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American higher education is a grand mess. But there is purpose in the apparent chaos of public universities; they are designed to protect free inquiry by equal citizens into the wide universe of subjects that concern a growing and vibrant country.
Published: Sunday, June 7th, 2015 @ 1:19 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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In the United States, tradition dictates that we have summers off from school.
Published: Sunday, May 31st, 2015 @ 2:24 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Until recently, I was a college "bubble hawk." I saw significant parallels between the housing bubble that triggered the Great Recession and higher education. I believed that the combination of easy student loan money, rapidly increasing tuition, "creative disruption" caused by education...
Published: Friday, May 29th, 2015 @ 9:43 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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When Columbia University's Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board complained a few weeks ago that "many texts in the Western canon [contain] triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities," I thought of China, whose education minister vowed to ban...
Published: Thursday, May 28th, 2015 @ 10:16 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Pity poor Emma Sulkowicz lugging a mattress around the Columbia University campus now for almost a full academic year.
Published: Thursday, May 28th, 2015 @ 10:42 am
By: John William Pope Center
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My dozen years on the faculty and staff at a small liberal arts college followed a three-decade career in the chemical industry. One of the most surprising things I learned when I began teaching is how little presence the faculty has on campus for large portions of the year.
Published: Tuesday, May 26th, 2015 @ 6:00 am
By: John William Pope Center
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"Drawing on a variety of government and private data sources, this report presents a provisional analysis of college value-added with respect to the economic success of the college's graduates, measured by the incomes graduates earn, the occupations in which they work, and their loan repayment rates
Published: Monday, May 25th, 2015 @ 9:07 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Enrollment in the liberal arts and humanities continues to sink, particularly in languages and literature. At Harvard, for example, almost 60 percent of the students who start in the humanities switch disciplines by the end of their second year.
Published: Tuesday, May 19th, 2015 @ 10:17 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Historically, higher education has been relatively left alone by the North Carolina legislature; this year represents a slight departure from that trend. For one thing, Governor McCrory has made the community colleges a focus of his administration and has called attention to their needs.
Published: Friday, May 15th, 2015 @ 12:51 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Grade inflation is rampant on American campuses. According to a study by Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, A’s represent 43 percent of all grades awarded today—up from 15 percent in 1960.
Published: Wednesday, May 13th, 2015 @ 9:54 am
By: John William Pope Center
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Commencement season is an often-controversial time. Last year was conspicuous for its wave of politically motivated disinvitations, with students trying, sometimes with success, to get their universities to rescind invitations to commencement speakers such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Condoleezza Rice.
Published: Monday, May 11th, 2015 @ 6:34 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Ten years ago, Ruth Simmons, then president of Brown University, said in a speech to students that she was concerned about reports about “the lack of diversity of opinion on campus.” People at Brown need to ask themselves, she said, “why the university has a reputation for ‘limiting debate’ and ‘fos
Published: Sunday, May 10th, 2015 @ 4:50 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Last month, six student government members at the University of California at Irvine voted to ban the American flag in some parts of campus. And although the ban was overturned, thousands of professors and students across California signed a letter supporting the flags removal.
Published: Thursday, May 7th, 2015 @ 9:07 am
By: John William Pope Center
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Among the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill there are two quite different views of the university's recent athletic/academic scandal.
Published: Tuesday, May 5th, 2015 @ 4:24 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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I love working for Norwich University, but I wish my job did not exist.
Published: Tuesday, May 5th, 2015 @ 8:18 am
By: John William Pope Center
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An academic institution cannot be all things to all people; it is a particular institution that fills particular needs and has particular limitations. Too expansive a mission can easily be turned toward wasteful means and political ends.
Published: Saturday, April 25th, 2015 @ 11:06 am
By: John William Pope Center
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Each year, UNC officials pitch new degree programs to the system's Board of Governors. More often than not, the programs are approved, even though a casual observer - especially a non-academic - might snicker or guffaw upon hearing some of their descriptions.
