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CommentariesBacktalk Permitted in this Classroom Several weeks ago, I wrote an article detailing my experiences as a graduate teaching assistant. I exposed the lack of standards or consistency in training graduate students to teaching undergraduates—which they do in large numbers in the University of North Carolina system.... More » I graduated from college with two degrees. One was in political science, which led me to graduate school and eventually into the workforce, and one was in French. Some might argue that political science was the more practical, and it certainly has given me more tangible returns. But my French classes gave me something equally valuable, though more ineffable: the ability to communicate.... More » Avoiding the Taint of Christmas Removing the Christmas trees from two libraries was an embarrassing gaffe for UNC-Chapel Hill. Students have complained, media have ridiculed it as an extreme form of political correctness, and Chancellor Holden Thorp has gone to great lengths to prove that the university isn’t anti-Christmas. His staff even put together a 78-second video showing that Christmas is, indeed, celebrated on campus.... More » The First Amendment Ain’t Broke—Don’t Fix It An ugly incident occurred at North Carolina State University the day after the November 4 presidential election. In the school’s “Free Expression Tunnel,” where all graffiti has traditionally been permitted, four students were caught on camera writing the following: "Hang Obama by a noose," and "Let's shoot that n----- in the head!"... More » Robertson v. Princeton, a closely watched donor-intent court case, was settled last week. The settlement, with no clear winners, sends a message to major donors: watch out when you give your money to a college or university.... More » Skewering the Great Books Movement The classics of Western civilization—often known as Great Books—have an image problem. Now Alex Beam, a columnist with the Boston Globe, attempts to skewer the Great Books even further. But his effort backfires—even he ends up liking the Great Books.... More » How to Create Terrible Professors Every college student, at one time or another, has endured a course with a terrible professor. A professor who reads directly from his notes, like he’s telling a very boring story. Or one who simply recites the same information found on the PowerPoint, using slightly different words. Or maybe a wannabe hip grad student who spends all her time “connecting” to students rather than imparting knowledge.... More » Hard times should mean hard decisions about higher education in North Carolina. The state’s community college system does not appear to have heard the news, however.... More » A Most Unnatural State of Nature Is the current financial mess a sign that the “capitalist patriarchy” is “a violent system in its death pangs?” That was the claim of one recent speaker invited to the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill.... More » Women in Combat Okay with Obama The female college students who enthusiastically supported Barack Obama for president might not know that he wants women to register with the Selective Service at age 18, just as men do. Or that he wants the military to officially open combat positions to women.... More » Last March, the University of Nebraska chose William Ayers as the keynote speaker for a conference to be held at the university’s College of Education in November. Yes, that William Ayers – the former Weather Underground radical who, back in his student days, thought that some bombings of public buildings would help foment leftist revolution and bring down our oppressive government. He was famous forty years ago and is now famous again for his close association with Barack Obama.... More » Chancellor Thorp’s Installation Address Offers Insights into His Thinking On October 12, the recently appointed chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill, Holden Thorp, delivered his first big speech.... More » The Carolina Creative Campus is in its second year of bringing a theme-based series of performances to the UNC-Chapel Hill Campus. It is an initiative created last year by a grant from the Doris Duke Foundation (The grant was for one year only—the program is now funded primarily by ticket sales and university money).... More » Liberal Education or Career Training? On October 2, Professor Craufurd Goodwin, who has been on the Duke economics faculty for more than 50 years, gave the Founder’s Day Talk. His remarks centered on the theme that Duke has allowed career training to shove liberal education into the back seat.... More » It bothers many of us that colleges operate in a sea of money. Tuition has been rising faster than inflation to the point where spending $50,000 a year for college is not unusual, and colleges are competing for students with costly features such as luxurious dorm rooms with double beds, state-of-the-art gym facilities, and million-dollar athletic coaches.... More » When I started at