the world. This is a big pitfall that the students have to be aware of.

Andrew Kaluger

Postdoctoral associate

Agriculture education and studies