Columbia Guest Professor Hillary Clinton Faces Unfavorable Evaluation in Student Critique
Former Secretary of State and Democratic Presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, has received criticism for her year-long class on decision-making at Columbia University. The student, Laalitya Acharya, expressed dissatisfaction with the class, titled “Inside the Situation Room,” claiming Clinton leaned more towards a political approach as the semester progressed.
Acharya shared her discontent on TikTok, hoping for more unique insights rather than Clinton reciting passages from her book during lectures.
Hillary Clinton criticized by Columbia University students for lackluster class https://t.co/3mfRKqQeWf https://t.co/3mfRKqQeWf
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 14, 2024
Acharya noted in a Fox News report that Clinton lacked relatability to the students, leading to a noticeable sense of disconnect.
Acharya said: “[There was a] kind of the divide between the students and the professors…I’d hoped that over the course of the semester, [Clinton] would start to loosen up a little bit. We’d get to know more about [Clinton] as [an] individua[l] and really be able to have… a professor/student relationship rather than just having [her] talk at us.”
Noting her disappointment that Clinton remained aloof, Acharya said: “This, however, wasn’t the case, and pretty much for the entire semester, it felt very much like a one-sided speaking engagement where [Clinton and Yarhi-Milo] were just talking at us.”
“In addition, Hillary Clinton didn’t really bring up any examples or any instances or insights that she ‘hasn’t already mentioned in her book or in published articles,” said Acharya.
The student added: “And that was definitely frustrating because a big part of why we were in the class was to understand more about decision-making, why people made the decisions that they did.”
Expressing her perspective, Acharya highlighted that, in her view, the class situation deteriorated rather than improved throughout the semester. She remarked, “Usually, when you start to get to know politicians more on a personal basis, you start to like them a little bit more because they become more humanized. Over the course of the semester, though, I feel like Hillary Clinton became more of a politician than she was at the end.”
Summing up her evaluation, Acharya humorously criticized the class title, “Inside the Situation Room,” stating it fell significantly short of its intended purpose to teach students to “think carefully and analytically about how leaders arrive at their decisions.” She expressed a desire for Clinton to embrace her role as a professor more wholeheartedly.
Columbia’s class profile reads: “Students will be taught how to analyze and understand the complex interplay between individual psychology, domestic politics, public opinion, bureaucracy, the international environment, and other factors which feed into decisions about foreign policy.”