N.C. State in the fall of 2005 I knew exactly what I wanted to do after graduation. I was going to be a buyer for a department store. I chose the College of Textiles in order to reach this goal.... More » Clash of Wills Over Enrollment Coming to Chapel Hill UNC-Chapel Hill trustees may be on a collision course with the system-wide UNC Board of Governors—and perhaps the legislature—over whether or not the Chapel Hill campus will significantly expand enrollment.... More » Rethinking Reputation -- Reconsidered! Editor’s Note: On August 14, we published "Rethinking Reputation“ an article about a transfer student’s experience at N. C. State. The author, Terri Howell, described her shock at courses that allowed “cheat sheets” on tests and class sessions that were no more than “groupthink” labs. Although Howell’s statistics courses were rigorous, she was disturbed by the “dumbing down” she experienced in other classes, including sociology and psychology. She also reported on significant grade inflation between 1995 and 2008.... More » This essay, by Sam Hieb, is the latest installment of a Clarion Call special series, “If I Knew Then What I Know Now,” which offers different perspectives of the college experience. Hieb is a freelance journalist based in Greensboro, N.C., and edits a popular blog about the Triad region called Piedmont Publius. He received a B.A. in English and an M.A. in History from UNC-Greensboro.... More » Affirmative Action By Any Other Name Professor Tim Groseclose of U.C.L.A. recently created a Category 5 hurricane of controversy when he announced his resignation from his university’s admissions committee. Groseclose, who teaches political science, believes that the school is using a “holistic” admissions policy as a way of circumventing California’s ban on racial preferences and chose to resign when the administration refused to give him the data he needed to thoroughly research the question.... More » Putting the Civic Cart Before the Horse Should college students be political activists?... More » New Kid on the College Rankings Block There’s a new kid on the college rankings block. The Center for College Affordability and Productivity has devised a new college ranking system and it has received a lot of attention in the current issue of Forbes magazine)... More » Modern universities have expanded their roles greatly in recent decades. Various interests now regard them as engines of social change or economic growth. They have become increasingly involved in communities, politics, K-12 education, and even entertainment.... More » Our Encroaching Federal Government During the legislative battle in Congress over the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, one of the more distressing ideas that was included is to use the federal government’s power to compel the states to maintain their current levels of higher education spending. That is, states that cut their higher education spending would be punished by the loss of federal funds. The final version of the bill was hammered out last week and it contains a watered-down “maintenance of effort” provision. Once the bill becomes law, the principle that Washington can tell the states how much to spend on higher education will be set in place.... More » Are Research and Teaching Friends or Foes? Editor’s note: Higher education has two key missions: transferring existing knowledge to students, and discovering new knowledge. While the two functions are not mutually exclusive, there is a growing awareness that trade-offs exist between them. Does an emphasis on research detract from undergraduate education? Are too much time and money spent on research rather than teaching? Is career advancement (such as tenure) too dependent on research, a la “publish or perish?”... More » A Non-Solution to a Non-Problem Statistical gaps between groups of people are a constant preoccupation of certain individuals, mostly liberal egalitarians. Two Harvard professors, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz have focused their attention on one of those gaps, namely the gap in earnings between those who have college degrees and those who don’t. They have a new book out, The Race Between Education and Technology and they discuss their views in this Chronicle Review article.... More » Giant of Ideas Threatens Small Minds The world lost one of its foremost intellectuals with the death of Milton Friedman in 2006. A Nobel Prize winner in economics, prolific author, adviser to several presidents and spirited advocate for a much freer society, Friedman added immensely to our understanding of how the world works.... More » African-American males are few and far between on college campuses. And among those who do arrive, not many are graduating. That problem was the underlying theme of the John Hope Franklin Symposium held at Duke University in late June. Sponsored by the magazine Diverse Issues in Higher Education, the symposium is held annually in honor of John Hope Franklin, historian and professor emeritus at Duke.... More » A new study