Published: Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015 @ 5:29 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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In early March, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory visited the East Carolina Heart Institute at the Brody School of Medicine
Published: Monday, April 20th, 2015 @ 7:22 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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About 25 years ago, American higher education was swept up in the identity studies fad. A great many colleges and universities created courses, departments, degree programs, and related administrative posts in Women's Studies, African-American Studies, Latina/o Studies, Queer Studies, and others.
Published: Sunday, April 19th, 2015 @ 2:17 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Richard Cornuelle, the Indianapolis libertarian activist who started United Student Aid Funds (USAF), had a fight on his hands. His organization, whose downfall led ultimately to the creation of today's college-access giant known as the Lumina Foundation, was created with the goal of competing...
Published: Thursday, April 16th, 2015 @ 7:22 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Tenure entrenches academics in their jobs. While it's a bulwark of academic freedom, tenure also shields those who are not currently earning their keep, as well as many who never did. The current system stymies innovation, most clearly in the area of hiring new faculty.
Published: Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 @ 5:24 am
By: John William Pope Center
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If you remember (or have read about) Watergate, you'll see how closely that debacle resembles the current scandal at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Published: Thursday, April 9th, 2015 @ 5:56 am
By: John William Pope Center
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Major donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation dominate higher education philanthropy today. Most are aware of the Gates Foundation's roots in Bill's vast wealth, but the story of how Lumina came to be is more complicated.
Published: Wednesday, April 8th, 2015 @ 3:36 am
By: John William Pope Center
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UNC Board of Governors meetings are hard to navigate for the uninitiated, such as a member of the public.
Published: Monday, April 6th, 2015 @ 5:17 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Indebtedness due to student loans is one of the most pressing issues in higher education today. I believe strongly that we must face this issue head on, and my institution, Adrian College, has developed a plan to do that.
Published: Thursday, April 2nd, 2015 @ 5:44 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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UNC-Chapel Hill has launched Carolina Conversations, an initiative designed to provide forums for students to discuss sensitive topics. UNC-CH will do this in three ways: sponsor regular large-scale town-hall-style forums called My Carolina Voice, smaller gatherings called Carolina Pulse, and...
Published: Wednesday, April 1st, 2015 @ 10:44 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Since the 2007-08 academic year, the state of North Carolina has allotted more than $7 million to the Academic Summer Bridge Program, which is intended to prepare academically weak students for the rigors of college.
Published: Friday, March 27th, 2015 @ 6:14 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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For as long as I've been working in the higher education policy world, people have been talking about the prospects for a breakout for distance learning (i.e., online courses) and how that would transform higher education.
Published: Thursday, March 26th, 2015 @ 10:36 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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A sad fact about some of today’s college students—particularly those of the leftist variety—is that they place greater value on their emotions and ideology than they do on tolerance, sensibility, and free speech.
Published: Wednesday, March 25th, 2015 @ 4:17 am
By: John William Pope Center
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Any conversation about campus rape policy will more than likely feature the following positions. One argument, often made by feminists and victim advocates, is that we need more guidance and support for victims. The other, expressed by due process advocates, contends that universities are unfair...
Published: Tuesday, March 24th, 2015 @ 9:09 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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We are just past the end of this year's "Israeli Apartheid Week," actually two weeks in the United States, from February 26 to March 12. As the very name implies, Israeli Apartheid Week seeks to persuade students and others that Israel is a pariah regime deserving of the same isolation that...
Published: Friday, March 20th, 2015 @ 1:21 am
By: John William Pope Center
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American labor unions are in serious decline and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has become nothing more than a legal enforcer for panicked union bosses.
Published: Wednesday, March 18th, 2015 @ 8:09 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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Speaking at a Raleigh, North Carolina, luncheon on March 10, UNC system president Tom Ross warned of "dangerous" trends in higher education today, especially in North Carolina.
Published: Tuesday, March 17th, 2015 @ 12:11 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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The struggle to preserve donor intent in college gifts is often a melancholy tale of schools using every tool they have to reduce or ignore the wishes of donors.
Published: Wednesday, March 11th, 2015 @ 8:11 pm
By: John William Pope Center
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