In its 2015 annual rankings, The Princeton Review ranked Texas A&M University, College Station, the college with the most conservative students. Ten years later Texas A&M University does not even make the Top 25. The definition of conservatism is highly subjective depending on the standard of comparison.
College of Liberal Arts New Student Conference – 2009
Dr. Don Curtis, Assistant Dean of College of Liberal Arts and Head of the Cornerstone Program, struck fear in the hearts of the incoming freshman with his threatening posture and ultimatums from the podium. “Every one of you will be receiving a copy of this book, The Glass Castle*, in your package. It is required reading and you WILL be tested on it in one of your classes this fall. Don’t come whining to me with any excuses.” *A depressing memoir of questionable veracity.
He then proceeded to intimidate any parents who might be prone to being “helicopter” parents. His statements only elevated our plan to keep the lines of communication open with our children. In our view, parenting may be coming to an end, but mentoring is just kicking into high gear.
When Tradition Trumps Truth
Large tracts of land near the Texas A&M University campus at College Station were originally part of the Morgan Rector (one of my g-g-g-g-grandfathers) Survey during the Republic of Texas. He secured from Stephen F. Austin a league and one labor of land for his brother-in-law, Richard Carter (Carter Creek and Carter Park are named for him), who with his wife Elizabeth and family were the first Anglo settlers in what is now Brazos County.
Since the mid-1950’s, at least 35 immediate and extended family members have attended Texas A&M. I am a former student, married to a former student, with children who are former students, and with siblings and numerous in-laws who are former students. My Class of ’54 father-in-law was a U.S. Air Force captain piloting C-133s during Vietnam. A first cousin was a highly recognized veterinarian and pioneer in bovine embryo transfer. Another veterinarian cousin has numerous endowments to Texas A&M, especially significant athletic scholarships. All that to underscore that we have strong affections for the history and traditions of Texas A&M. All of this background provides context for what I am about to write.
In general, students at Texas A&M appear wholesome, energetic and outgoing, creating a compelling environment for prospective students and their families. But behind the veil is a cauldron of self-righteous syncretism that can be deadly to the soul of a young man or woman who is not grounded in Truth. The “Spirit of Aggieland” is anything that gives one goosebumps or a lump in the throat. In short, loyalty to tribe and culture (whatever it happens to be) often trumps loyalty to Truth. In addition, top-down social and political agendas are indoctrinating students, or, at the very least, breaking down resistance to nihilistic behaviors and attitudes in order to establish new social norms that will punish the unindoctrinable. At the core, it is a dehumanizing worldview.
Texas A&M English Department: Unpardonable French Needing a Kiss of Death
Our daughter received the following scholarships each semester her freshman year (2009-2010) at TAMU, College Station:
| National Merit Recognition Award | $3,000 |
| Presidents Endowed Sch – Dev | $2,500 |
| Directors’ Excellence Award | $1,250 |
| Merit Plus Scholarship | $1,000 |
| Stewart & Anna Morgan Sch | $ 750 |
| National Merit Scholarship | $ 325 |
Since she declared English as her major, she received the Stewart and Anna Morgan Scholarship, worth $750/semester for eight semesters ($6,000 total).
She was passionate about British literature, classical children’s literature, and Shakespeare specifically. However, the spring of her freshman year, her English 231 and English 212 courses turned out to be persistent and intentional attempts by these professors to pervert classical works. At one point in the Shakespeare lecture, the professor became so lewd and graphic in his sexual diatribe that our daughter, who always made it a point to sit on the front row, got up and walked out of the class. She made A’s in all of the classes, but only because she was adept at writing good essays and able to respectfully disagree both in classroom participation and in written work.
That spring, she pre-registered for fall classes, thinking that, perhaps, she just had two bad eggs for professors her first year and that upper level courses and teachers might be an improvement. She signed up for Children’s Literature as well as Creative Writing. In late July, she was able to access the syllabi for her classes and became distraught when she saw that two of the books she would be required to purchase and read were Daddy’s Roommate, and, Heather has Two Mommies. She immediately researched the professor, discovering authorship of Raised in Captivity: Why Does America Fail Its Children?.
It became immediately obvious to our daughter that it was time to wash her hands of the TAMU English department, so she had our blessing to change her major to Communications, even though she would forfeit the remaining $4,500 of the Morgan Scholarship. Sticking to principles has a price. The cost of not adhering to them is much higher. She still needed one more English class to meet the requirements for a Communications major, so she kept the Creative Writing class. That turned out to be a mistake.
The lecturer, Lowell White, required the students to read sections of his book, Long Time Ago Good, detailing his exploits as a young man in Austin. During class discussion, he singled out our daughter, who had been quiet up to that point, and asked her, “So, _____, what are your thoughts on the sections you read?” She replied frankly and firmly, “It was the worst piece of trash I’ve ever read. I threw the book across the room after reading it.” Mr. White responded, “Finally! Someone who has an honest opinion”.