raises questions about the much-vaunted excellence of North Carolina’s higher education system.... More » Headlines have long suggested that the state of American primary and secondary education is in a bad way. Recent tests show U.S. students falling behind other developed or developing countries in important subjects like math, reading, and science. In North Carolina, only 68 percent of high school students graduate in four years or less. And a disturbingly high percentage of those students who do graduate must take remedial classes if they pursue a higher education.... More » New Broom Unlikely to Sweep Clean Linda P. Brady, who was elected by the Board of Governors to be the new chancellor of UNC-Greensboro last week, seems to be the safe protector of the status quo—an academic insider unlikely to take any sort of stand against her peers. Her election illustrates another opportunity lost to install a bold, dynamic, innovative leader at the helm of a state university.... More » Required to Graduate: Mandatory Volunteering Senate Bill 2079, which would create a substantial community service requirement for graduation from the North Carolina colleges, has two laudable goals. It seeks to instill in educated young people a habit of volunteering for the betterment of society, and it tries to address some of the academic problems in our K-12 schools... More » A Breath of Fresh Air in College Rankings Today there is a growing emphasis on accountability in higher education. This trend has taken its toll on the U.S. News and World Report’s lists of the “best” colleges. The lists are still wildly popular, but some higher education critics view them with skepticism because they are based on “reputation” and “input” measures, rather than indications of educational quality.... More » Big Changes Bring Big Questions for UNC Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the Greensboro News & Record on April 9.... More » At first glance, the selection of the new chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill seems ideal. Indeed, it appears as though Holden Thorp was not just groomed for the job, but created for it.... More » Bucking the System, Diversity-Style “Our school is accredited.”... More » Global Warming Grinches Steal Earth Day There’s a lot to be said for Earth Day, which we celebrate tomorrow, April 22. When I was a child, Earth Day events fostered my awareness of the environment. In elementary school, the focus was on oil spills and endangered species such as the Right Whale or the giant panda. In middle school, rainforests ruled on Earth Day. By the time I got to college, recycling programs—from bottles to tires—were in vogue.... More » Great Books: The “Comeback Kid” of Higher Education? In academia today, Shakespeare has given way to feminist theory, while Plato has been reduced to a paraphrase and the Aeneid to a footnote. But a few scholars and teachers still love Great Books.... More » Engaging the Disengaged Student College professors yearn for academically interested students—eager young minds that want to grasp new ideas and soak up information. But not many students are like that. Most come to college to get a degree and have fun while doing it.... More » The death of Martin Luther King, Jr., which we commemorate today, is a painful reminder of the nation’s tragic experience with racial divisions. But Dr. King’s life was also a paean to hope. As everyone knows, Dr. King believed that a day would arrive when his children would be judged not by their color but by the content of their character.... More » Does Liberal Education Have a Future? (For a .pdf version of this speech, click here.)... More » UNC Shouldn't Be the University of No Candor As of this writing, the men's basketball team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is ranked number one in the country. Indeed, such a high ranking is not that unusual for teams of many sports (outside of football, of course) from UNC-Chapel Hill.... More » Seamless Transition Between Schools Needs Stitching Achieving the much-vaunted “seamless” transition between North Carolina’s community colleges and universities may require more than superficial fixes. That is the impression given by a report prepared last year for the North Carolina State University history department.... More » A Clear Case for Streamlining Government The question before the General Assembly is what to do about the North Carolina Center for Nursing (NCCN). One of the proposed solutions is to simply eliminate the state-funded think tank, and it might be time to do so. Or at least remove it from the state budget.... More » Rejecting Victimhood for Individuality I was torn. The cookies at the Gender Gap Bake Sale looked delicious, and I could buy one for only 75 cents. That’s because I am a woman. Men had to pay $1 each. Trouble is, it would have violated my sense of justice; getting a cheaper cookie struck me as a handout or maybe a sly trick to get my consent to policies to raise women’s wages. I considered paying full price but I didn’t want