Conservative thinkers are mostly united on the need for reforming the American college system, but they’re divided on how to do it. It can be hard to pin down, exactly, what is to be done, as the Martin Center has previously reported. So it may be worthwhile to step back and look at what proposals … Continue reading “Renewing the University: A Pro/Con of Proposals”
An ill wind has buffeted higher education in the year of the plague. Workers have been laid off, the ranks of the professoriate have shrunk, and enrollment declines across the industry threaten the long-term finances of all but the most prestigious institutions. While the pain has not been as deep as some experts feared, a … Continue reading “Did You Know? The Higher Ed Bureaucracy Won the Pandemic”
Members of the media and faculty erupted into histrionics at the recent appointment of Darrell Allison to the chancellorship of Fayetteville State University. It is a great scandal, they claimed; Allison “cut in line” cried the left-wing think tank NC Policy Watch; the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and FSU faculty senate questioned not … Continue reading “Perpetual Scandal-Mongering as a Political Tool”
Virginia’s top public universities are largely stratified by socioeconomic status. Consider the following statistics that appear in the new book by James V. Koch and Richard J. Cebula, Runaway College Costs: How College Governing Boards Fail to Protect their Students. At the College of William & Mary only 13.6 percent of the student body comes … Continue reading “The Problem of Higher Ed and Economic Mobility”
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently released a report decrying the politicization of public higher education governance, entitled The New Order: How the Nation’s Partisan Divisions Consumed Public-College Boards and Warped Higher Education. The report says more about the tunnel vision that pervades the liberal media and academic establishment than it does about the real … Continue reading “America Wants Its Public Colleges Back and The Chronicle Isn’t Happy About It”
Academia is a troubled institution plagued by financial problems, falling academic standards, and poor educational outcomes. Especially concerning is its politicization; it increasingly sows racial discord, advocates for anti-American and anti-Western perspectives, and promotes socialism. At times, it even rejects its most important value—the pursuit of truth—for a distorted vision of social justice. How has … Continue reading “Can Higher Education Be Saved? The Hope for Governance Reform”
From the Executive Summary of Bolstering the Board: Trustees Are Academia’s Best Hope for Reform: Two conditions are needed to effect large-scale reforms in academia: a hierarchical, top- down system of governance that can enact sweeping changes, and for that system to be controlled or heavily influenced by those outside the system. Strong board governance … Continue reading “Bolstering the Board: Trustees Are Academia’s Best Hope for Reform”
Suffering from self-inflicted wounds, the University of Tulsa is sick and getting sicker. This is a case study in how “progressive” academic leadership can wreck a once-excellent university. Last April 11, the university’s administration rolled out “True Commitment,” a radical restructuring that gutted the liberal arts, raised course loads, dissolved academic departments, and effectively turned … Continue reading “How Tulsa University Was Turned into Toxic University”
Something is rotten in the County of New Hanover. Cape Fear Community College, the fifth-largest in the state, is experiencing very public governance issues. Faculty and staff have accused CFCC president Jim Morton of creating a hostile work environment built on favoritism and bullying. The “toxic culture,” as multiple sources put it, has made employees … Continue reading “In Wilmington, the Decline of Community College Leadership”
A recent cascade of investigative reporting on the shady business dealings of Jerry Falwell Jr. has raised some troubling questions about the controversial evangelical figure and his vision for Liberty University, the conservative Christian institution he has led for more than a decade. Reports from Politico and Reuters, with university staff and administrators as sources, … Continue reading “Liberty University: A Cautionary Tale”