A professor at West Liberty University (WLU), a public university in West Virginia, tells her students they are not to use Fox News as a source.
Visiting (temporary) Assistant Professor of Political Science Stephanie Wolfe has a list in her course syllabus of sources that her students are to use and to abjure.
Among the sources her students must not use are the satirical and wholly fictitious website The Onion, as well as Fox News, a cable news channel that is regarded as more politically conservative than other cable news channels such as the more liberal CNN and the decidedly leftwing CNBC.
Josh Eachus reports for WTOV9, Feb. 12, 2013, that students and parents are questioning Wolfe’s syllabus that filtered student’s research options. The syllabus for Wolfe’s political science course tells students what sources they can and cannot use. Among those sources that students are asked not to use are The Onion, an openly fictitious parody of real-life news, and Fox News, a professional news organization. In the syllabus, Wolfe allegedly says, “The tagline Fox News makes me cringe.”
Upset students and parents have taken their concerns to local media, saying that it is unfair to the students to encourage some sources which lean in one direction politically, while discouraging those going in the other direction.
In response, WLU President Robin Capehart said: “One of our values at West Liberty is to encourage students to go out and inquire and gather information and look at as many different sources as possible on any side, before you reach your opinion. If students have concerns about these types of issues, they can approach their department chair, they can approach the dean. Any attempt to limit the breadth of a student’s ability to investigate is obviously something at which we have a concern.”
WLU officials said Stephanie Wolfe is only with the university for this year in place of another instructor who had taken leave. They also said Wolfe has gone back to the class and lifted any limitation on research sources.
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I found Wolfe’s faculty profile on WLU’s website:
Stephanie Wolfe, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor
Political Science/International Studies
stephanie.wolfe@westliberty.edu
304-336-8015
Note the wiccan “goddess” pendant on her necklace in Wolfe’s profile photo below:
Here’s a close up of Wolfe’s pendant (l) and a pic of a “goddess” key chain (r) I found on the web:
If you want to leave a message for WLU president Robin Capehart, the university has a blog, “West Liberty Online,” where you can write a comment on Capehart’s Biography page. Click here!
~Eowyn