to cause a scene. So I walked by.... More » Dismal K-12 Education Makes Colleges Look Good The nonprofit organization that I head, the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, frequently criticizes North Carolina’s colleges and universities. But as many North Carolina parents know, higher education problems are small when compared to the failings of elementary and secondary education.... More » The Buck Stops Elsewhere at Duke The Sex Workers Art Show (SWAS) swept through the southern Piedmont region recently, leaving disgust, incredulity and facile arguments about freedom of speech in its wake. It also provided the final push that toppled one president of a prestigious college, and further exposed the appalling lack of judgment of another.... More » These two facts should remain mere coincidence: one, that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is seeking to replace retiring Chancellor James Moeser, and two, that College of William & Mary President Gene Nichol abruptly resigned after 19 tumultuous months as head after learning that the college's board wouldn't renew his contract in July.... More » Ignoring the Ideological Elephant in the Classroom The state university system recently invested considerable time and money in the UNC Tomorrow Commission to see how North Carolina’s public colleges can “best meet the needs of the state and its people over the next 20 years.” The commission placed particular emphasis on how to provide for the future prosperity of North Carolina.... More » A Broader Role for the University On Its Way? In 2006 when Erskine Bowles gave his inaugural address as president of the University of North Carolina, he took a surprising tack. In describing the goals of the university, he listed strengthening K-12 education as the first. “Nothing is more important,” he said.... More » Something for Everyone Might Mean Less for All Editor's Note: A slightly shorter version of this article originally appeared in the Raleigh News & Observer on January 1, 2008.... More » A Refreshing Twist on Education: Competition Critics have been pointing out the failings of education schools for decades, with few positive results. So why not foster competition instead?... More » Jon Sanders' Top 10 Nuttiest N.C. Campus Events For 2007 Editor’s note: Jon Sanders compiles an annual “Top Ten” list of what he calls the “nuttiest campus events” in North Carolina. This year’s list makes a notable exception, granting the top spot (see below) to something that didn't happen. What didn’t happen, he says, was so strikingly necessary that its predictable non-occurrence warrants attention.... More » Americans Want to Help Immigrants, Up to a Point In 1982, the Supreme Court decided that K-12 education could not be denied to illegal immigrants. Symbolically speaking, these children have now grown up and, twenty-five years later, the issue is whether illegal immigrants should be denied a college education at public community colleges and universities.... More » Deconstructing America by Decree Assume that a popularly-elected government enacts a law. The law has the backing of an overwhelming majority of the people. Yet government officials decide they don’t like the law and choose to ignore it.... More » Editor’s note: The latest installment in the wizarding movies, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will likely make an appearance under many Christmas trees this year. A more important question is whether the books should make an appearance in college courses. This article was originally published in the Charlotte Observer on August 9, 2007.... More » “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.... More » Things We Could Do Without in the State Budget On Monday, legislators gave final approval of a $20.7 billion budget for the 2007-08 Fiscal Year. Less than a day later, Gov. Mike Easley signed and sealed the package.... More » In January, Nick Saban signed an eight-year $32 million contract with the University of Alabama to become its next football coach, making him the highest-paid college coach in the nation.... More » Many NC universities require summer reading for freshmen. Here are the titles used this year:... More » College Summer Reading Can Be Useful – Or Not Many colleges and universities these days have a “summer reading” program for incoming students, which requires them to read a book and be prepared to discuss it during the first few days of class. The programs are designed to create a common ground among new students, challenge them to think critically about new ideas and introduce them to university work and intellectual life at a university.... More » Lloyd Hackley is UNC’s problem solver Lloyd Hackley is on the job again.... More » Is it time for Title IX to end? My first introduction to writing professionally was as a sports writer for a couple of newspapers in West Virginia. The assignments were simple – go to the games, follow the action, report on what you saw, and occasionally offer commentary and features on the athletes and events.... More » Being an Angry Faculty Radical Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry To recap the news out of Durham this year: In April, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper declared Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans – the Duke University lacrosse players accused by "exotic dancer" Crystal Gail Mangum of rape and sexual assault – "innocent of these charges."