I went to a very conservative liberal arts college (which I still love dearly). My experience there was contrary to the claims of conservative critics of academia. #1: the fact that these conservatives supposedly had leftism crammed down their throats all through school didn't make them more open to new ideas (speaking of many of them, not all). They caricatured and ridiculed left ideas in class just as badly as left-wing profs are claimed to do. Foucault was dumb and hey did you know that he was really really gay?; Rawls was kind of important, but not as important as Allan Bloom. #2: Most (but not all) of the conservatives profs I've had have liked being in conservative departments. They didn't crave differences of opinion and a diversity of views any more than left-wing people do. Being in the minority doesn't make you virtuous. Some conservatives understand this point in every other case of a minority except their own. By definition because I'm a prof that has tended to vote Democratic (even though most of my students can't guess this and I'm probably in the center or on the right of the academy), I'm part of the unthinking, PC group-think of academia, but also by definition, Bush supporters are supporters of diversity of opinion and open-mindedness. That's the assumption behind the claim that changes in ideology and voting patterns of profs amount to a "criticism" of academia.

There was an AEI paper that recently studied the effect of the left-leaning professoriate on students going to grad school. They found that lower grad school attendance among conservatives was not due to intimidation by left profs or conservatives feeling unwelcome in the academy (conservative students, unlike many conservative critics of academia, actually report a high level of satisfaction with college), but lifestyle choices (having a family), and differences in values (making money over freedom and spontaneity). So conservatives are, in general, challenged by alternative views but not intimidated to the point that they're driven away from higher education.

How little respect one must have for the American people to assume that simply listening to a differing viewpoint will change their beliefs.

That Democrats have dominated the Congress for the last 70 years would seem a confirmation of the reasons behind this contempt.

Most parent can’t get their teenagers to listen to them, what makes people think professors can?

Because when offered against the real world, big government liberalism is a far easier sell.

Surely, many people could shift ideologically in punctate ways, admitting in interview (or to themselves) a shift well after they have actually made it.

And since I haven't read the study, these differences are meaningless unless this is a longitudinal study.

Given the setup and reporting, I presumed it was in fact longitudinal. Otherwise, not much point in comparing 1999 to 2003, we could simply compare 2003 entering frosh and 2003 seniors. Indeed, if it's not a longitudinal study, using separate years would seem to make the study worse, since the external political climate would influence the results.

I saw more of a liberal/conservative shift in other classes (social work was probably the worst) what I found for myself is that it wasn't all that indoctrinating, but at times it was frustrating at times, if I felt the professor was trying to indoctrinate or push a certain viewpoint. I was less conservative then than I am now.

Yeah, politics doesn’t come up often in the computer science department where I teach.

You mean you don’t have grand VI vs. Emacs debates? What kind of second-rate CS program are you running there?

That's religion not politics. Emacs is for wussies who can't handle modes.

Garbage collection is also for wussies. So I guess I do indoctrinate my students.

Assuming that private universities have a similar faculty make-up, could an elitism factor, rather than faculty influence, be driving the leftward shift at the private schools as shown in the table?

Yeah, politics doesn’t come up often in the computer science department where I teach.

You mean you don't have grand VI vs. Emacs debates? What kind of second-rate CS program are you running there?