http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/ Fri, 24 May 2013 0:38:33 EDT PHP/5.2.6 en http://www.popecenter.org/images/common/xml.gif http://www.popecenter.org Thu, 23 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2850 It’s official: the federal Departments of Justice and Education have joined together to put an end to free speech on America’s campuses. This is not an exaggeration—those government agencies are trying to grab our most basic freedom under the cover of preventing sexual harassment. Students across the country will be facing a grim situation for free speech in the... Tue, 21 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2849 A year ago, Duke Cheston of the Pope Center criticized a class in political science at North Carolina State University. Because its presentation of the American political system was clearly biased, his story was titled “Evil Republicans 101.” Now we have come across another section of the same... Sun, 19 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2848 Last year, many North Carolina colleges and universities invited politicians to be keynote speakers during their commencement ceremonies. This year the focus was on speakers who made it big in the technology industry, plus some academics and celebrities from television news. Only two elected leaders showed up—Governor Pat McCrory at Catawba College and former Atlanta mayor Andrew... Thu, 16 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2847 Sustainability is second only to diversity as the most used word in the campus lexicon. While its meaning is vague and its scope unclear, the underlying idea is that you care about the environment and that you are consuming no more energy than you need. North Carolina State University has adopted sustainability in a big way, beginning with ”climate neutrality.” In... Tue, 14 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2846 I cross the border under cover of night and slip into the foreign capital. In my trench coat and hat, I hope to complete my mission unrecognized. On the icy river, lights twinkle from the distant hotel. I hesitate a moment, but walk on; there is no turning back. I will execute my mission. Spy fiction is littered with initials and acronyms: SMERSH, SPECTRE, NSA, KGB. My... Sun, 12 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2845 With the national economy still locked in the doldrums, states must continue to pull back on funding public university systems. The universities, in return, have two alternatives: they can raise tuition or cut costs. Most often, they do both. After several years of diminishing or static appropriations, however, many schools say they have already cut to the bone and must scramble to... Thu, 9 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2844 More and more college-age students are taking community college classes before transferring to four-year universities. They can save money (community college tuition is a fraction of four-year school tuition), gain maturity, and maybe even bring up their grades enough to enroll in a more prestigious college than they otherwise could have. But how well do community colleges prepare... Tue, 7 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2843 Today’s college freshmen can be trained to write well—and in one semester. I will describe one way it can be done. Let’s start with an example from “Tom,” written in the first week of a freshman course. Ever Since my childhood I worked many different jobs. In my teenage years I worked on a farm. My job was one to remember. Early... Sun, 5 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2842 Only she and her sometime boyfriend know for sure whether he raped her, as she claims and he denies. Her allegation was never tested in criminal court, because she never went to the police. Instead the matter was adjudicated in a campus court at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where both were students. This story is a tangled mess that recently made national news. But... Thu, 2 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2841 I started my college experience while working full-time as a systems/network administrator in Anchorage, Alaska, where I was born and raised. This came about because, while in high school, I developed an interest in building and programming computers. I became skilled enough to land a job as a junior systems administrator straight out of high school. During the six... Tue, 30 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2840 State flagship universities have an image problem. They want people to think of them as places where students are dedicated to their studies, but can also have some fun. Watch the glowing ads such schools run at halftime in televised football and basketball games. The problem is that information keeps getting out, showing that for many students, the fun overwhelms the studying. When... Sun, 28 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2839 College graduation rates—particularly four-year rates—are low, both nationwide and in the UNC system. So many factors contribute to the low rates (students’ poor preparation, their need to earn money by working, lack of interest, schools’ failure to provide the right classes etc.) that it is difficult to find techniques that will enable students to move to... Thu, 25 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2838 English departments were once considered a core component of every college. But for over 40 years they have been in decline. In an influential 2009 American Scholar essay William M. Chace noted that from 1970 to 2003 the number of students majoring in English fell by nearly half, from 7.6 percent of all majors to 3.9 percent. Meanwhile business zoomed to almost 22 percent of all... Wed, 24 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2837 The “everyone should go to college” belief is coming under more and more criticism. One of the critics is Dale Stephens, the founder of UnCollege. His book Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More than Your Peers Ever Will has been published recently and after reading it, I asked him to answer ten questions about the book and his... Sun, 21 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2836 Higher education reform doesn’t come easy. Lots of people like things the way they are, no matter how bad things really are. In Texas, Republican governor Rick Perry’s five-year drive to reform the 16-campus University of Texas system is getting a great deal of... Thu, 18 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2835 “Fascists,” “bums,” and “killing machines.” That’s how conservatives and Republicans were described at the initial meeting of a new organization of faculty members in North Carolina. The group, named “Scholars for a Progressive North Carolina,” was formed in response to what organizers... Tue, 16 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2834 I admit that I was stunned by the appointment of Carol Folt as chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill. It’s hard to believe that someone who has spent her entire career at Dartmouth, a relatively small (4,200 students) Ivy League college, can navigate the shoals of a large, public university (nearly 29,000 students) where sports and academics vie for dominance and where scandals keep breaking... Sun, 14 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2833 On July 1, sixteen new members will join the UNC Board of Governors. The newcomers are almost all Republicans, and thus might be expected to be conservative about expenses, but will they reform the system? There is a danger that the governors may balk when it comes to challenging the usual way of doing business at the university. Nearly all governors are graduates of... Thu, 11 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2832 By Jay Schalin (Editor’s note: This article was published in the Raleigh News & Observer on April 8, 2013.) It is time to open up North Carolina’s government operations to the public view. The North Carolina legislature has a great opportunity this year to make state and local governments more ethical and efficient. Some progress was... Tue, 9 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2831 In spite of all the alarm over rising costs and excessive borrowing for college, one person is confident that college will be far less expensive in just a few years. In the vision outlined by Vance H. Fried, there will be little need for federally subsidized loans. Many parents will be able to pay for college for their children out of current income. Fried is no utopian. He is... Sun, 7 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2830 Shortly after clocks were introduced to Japan in the sixteenth century, Japanese inventors used the principles underlying the clock’s movements to create robots. True, those robots were merely mechanical dolls, but they could often do quite intricate tasks, like serving tea and writing Japanese characters. This idea that mechanical objects could—and should—be made animate and... Fri, 5 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2829 (Editor’s note: This is the second article in a two-part series on remedial education. The first can be found here.) Several years ago, Scott Ralls determined that there were serious problems with the way North Carolina’s community colleges were handling remediation. To... Tue, 2 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2828 When commentator John Stossel was at ABC News, he said that talking to his colleagues about their bias was like talking to fish about water—“What water? It’s just what we live in.” Academia, too, lives in a sea of bias—called political correctness—and its members have trouble seeing it. The term “politically correct” comes straight out of... Sun, 31 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2827 (Editor's Note: This is the first in a two-part series on remedial education in North Carolina's colleges and universities.) For years, a large percentage of North Carolina’s high school students have graduated without proficiency in either math or reading—and sometimes lacking in both. North Carolina colleges and universities must deal with the fallout:... Fri, 29 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2826 The Austrian economist and philosopher F.A. Hayek is probably best known for his argument that we are usually better off if we rely on the spontaneous order that emerges from peaceful human interactions than order that is coercively imposed by government officials. Hayek kept ringing in my head as I watched this fascinating Wed, 27 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2825 Last September, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded $3.3 million in grants for papers on the subject of federal student aid programs—specifically, how we should “reimagine” student aid. The papers were recently released, but there... Sun, 24 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2824 Governor Pat McCrory unveiled his proposal for the state’s biennial budget on March 20. The University of North Carolina system received a small cut compared to the previous biennium, and the budget also specifies changes that should cut waste and expand key initiatives. “We’ve had to make some tough decisions on this budget,” McCrory said in a press conference... Fri, 22 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2823 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT INFO: Jane S. Shaw Pope Center for Higher Education Policy shaw@popecenter.org Phone: 919.828.1400 Former Governor James G. Martin Joins Board of John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy RALEIGH, November 11, 2009 –... Thu, 21 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2822 The new James B. Hunt Library at North Carolina State on the new Centennial Campus has been heralded as one of the finest college libraries in the nation—“the plugged-in library of the future,” according to one Tue, 19 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2821 The issue of campus speakers has, until now, focused on the rights of invited conservatives to speak without harassment and on the disparity of liberal speakers over conservative ones. But a new side to the issue has been raised due to the recent and controversial “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) event on February 7 at Brooklyn College. The participants at the BDS... Sun, 17 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2820 Student end-of-course evaluations are widely used by colleges and universities to determine the success of courses and the effectiveness of their instructors. Schools often use such student feedback even to determine instructors' pay and promotions, to identify instructors who need supplemental training, and to restructure coursework. There is an extensive academic... Thu, 14 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2819 A few weeks ago, I received a flattering email from one of my MBA students. After an engaging class session, this student had gone home, Googled me, and then spent several hours reading “all of my essays” that he could find online. Aside from one doctoral student who requested more information about one of my journal articles, I’ve never had any other student... Tue, 12 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EDT http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2818 The humanities, once the core of higher education, have fallen on hard times. Today’s emphasis on education for jobs combined with humanities professors’ rejection of their own foundations are chasing students from the study of the liberal arts. Many once-thriving humanities departments are no longer viable. It is therefore time to consider the future of the... Sun, 10 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2817 When the New York Times finds a case of what economists call market failure, you can expect that its reporters will investigate