... More » New A&T Chancellor Has Long Road Ahead When N.C. A&T Chancellor Stanley Battle was named to the position last November, he said he wanted to make the school among the best in the nation. Little did he know at the time that the goal would begin with a rebuilding process.... More » The Duke Lacrosse story is, finally, over.... More » Swett’s nomination should spur changes in UNC Board of Governors selection CHAPEL HILL – Purnell Swett has a decision to make, and members of the State House of Representatives have some explaining to do.... More » The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly RALEIGH – Early Friday morning, while many in North Carolina were sound asleep, state House members approved a $20.3 billion budget that keeps in place temporary taxes that were scheduled to end and provides more than $11 billion in funding for education in the state.... More » A mini scandal amid a maxi push for federal control It’s happening beneath the radar of most media and the public, but it is a major conflict, nonetheless. The prize that is being fought over is accreditation – who decides which schools are “good enough” so that their students can receive federal financial aid (such as Pell grants).... More » Guns, Troubled Students, and Campus Security Last week, Pope Center writer Shannon Blosser expressed our sorrow at the lives horribly cut short by the massacre at Virginia Tech. He said that it was wrong to “play the blame game,” as some of the media had started to do, so quickly after the tragedy. It was more appropriate, he said, to honor the victims whose lives ended so suddenly.... More » Let’s Hold Off the Blame Game at Virginia Tech It seems fruitless on this day to comment on the “inside baseball” of the state budget process or the academic climate within higher education. There are other days and other weeks for those serious conversations.... More » UNC-Rocky Mount doesn't stand up to fiscal analysis Business and political leaders from Rocky Mount and eastern North Carolina have championed the idea of transforming North Carolina Wesleyan College into a public institution within the UNC system. A study commission authorized by the legislature is wrapping up its findings, and supporters are already referring to the school as "UNC-Rocky Mount."... More » Legislature Should View “EARN” Scholarship with Caution Responding to Governor Mike Easley’s plan to provide tuition-free college for two years, Shannon Blosser of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy said, “The legislature should view this program very cautiously. It could create an expensive entitlement for students that will put heavy burdens on taxpayers.”... More » The Raleigh News and Observer has been quarrelling with a group based in Chapel Hill called the Citizens for Higher Education (CHE). CHE is the second-largest political action committee (PAC) in the state, measured by the amounts of money given to legislators. Its goal is to ”build political support for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the state’s other research universities.” In other words, it lobbies the legislature to obtain special benefits for the state’s leading public campuses.... More » V-Day: Stripping Away Modesty and Dignity Ask a random stranger what “V-Day” is. You might get some interesting answers. Some will probably confuse it with VE-Day or VJ-Day, the days marking the end of World War II in Europe and Japan. Perhaps some will think it’s simply an abbreviation of Valentine’s Day. However, no incorrect guesses could possibly be as interesting, or as shocking, as the truth. V-Day stands for “Vagina Day” and takes place the same day as the more traditional Valentine’s Day.... More » The skills college graduates need One of the phrases we hear over and over again from the American higher education establishment is that it’s “the envy of the world.” I have never actually seen evidence to back that contention up, like a statement from the German Prime Minister saying, “We Germans are so envious of your wonderful higher education system in America.” I have, however, seen quite a lot of evidence that Americans aren’t terribly impressed with the results of our colleges and universities.... More » Offer to help, get your hand chewed off Recently the new dean of the school of humanities, arts, and sciences at NC State asked to meet with Art Pope, who heads the John W. Pope Foundation. The Foundation has given substantial financial assistance to higher education in North Carolina over the years and Dean Toby Parcel wanted to see if it would be possible to arrange additional support, particularly for