Innovation

College isn’t the only path to human flourishing. Individuals’ postsecondary choices should be aligned with individual academic preparation, talents, and preferences, and education providers should be able to experiment with new methods and models. The following articles highlight new programs, identify barriers, and suggest policies that encourage innovation.

Higher Education Conference at UNC Promotes “Inclusion”

Sep 21, 2006 ·

CHAPEL HILL – Last week, 150 higher education and business leaders converged on UNC-Chapel Hill for a conference on two favorite topics of the higher education establishment – access and affordability.

In a conference dubbed as “Politics of Inclusion: Higher Education at a Crossroads,” one thing was obvious – the event was highly scripted. Attendance at the conference was by invitation only and mostly included people who agreed with the premise of the conference, that the U.S. needs to improve access to college so as to include a wider cross-section of America’s youth. Rather than an examination of that view, it was essentially a pep rally for that view.

UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser delivered the keynote address to open the conference. Moeser’s speech sounded much like the stump speeches of former Senator John Edwards in that he said that there are “two North Carolinas” – one wealthy and well connected, the other poor and desperate – and how higher education can help to improve the lives of low-income families. To reach that goal, Moeser advocated an increase in need-based financial aid and said leaders must push an agenda of access and affordability to political leaders.

The Intellectual Monoculture of Higher Education

Aug 17, 2006 ·

“It just won’t do to have an all-white university,” Harvard’s president Derek Bok said several years ago, attempting to justify the policy of favoring non-white applicants. The rallying cry for “diversity” proponents has long been that our institutions should “look like America” – that is, to mirror the composition of society with regard to racial, ethnic, and other classifications of individuals. Taking them at their word, what about diversity of philosophy? What about intellectual diversity?

In education, you would think that diversity of ideas would be at least as, if not more important than skin color or sexual preferences. But when it has been pointed out that college faculties tend to be very homogeneous when it comes to their beliefs on socio-economic questions, the response from the higher education establishment has mostly been that it’s a threat to academic freedom even to discuss the matter. No need for “all colors of the rainbow” when it comes to points of view on the proper relationship between state and society. Many academic departments are intellectual monocultures, with hiring preferences by those in authority filtering out any new professors whose opinions are much different from the norm. They think that is perfectly fine.

Bowles makes cuts to streamline UNC administration

Aug 10, 2006 ·

CHAPEL HILL – When Erskine Bowles, the business executive who had served as President Clinton’s chief of staff, took over the UNC system in January, he proposed a visionary agenda that would dictate his activities. Among the top priorities was running the organization more effectively and through the prism of his business experiences.

In the past week, we’ve seen some of the results of that agenda. Bowles announced last week that he plans to cut 10 percent, or $1.3 million, from the UNC General Administration budget. The move would eliminate 15.5 positions, half of which are currently filled, including four vice presidents and six associate vice presidents. However, when taking into account three new positions created by Bowles earlier this year, the net reduction of the cut is 12.5 positions.

Higher education is very high in labor cost and approximately 80 percent of the UNC General Administration budget in the past has gone towards personnel.

An Essential Book on Education

Jul 27, 2006 ·

Does education matter? That is the title of an absolutely essential book by Professor Alison Wolf.

Yes, of course education matters. The author, who holds the Sir Roy Griffiths professorship of public sector management at King’s College, London, is not questioning whether education is good at all. Rather, she questions whether governmental efforts to expand “access” to higher education and public training programs are justified. The book’s subtitle – myths about education and economic growth – suggests that her answer is in the negative. It certainly is. In my view, Professor Wolf has given us one of the most useful books on education policy in many years because she quietly and carefully demolishes the conventional wisdom that it is imperative for government to “invest” more in higher education. After reading the book, I believe that most people will agree that the best we can do is to provide a solid education in each child’s early years and forget about trying to manage higher education and workforce training.

From the home office in Chapel Hill, the top 15 pork barrel higher education projects

Jul 6, 2006 ·

At some point today, legislators will give final approval to the budget compromise that was hatched out before the Fourth of July weekend. It marks the end of the budget process that began in May and extended just days past the start of the 2007 fiscal year.