it to the core. But when it stumbles across a clear case of government failure, expect at best a superficial and myopic investigation. Such is the case with the recent Thu, 7 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2816 In recent years, Duke University has developed a reputation for debauchery. A steady drumbeat of scandal—from the 2006 Duke lacrosse rape case to Karen Owen’s 2010 “thesis” on the bedroom exploits of her numerous lovers, to various racist or sexist fraternity parties—paints a picture of a university gone wild. While that picture may be slightly... Tue, 5 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2815 Among the Pope Center’s complaints about higher education is that professors devote much of their time to research that adds little or nothing to our understanding of the world, and does so in tedious detail and ponderous prose. (This Calvin & Hobbes cartoon nails that... Mon, 4 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EST http://www.popecenter.org/students/article.html?id=2814 Learn about conservative thought. Improve your writing. Apply your own experience to improving higher education. Write an article for the Pope Center’s website and reach thousands of potential contacts. Based at our office in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Pope Center Summer Internship Program will run 12 weeks from May 20 to August 9. Interns will assist with research and event... Sun, 3 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2813 Traditionally, the American education system, from kindergarten through college, produced innovation, intellectual flexibility, analytical and lateral thinking. In contrast, our international competitors stressed rote learning and conformity. Thus, Americans have had a competitive edge. Today, however, colleges are failing to leverage that competitive edge. Some years ago, our... Thu, 28 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2812 Like many readers I recently encountered the sad tale of how James W. Wagner, President of Emory University, had to apologize for praising the Constitution’s three-fifths compromise (treating slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of congressional representation). A letter to Wagner from the Department of History and African American studies called his analysis “an... Tue, 26 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2811 Not long ago at a North Carolina community college, there always seemed to be fewer cars in the parking lot the week after Pell grant checks were sent out. And one instructor noticed that some students weren’t taking the final in her class. Why? They hadn’t studied and knew they were going to fail—but they had received their checks. Such “students” are... Sun, 24 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2810 To celebrate the 100th issue of its journal, Academic Questions, the National Association of Scholars recently posted an article on its website recommending “One Hundred Great Ideas for Higher Education.” I would like to suggest one more: Don’t let anyone under... Fri, 22 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2809 It is getting harder to ignore the fact that American higher education is in great need of reform. Academia is lurching along unsteadily down an unsustainable and uncertain future—with rising student debt, suffocating political correctness, falling standards, and unrestrained debauchery. Change is inevitable; whether it will come from deliberate policy changes or as an inevitable... Tue, 19 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2808 Dear Prospective College Student, I frequently get asked for advice about going to college. This is partly because I helped my nine younger siblings through the college process, from application to graduation, but also because I've spent much of my own life in various colleges and universities, either as a student (I have a B.A., M.A., and a Ph.D.), a teacher, or as a... Sun, 17 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2807 Many campuses in the UNC system have a hunger for additional students. Administrators want their schools to grow, and, historically, specific state appropriations geared to growth have helped them do it. The legislature typically adds a line item in the budget called “enrollment funding,” based on a standard formula. That formula is likely to change soon. Campuses used to... Thu, 14 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2806 A recent edition of the estimable journal Perspectives on Psychological Science (September 2012) ran something you almost never see in academic literature: an exploration of political bias in academe. In fact, the journal devoted more than half of that issue to six papers exploring the prevalence of political bias in... Tue, 12 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2805 Sellers of goods and services are motivated to do their best when they can make more money if they do a great job of satisfying their customers. On the other hand, very few will put forth their best when there is no extrinsic reward for doing so. Incentives matter, and that’s true whether someone is selling peanuts from a push-cart or is selling his teaching of philosophy. If... Sun, 10 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2804 What can be done about the ideological tilt at colleges and universities? At times, it seems as though the Ivory Tower will be forever lost in a fog of political correctness and collectivist dogma. Yet there have been some positive developments. A number of donors—individuals and organizations—are finding that they can make a difference in the fight to restore objective... Thu, 7 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2803 Would enrolling more out-of-state students help finance our state’s university system, raise its national reputation, and spur the economy? Or would it be a slap in the face to state citizens who support the system with their taxes? State leaders have been wrangling with such questions. A proposal to raise the cap surfaced recently at the January meeting of the... Wed, 6 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2802 Philanthropic foundations usually do not bear the costs when the ideas they promote turn out to be wrong. Unlike business capital, which can be lost when executives back bad products, foundations lose nothing when their executives back bad ideas. One of America’s most active foundations in higher education is the Lumina Foundation.... Sun, 3 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST http://popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2801 After months of meetings and deliberation, the UNC Advisory Committee on Strategic Directions, headed by UNC President Tom Ross, has completed its five-year plan for the UNC system. While not perfect, the plan takes important steps on academic quality and financial management. The Strategic Directions process differed significantly from the UNC Tomorrow’s whistle-stop tour of the...