Academics

Future leaders in business, government, and civil society need more than just job skills. The following articles defend the value of liberal education, with a focus on academic quality and rigor, fundamental knowledge, and the ideas that have shaped Western Civilization. They also scrutinize academic programs that have departed from these ideals in the name of progressive ideology.

University, community college bills survive crossover deadline

May 25, 2007 ·

RALEIGH – Thursday was the deadline for bills to clear either the state House or the state Senate for them to have a chance of passage during the 2007-09 legislative session. With the deadline comes the passage of several bills that affect the University of North Carolina system and the North Carolina Community College System.

Among the many bills passed during the first few months of the session, some pertain to UNC President Erskine Bowles’ effort to make the university system more efficient. Others would amend performance measures within the community college system and make other changes to the two higher education systems.

Buried Treasure

May 23, 2007 ·

No, this column wasn’t prompted by the release of the latest pirate movie. Rather, it was prompted by a minute spent looking through my library.

Hunting for another book, my eye landed upon a book I hadn’t looked at in years – Education: Assumptions Versus History by Thomas Sowell. Sowell is a black economist who has had a distinguished career teaching at some of American’s top universities. His prolific writings have touched on just about every important public policy topic, including education.

Swett’s nomination should spur changes in UNC Board of Governors selection

May 21, 2007 ·

CHAPEL HILL – Purnell Swett has a decision to make, and members of the State House of Representatives have some explaining to do.

The newly elected member of the UNC Board of Governors can take his seat on the governing board when his term begins on July 1. He can also decide not to accept his post due to his 1998 conviction for taking money from the school system he headed.

UNC-Chapel Hill Faculty Defeat Achievement Index

May 17, 2007 ·

CHAPEL HILL – At the end of the spring semester, the Faculty Council at UNC-Chapel Hill considered and narrowly defeated a policy that would change the way the grading system works. The proposed Achievement Index (AI) is a number similar to the typical grade-point average (GPA) but it would be used to determine class rank and degrees with distinction.

The index is a way of combating grade inflation and would be a trend-setting step if adopted. The proposal to adopt AI at UNC originated with the Educational Policy Committee of the Faculty Council.

Postmodern Physics

May 16, 2007 ·

Editor’s Note: Guest writer Frank Tipler is a professor of physics at Tulane University.

A recent study shows that Shakespeare is no longer a required course for English majors at the overwhelming majority of American elite universities. This is not a surprise: most people are well aware that students are no longer taught the basics in the humanities departments.

Unfortunately, the situation is just as bad in physics departments. At the overwhelming majority of physics departments at American universities, even the most elite, key elements of basic physics are no longer taught. For example, I am aware of no American university that requires, for an undergraduate degree in physics, a course in general relativity, which is Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity. At the overwhelming majority of American universities, including Harvard, M.I.T. and Cal Tech, one is not even required to take a course in general relativity to get a Ph.D. in physics! As a consequence, most American Ph.D.’s in physics do not understand general relativity. If a problem arises that requires knowledge of Einstein’s theory of gravity, almost all American physicists can only look blank. This is in spite of the fact that general relativity has been known to be the correct theory of gravity for almost a century.

A Dental School for ECU?

May 14, 2007 ·

RALEIGH — Many North Carolinians, especially in rural areas, suffer from lack of dental care. Would a $100 million new dental school at East Carolina University provide it? The General Assembly is pondering that question.

Although the proposed ECU dental school has significant political support, its future is uncertain. In 2006, the legislature gave ECU $3 million to plan the school. But the governor has proposed that funds for building it go into a bond issue, to be presented to the voters in November.

The House and Senate are still developing their budgets. On May 3, appropriations subcommittees proposed only $1 million for the dental school’s professional staff and $2.5 million for capital planning.

UNC discusses safety at policy meeting

May 11, 2007 ·

CHAPEL HILL – University of North Carolina officials began working on ways to improve campus security weeks before Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech and then himself on April 16.

Originally, UNC officials were responding to incidents at UNC-Greensboro, where a student was shot in a dorm, and at East Carolina, and Winston-Salem State University. Officials were looking at what was needed to improve campus safety. Those meetings involved President Erskine Bowles, chancellors, and campus police chiefs across the system.

Now, in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, those discussions now include the Board of Governors (BOG).

Paying the Profs – How Much is Enough?

May 9, 2007 ·

Is the University of North Carolina system experiencing a “brain drain” because of inadequate faculty compensation?

The UNC administration seems to think so. In 2006, the UNC Board of Governors approved a plan proposed by UNC President Erskine Bowles to raise UNC faculty pay to the 80th percentile among peer institutions. (Why the 80th percentile and not 75th or 85th or some other figure was not made clear.) This plan would also provide merit-based pay increases of four percent per year and $2 million to match private funds for distinguished professorships. To pay for all of that, Bowles has asked the legislature for an additional $87.8 million in fiscal years 2008-09.

Pope Center Releases Report on UNC Faculty Compensation

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Raleigh — University of North Carolina faculty compensation compares favorably with compensation at peer institutions around the country, says a new report by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

Using data from the AAUP (American Association of University Professors), Jon Sanders compared average faculty compensation (salaries plus benefits), adjusted for living costs, with compensation at peer universities around the country. He compared UNC campuses with institutions in the same Carnegie classification (a widely-used way of grouping higher education institutions).