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.

Higher Education Would Benefit From an Economic Perspective

Nov 13, 2006 ·

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.

While there are some excellent courses, all too frequently students are getting trendy and shallow courses such as those described in CJ’s Course of the Month. As George Leef has written, academic standards are falling, even while grades are going up. Today, college graduation is more a rite of passage than a sign of accomplishment.
How do we get our universities to adopt a more rigorous curriculum and provide young people with an education that values liberty, limited government, and free markets? These are questions that the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy has asked and will continue to address.

Coppin State President named Chancellor of NC A&T

Nov 10, 2006 ·

CHAPEL HILL – Coppin State President Stanley Battle was named Friday as the new chancellor of North Carolina A&T during the November UNC Board of Governors meeting. His appointment is effective July 1.

Battle was unanimously approved to lead the Greensboro school just five months after former North Carolina A&T Chancellor Jim Renick resigned to become senior vice president for programs and research for the American Council on Education. Former Fayetteville State chancellor and North Carolina Community College System president Lloyd Hackney will continue to serve as interim chancellor.

Panel OKs ECU Dental School

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CHAPEL HILL — A University of North Carolina Board of Governors committee Thursday gave approval to plans for a dental school at East Carolina University. The full Board of Governors will vote today on whether to give final approval to the creation of the state’s second dental school.

Members of the Board of Governors’ Committee on Educational Planning, Policies, and Programs gave unanimous approval to the plan following a brief presentation by Alan Mabe, vice president for academic planning for the UNC system. Mabe’s presentation outlined the plan, accompanied by comments from a review committee that included dental experts from across the nation.

The push for a new dental school has been billed by supporters as an effort to alleviate the shortage of dentists in the state, especially in rural areas. The price tag for a new dental school at ECU is estimated at $90 million.

UNCG, A&T Eye Nano Program

Nov 9, 2006 ·

GREENSBORO — UNC-Greensboro and North Carolina A&T officials recently submitted a request to the University of North Carolina general administration to operate a school of nanotechnology and nanoengineering.

If approved by the Board of Governors, students would be enrolled starting in the fall 2008. The program would mark the second time the two schools together offered a degree program. The schools already offer a combined master’s degree in social work.

School officials have requested a total of $65 million, including funding for new buildings and other operational costs, from UNC in the 2007-2010 budget for the program. Should the Board of Governors approve the program, its budget would still require approval by the General Assembly.

Nanotechnology is focused on microscopic research and development concepts.

The Supreme Court and the Inflation of Educational Credentials

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In the mid-nineteenth century, the French economist Frederic Bastiat distinguished between good and bad economists by focusing on whether they thought through the long-run consequences of their arguments. According to Bastiat, a good economist was not blinded by the possible short-run gains to be attained by pursuing a certain course of action, but asked the question, “What will be the long-run consequences of doing that?” Bastiat was saying that the good economist worries about what we today call unintended consequences, whereas the bad economist considers only the immediate and visible consequences.

While Bastiat’s point was couched in terms of economists, his analysis could be applied just as well to anyone in position to make public policy decisions, including judges who can make law through their decisions in cases. (Judges often say that they are simply “interpreting” the law when they’re actually creating it.) A classic case of this phenomenon was the Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Company (401 U.S. 424).

Higher Education Notebook

Nov 3, 2006 ·

Increasing faculty salaries was the second-highest budget priority out of 11 presented to the Board of Governors’ Committee on Budget and Finance October 12. The administration plans to seek funds from the 2007 legislature to boost faculty salaries, on average, to the 80th percentile of their peers. This would mean adding $43.9 million in 2007-08 and the same amount for 2008-09. The $87.8 total would be in addition to 4 per cent merit-based increases, which will add up to $136 million for the two-year period, plus a proposed $2 million for distinguished professorships.

These numbers come from a “draft for discussion purposes only” list of priorities presented at the meeting and could change. The top priority is need-based financial aid, with a total proposed request for such aid $53.6 million. Other high priorities include $1.75 million for the “Academic Summer Bridge” program for students not ready to enter as freshmen, funds for University of North Carolina Online ($10 million over two years), and a variety of research projects totaling $59 million for 2007-8 and $29.6 million for 2008-09.

The Alexander Hamilton Center stirs hopes – and fears

Nov 2, 2006 ·

On October 13, the institution where I teach, Hamilton College, announced that an alumnus had committed $3.6 million to support the creation of the Alexander Hamilton Center for the Study of Western Civilization. The charter of the new Center clearly sets forth its reason for existence: “The reasoned study of Western civilization, its distinctive achievements as well as its distinctive failures, will further the search for truth and provide the ethical basis necessary for civilized life.” In the past, most colleges required a core curriculum that provided students with a proper grounding in Western civilization. But over the last forty years or so, a cafeteria-style model of education, touted at Brown University and other prestigious universities, in which students now enjoy the freedom to pursue their own tastes by choosing from an ever expanding menu of exotic entrées has replaced a required, coherent set of courses that privileges Western civilization.

Windows on College Readiness

Oct 26, 2006 ·

The Bridgespan Group, working for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has just released a report called “Reclaiming the American Dream.” The study was intended to find out how to get more U.S. high school students prepared for and through college.

Much of the report is about getting kids to go to college, and it finds that if there is enough money provided, and if parents, peers, counselors and teachers say going to college is important, more high school students are likely to go.

The major weakness of the report, in my view, are its suggestions for the kind of high school work that will help students to do college work and to graduate.

Jane S. Shaw Appointed New Executive Vice President

Oct 24, 2006 ·

RALEIGH – Jane S. Shaw has been appointed executive vice president of the J.W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a Raleigh-based nonprofit organization dedicated to improving higher education in North Carolina and the nation. The center is named for the late John William Pope, who was a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Shaw comes to the Pope Center from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana, where she was a senior fellow and director of outreach for over twenty years. PERC is a nonprofit institute that applies economics to understanding and solving environmental problems. Before joining PERC, Shaw was a journalist. She moved to Montana from New York City, where she was an associate economics editor for Business Week. Shaw has a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College.

Shaw is perhaps best known for her writing about the environment. With Michael Sanera she coauthored Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children about the Environment (Regnery, 1999). This book points out the exaggeration and pessimism typical of middle-school and high school textbooks and offers more balanced discussions of environmental issues from acid rain to global warming. She also edited a series of young people’s books on environmental topics published by Greenhaven Press, and coedited a book on land use, A Guide to Smart Growth (2000).

App State Gets Wine-Study Grant

Oct 23, 2006 ·

BOONE — Two Appalachian State University professors recently received a grant from a joint program between the United States and the European Union to create a degree track in wine science. Four institutions will be involved in the program.

The grant program is a venture between the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and the European Union’s Directorate General for Education and Culture. It attempts to create dual degree programs among universities in the United States and Europe.

Grant Holder and Lucian Georgescu of Appalachian State were awarded a $65,000 grant from the European Union-United States Atlantic Program. Holder and Georgescu are professors in Appalachian State’s viticulture and enology program. Once the program is fully implemented it would create transatlantic degrees and dual recognition of degrees and credits. There also could be exchanges among students and professors.