Like any governmental budget, this one has enough pork to make a pig farmer smile. This year’s higher education budget contains many generous helpings.

In honor of the passage of the state budget, the Pope Center unveils its list of the top 15 pork barrel projects. We determined projects for the list based on two questions. Is the project really needed? Should it be privately funded? While some of the projects in the list seem worthwhile, it would be better if they were funded through voluntary contributions.

So without further adoo and in true David Letterman style, from the home office on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, here is this year’s “Top 15 Higher Education Pork Barrel Projects.”

Does America need a National University?

Jun 29, 2006 ·

An idea dating from 1789 has recently been resurrected – the creation of a national university for the United States. George Washington proposed exactly that in his first inaugural address and two young idealists have now set up an organization that will push for the creation of such a university.

Writing in the June 16th Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required), Chris Myers Asch, chairman of the Campaign for a U.S. Service Academy argues that the U.S. needs to have a national university “designed to cultivate a steady flow of first-rate young leaders dedicated to civic leadership.” (Another article on the subject is available here.) Asch and Shawn Raymond, both of whom taught in the Teach for America program and subsequently founded a non-profit group to provide after-school tutoring to low-income students, are promoting the establishment of a United States Public Service Academy because they think it’s time to “tap into a renewed sense of patriotism and civic obligation among young people.”

Jim Hunt believes colleges are not measuring up

Jun 12, 2006 ·

In a report recently issued by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, former North Carolina governor Jim Hunt and businessman Thomas Tierney address the question “How does American higher education measure up for the 21st century?” Not very well, they conclude.
I happen to think their conclusion is correct, but not for the reasons they give. The difficulty is that Hunt and Tierney are obsessed with the notion that we have a quantity problem. We don’t. We have a quality problem.
The tone for the report is set by former New Mexico governor Garrey Carruthers in his foreword. He states that, due to the demands of the “knowledge-based global economy,” it is imperative that “more Americans must prepare for, enroll in, and successfully complete degree and certificate programs.” Carruthers provides not the tiniest bit of evidence to support his assertion, but this is only the foreword. He calls for government, schools and colleges, and public leaders to “ratchet up the educational level” of the populace.

Questionable Need for New ECU Dental School

Mar 30, 2006 ·

For the past year, leaders at East Carolina University have been promoting the idea that North Carolina needs second dental school, one that would be housed on the school’s campus. They have been able to rally the support of several legislators in the General Assembly, including Senate leader Marc Basnight and embattled Speaker of the House Jim Black. It is anticipated that a proposal for a new dental school will be discussed in the General Assembly’s upcoming short session.

Advocates of the plan say that there is a need for more dentists in certain areas of North Carolina, especially eastern North Carolina, and that a new school would help to alleviate that need.

How Do We Get Students Ready for College?

Jan 5, 2006 ·

A lament frequently heard by college professors is that many incoming students are not ready for college-level work. Even though what passes as “college-level work” isn’t what it used to be at many institutions, professors still report that their students struggle with reading, writing, and basic math. (Lest one think that such laments are only heard at unselective, fourth-tier schools, Patrick Allitt’s book I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student, which recounts Professor Allitt’s difficulties in teaching American history at Emory University will serve as an antidote.) The question is, what can be done about this problem?

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Charles B. Reed (chancellor of the Cal State system) and Kristin Conklin (a program director at the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices) address that question.

The Coming Revolution in Higher Education

Nov 22, 2005 ·

Advancing technology has brought about dramatic change in many industries. The transportation industry today looks nothing like the transportation industry of a century ago. The same is true of medical science, communications, the production of food, and so on. But what about higher education?

For the most part, college teaching today is done in pretty much the same way it was done a century ago. Indeed, it’s done in pretty much the same way as in the day when Socrates taught. Sure, technology has made some inroads at the margins – professors today are apt to use power point presentations rather than blackboards, and if a student loses his syllabus, he can get the information online – but nothing essential has changed.

If Yale computer science professor David Gelernter is correct, however, a technological revolution is just around the corner, a revolution that may bring about a sea change in the way the higher education industry works. Writing in the November 28 issue of Forbes Professor Gelernter entitles his piece “Who Needs a College Campus?” It is a thought-provoking piece that everyone concerned with education should read.