foreign language programs.... More » Gary Becker and Richard Posner Discuss Student Aid Programs Two famous University of Chicago professors, Gary S. Becker and Richard A. Posner have a blog on which a great variety of topics come up for discussion. Becker is the 1992 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and Posner is a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals who has written many books in the field of law and economics. In an exchange posted on December 3, they traded thoughts on the proposals floating in Washington for making student loan programs less costly.... More » Higher Education Would Benefit From an Economic Perspective It is often said that the United States has the best system of higher education in the world, and certainly North Carolinians take pride in their universities. But readers of these pages know that the image often differs from the reality.... More » Miami officials miss opportunity to set an example In the aftermath of the Oct. 14 brawl between Florida International and the University of Miami, Miami President Donna Shalala has said all the right things. She’s done all the wrong things when it comes to punishing the players involved.... More » Spellings makes recommendations for higher education’s future WASHINGTON – Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced Tuesday proposals to reform higher education that would increase need-based financial aid and create a national database to provide more information to families.... More » NCAA should leave academic requirements to schools It must be getting close to college football season, because my mind keeps wondering to all things college football, the NCAA, and the Fiesta Bowl.... More » Miller discusses problems with college writing This is a portion of Nan Miller's speech to the John Locke Foundation Monday. Miller discussed a recent study examining college writing courses to a crowd of 40 people. This excerpt shows typical conversations one may have about college writing programs.... More » Chapel Hill — On Friday afternoon, an act of terrorism at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill left students and faculty in disbelief, wondering why a former student would ram an SUV into a crowded group of students. Many of them extended their disbelief to include a willful denial that the attack was an act of terrorism at all.... More » Bringing Health and Fitness to the University The newly-installed Chancellor of the University of East Dakota at Middleburg (UED at M), Dr. D. Reginald Von Buskirk, was determined to make improvements at the campus. His predecessor had been content to collect his annual salary of $250,000 in return for a bit of tinkering with the curriculum to make it more relevant to students – the popular new Sociology course on “The Simpsons” had been his idea – but the school had mostly stagnated under his leadership. Von Buskirk was made of different stuff. The most important thing he had learned in earning his doctorate in education administration was that leaders must be bold. That idea had so overwhelmed him that he wrote his dissertation on it, “Leadership Styles and the Boldness Imperative.” His advisor had called it “the most inspiring twenty pages I’ve ever read.” Von Buskirk had a bold idea for UED at M.... More » Controversy surrounds DTH cartoon CHAPEL HILL – For the second time this school year, The Daily Tar Heel, UNC-Chapel Hill’s student newspaper, is in the middle of a firestorm over content in its publication. This time the criticism comes from UNC-Chapel Hill administrators.... More » A look at UNC-A diversity program How do you define diversity? Let me restate that question… How do you measure diversity? Some at UNC-A are currently feeling troubled over what they see as a lack of diversity at the school. That’s why they’ve created “The New Diversity Task Force”. The student newspaper, The Banner, reports that students and faculty are questioning what can be done about this “growing problem”.... More » The High Cost and Low Productivity of Our Higher Education System: What it Means for America I am honored by the invitation to speak to you today. The Pope Center is a very positive force in rethinking higher education in America. I am somewhat surprised, frankly, that I was invited to speak, since I am an economist, and economists suffer from two defects. First, they are deadly dull. It is usually more fun watching paint dry than listening to an economist. Indeed, it might even be preferable to have a hemorrhoid operation without an anesthetic from an unlicensed French physician to having to listen to an economist pontificate.... More » How not to get folks to believe your kooky conspiracy theory For Christensen, Jones, and their ilk, it seems, you're either with them or against them. Either you believe without question that there's a grand conspiracy of global domination as manifested by the massive, U.S.- and Israel-orchestrated hoax called 9/11 — or you're part of it.... More » |
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