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With UCLA making national headlines after an alumnus offered to pay students for information on “radical professors,” members of the UCLA community are considering what kind of atmosphere professors should create in the classroom.

While some recent media attention has focused on the idea of a “culture war” and on the ratio of liberal to conservative professors on campuses, some students and faculty say the real question is whether instructors of any background should offer their political views during lecture.

Faith Christiansen, chairwoman of Bruin Republicans, said while she would never endorse limiting a student or faculty’s freedom of speech, she wants professors to show integrity and responsibility in the classroom.

Taking a break from lecture to discuss topics such as the war in Iraq, which are unrelated to the course, is a common occurrence and a disservice to students who are there to learn, she said.

“One of my concerns is, are you taking class time to discuss your political views that are obviously biased and outside the topic of class and completely out of your area of expertise?” said Christiansen, who is also the undergraduate representative for the Academic Senate’s Academic Freedom Committee.

According to the University of California’s Faculty Code of Conduct, “significant intrusion of material unrelated to the course” and “evaluation of student work by criteria not directly reflective of course performance” are unacceptable classroom behavior. Students who believe their instructors are violating the code can file a written complaint with the Charges Committee of the Academic Senate.

John Curtis, director of research for the American Association of University Professors, said most faculty are careful to give students different perspectives and encourage them to arrive at their own conclusions. Students are adults, not robots, he said.

There are situations in which it may be appropriate for professors to state their personal views, Curtis said, though “it’s not the kind of thing that one would do repeatedly.”

“It’s not a yes-or-no answer,” he added. “I think the faculty member can create an atmosphere where students know that it’s OK to have open discussion.”

Adrienne Lavine, chair of the Academic Senate and a professor of engineering, said given how selective UCLA’s admissions process is, students who make it to the university are “top of the line.” She believes they should be able to stand up for their viewpoint in class, even if their professors disagree with their views.

“I trust our students, who are very smart, to be able to think for themselves,” Lavine said.

“That is idiotic, and you can quote me on that,” said David Horowitz, publisher of www.frontpagemag.com. He believes students form a “captive audience.”

“It’s doubly idiotic first of all because everybody knows a professor has great power. I can’t tell you the number of students who tell me they just spout what the professor wants to hear because they’re afraid of being graded down,” he said.

Christiansen said while freshmen may be afraid instructors will take ideology into account when evaluating work, most seniors find their political views do not affect their grades.

Still, she said she knows many students who get “As” on well-researched papers but end up having to read through numerous comments from professors about why their point of view is wrong.

Marc Trachtenberg, a political science professor, frequently tells students to “get to the bottom of it,” to examine evidence and make their own case on issues ranging from the causes of World War I to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

When a student asked him in class on Wednesday what he thought about Hamas winning the Palestinian elections, Trachtenberg answered, but added he would rather not talk too much about his own perspectives.

“Education is not just absorbing a mass of factual material, but learning how to think,” he said later.

Trachtenberg said he tries to challenge students “to think about how they can identify what the crucial problems are, and see beyond their own preconceptions.”

He remembers being taught in high school and middle school to simply believe what teachers told him.

But when he made it to UC Berkeley in the 1960s, the professors there were different, he said. They presented multiple arguments and asked him and other students to reach their own conclusions.

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