Penn State math course covers ‘imperialism’ and ‘cultural intolerance’

Penn State math course covers ‘imperialism’ and ‘cultural intolerance’

A professor teaching a general education math course at Penn State University included pages of his personal opinion on politics and social justice issues in exams. 

Campus Reform received copies of exams, including a midterm, from an anonymous student who was concerned by the political nature of the course material when they took Professor Marc Fabbri’s math class last spring. The course material contains large portions of political opinion that have little relevance to the course topic. 

The course, “Finite Mathematics,” is designed for non-science majors and fulfills a general education requirement. The course is described by Penn State as an “introduction to logic, sets, [and] probability,” however, the take-home tests Campus Reform received appear to contain the professor’s personal opinion and few math problems.

One thing that occurs to me right away is, this professor must not truly love Math. He seems to want to be a Women's Studies professor, if you ask me.

Anyone who truly loves an academic subject would want to truly teach that Academic subject.

I remember hearing a joke from a Math Professor when I was in college:

One Math Professor raises his glass in a room full of Mathematicians and says, "To Pure Mathematics! May it never be good for anything."

The point of the joke is, there is math for Engineering, there is Math for Physics, and then there is pure theoretical math, which, to a Mathematician has an elegance and beauty of it's own. And it will retain that beauty if it is never squandered and corrupted by utility.

Anyone who truly loves a subject would get that joke, and has some affinity for the underlying premise.

This guy doesn't.

He wants to teach Gay Studies.