To Mr. White’s credit, he did recognize and respect her ability to articulate her position from a rational and truth based foundation. However, none of the other students were bold enough to speak up in class. After class, a couple of students did commend her and express agreement. She made an A in the class, but her interest in utilizing her gift for creative writing diminished significantly due to that experience, as did her interest in Shakespeare, British literature, and foundational works of western civilization.
In January 2012, she was sitting on the front row on the first day of her Media Comms class, waiting for the professor to arrive. Finally, what appeared to be a woman with severe thyroid issues emerged from the side door. She recalled having seen this individual in the women’s restrooms. It turned out to be the professor, a grad student actually, who considered himself to be “transsexual”. Our daughter was heartbroken yet again.
After the class, she immediately called me with her dilemma. Did she want to risk her time with this professor flaunting his agenda front and center all semester just by his presence? Should she drop the class while there was still time, even though there were no alternative classes available that she could take that would apply towards her degree plan? We told her she had our blessing, regardless of her decision. She chose to drop the class and attend summer school, taking the course under a different professor, requiring more money out of our own pocket.
Overall, it cost me over $7,000 to make adjustments rather than have our daughter continue to be subjected and desensitized to depraved and twisted ideology. Her soul and mind were too valuable to put up with that nonsense. I told her to never let fear (in this case, loss of a scholarship) prevent her from speaking truth and sticking by her convictions
In summary, daily debriefings with her and other students attending classes in TAMUs Departments of English and History, indicated they were being subjected to ‘psychological rape’. Whether it is ENGL 212 Shakespeare, ENGL 231 Survey of English Literature (Ex: professor’s obsession with “The Miller’s Prologue”), ENGL-235 Elements of Creative Writing (Ex: Long Time Ago Good, ENGL 360: Literature for Children (Ex: Daddy’s Roommate; Heather has Two Mommies; Raised in Captivity: Why Does America Fail Its Children?), or HIST-106 History of the US (Ex: The Learning Tree), the instructor’s obsession with sex, the LBGTQ religion, or outright perversion in the name of “Education” and ‘higher thought’ is scandalous (an academic ‘Penn State’?).
Students are fearful of grade retribution if they object, so they just try to get through the semester in order to preserve scholarships and financial aid. It is time for parents, foundation leaders, and alumni to know the truth that academic tyrants permeate these departments in A&M’s College of Liberal Arts.
Indoctrinating students with the various permutations* of anti-human religion is their agenda, not classical liberal education or preparation for the job market. These petty educators, so eager for approval from their peers through reciprocal work citations, appear to carry out their agenda with a three-fold approach:
1) destroy the student’s faith (if he/she has one; see Zoology*…i.e. Evolutionary Biology);
2) encourage promiscuity (see all other courses listed below);
3) break the student’s mind from independent, objective thinking.
Pulling the financial plug on these and other departments in the College of Liberal Arts is long overdue.
Our daughter is a Class of 2013 Magna Cum Laude. But at what cost to her homegrown love of learning?
*woke-ism, socialism, hedonism, marxism, gender ideology, etc.
References
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- BIOL-107-506 Zoology – Leslie Winemiller**
- ENGL-231-501 Survey of English Literature 1 – Amy Montz
- ENGL-212-570 Shakespeare – James Harner
- ENGL-360 Literature for Children – Lucia Hodgson
- Hodgson, Lucia. Raised in Captivity: Why Does America Fail Its Children?
- ENGL-235-502 Elements of Creative Writing – Lowell White
- White, Lowell Mick. Long Time Ago Good. College Station: Slough Press, 2009.
- COMM- Communications and Media Studies – “Lucy“ Miller, “transgender” professor
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**September 8, 2009, our daughter called to recap the zoology class lecture that day. The professor continued to pontificate about evolution, particularly in regard to prokaryotic (bacteria) and eukaryotic (highly structured plant and animal) cells. We had been over all this at home, so our daughter was prepared to respectfully challenge the professor with a question about how it could even be possible that highly complex eukaryotic cells with organelles could develop (according to evolutionary theory) from prokaryotic (also spelled prokaryotic) cells. The professor went off on some long, incoherent tangent without ever answering our daughter’s question. This prompted other students to begin asking questions, which the prof seemed ill-prepared to give logical responses.
Over subsequent class lectures, students stopped asking questions since they knew this professor would never provide a straight answer. It is also noteworthy that Leslie Winemiller’s husband, Kirk Winemiller, at the time was also an evolutionary biology professor and protégé of the infamous Dr. Eric Pianka.
Copyright © 2025 Don Stroud