Articles

Articles

Sep 18, 2007 ·

Alexander Hamilton Institute to Open

Last fall, Hamilton College rejected a $3.6 million donation for a campus-based center to study the achievements and failures of Western civilization. Members of the faculty had objected to the creation of the center because it would have had “unprecedented and unacceptable autonomy.”

Now it will have complete autonomy.

The Alexander Hamilton Center for the Study of Western Civilization is being reborn as the Alexander Hamilton Institute. It will be located in Clinton, New York, the same town where Hamilton College is located, in a hotel formerly known as the Alexander Hamilton Inn.

Sep 18, 2007 ·

What Are College Administrators Afraid of?

Editor’s Note: Guest writer Evan C. Maloney is the director of a documentary film on abuses in higher education entitled “Indoctrinate U,” which will debut September 28 in Washington, D.C.

Most people wouldn’t say that having someone call the police on them was the best part of their day. But for me, it’s a sign that I’m doing my job. You see, I’m a documentary filmmaker, and I spent the last four years investigating abuses of individual rights in academia.

My documentary “Indoctrinate U” analyzes the prevailing political environment on our nation’s campuses. I looked into case after case of students and professors having their free speech and free thought rights suppressed when they failed to adhere to the campus political orthodoxy. The horror stories were so numerous that the toughest task in producing the film was figuring out what not to
include — otherwise, I could have ended up making a 100-hour film.

About half-a-dozen times, college administrators at various schools decided that I was a threat that required police intervention. And I admit, the threat I posed was grave: I was asking questions. Rather simple questions, but questions that they couldn’t answer honestly without embarrassing themselves and their institutions.

Sep 14, 2007 ·

Forecasting the UNC of the Future

The University of North Carolina Tomorrow Commission, created in March 2007, won’t report formally until January 2008, but its probable goals are already discernible. The theme of its inquiry seems to be that the University of North Carolina of the future will serve a rapidly growing population with changing demographics and will face a rapidly evolving economy.

To contend these changes, the commission is seeking ways in which the university system can move forward technically, become more fully integrated with businesses, communities, and other educational systems, create a more engaged faculty, and address current weaknesses such as the teaching of so-called “soft skills.”

UNC Tomorrow was commissioned by the UNC Board of Governors “to determine how the 16-campus system can best meet the needs of North Carolina and its people over the next 20 years.” It is comprised of 25 business, community, and academic leaders. The process so far has produced exploratory studies by the commission’s Scholars Council and has included a tour of all sixteen campuses in the UNC system and several brainstorming workshops conducted by the Institute for Emerging Ideas, a think tank associated with N.C. State. The second phase began on September 10 with the first of twelve “townhall”-style Regional Listening meetings with citizens and local officials at different locations around the state.

Sep 12, 2007 ·

Learn and Earn:

Editor’s Note: Jane S. Shaw is the executive vice president of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh. Alyn Berry, while an intern with the John Locke Foundation, provided research assistance.

One of the most puzzling education programs I have come across is “Learn and Earn,” which the legislature recently expanded with $6.2 million for the next two fiscal years.

Learn and Earn, initiated by the governor in 2004, is an “early college” program composed of small high schools located mostly on community college campuses. Students can progress through high school and then get an associate’s degree — in only five years of school. Since all of it is free to the student, the successful graduate obtains the equivalent of two years of college virtually without charge.

This program was supposed to reduce the high school dropout rate.

Frankly, this doesn’t make much sense. Potential dropouts – by definition – don’t value the first degree (the high school diploma) very highly. Why would they be willing to work hard for a second one?

Sep 5, 2007 ·

My Introduction to Higher Education

Editor’s note: Alyn Berry, a 2007 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, lives in Kernersville, NC.

Like most prospective college students, I expected to “find myself” in college. I didn’t have a clear idea of what that meant at the time, but having been politically active in high school, I wanted college to challenge my principles and make me defend them. I hoped I would take classes with professors who would make me reexamine my perspective on the world.

I went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Although UNC is highly respected in this state and others, many native North Carolinians jokingly insist that Chapel Hill is not a part of our state. Some call it the “People’s Republic of Chapel Hill,” poking fun at this college town’s liberal reputation. Despite this, I packed my bags and moved my life just an hour down the road — but a world away.

I was able to accept my liberal roommate from San Francisco, the protests in “the Pit,” and the homeless men on Franklin Street. What bothered me was what was happening in the classroom. My ideas were not being “challenged” as I had imagined; instead, they were being attacked head-on.

Aug 29, 2007 · and

A Writing Program that Works

With the writing abilities (or lack thereof) of today’s college students becoming an issue, the authors describe a writing program at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY. that offers hope for the future.

Aug 22, 2007 ·

American Higher Education: From Butterfly to Caterpillar to What?

A new paper just issued by the Pope Center, From Christian Gentleman to Bewildered Seeker: The Transformation of American Higher Education by Russell K. Nieli takes a sweeping view of college education in America, from the colonial days up to the present. Nieli shows that the point of going to college used to be the acquisition of a coherent body of knowledge about the world so that the individual might understand its interconnectedness. Today many schools offer the student nothing but a smorgasbord of courses that give little more than a bit of vocational training. Missing entirely is any effort at to achieve what used to be thought a “well-rounded” education.

Nieli’s purpose is to explain how this unhappy metamorphosis came about and he accomplishes that purpose beautifully.

Aug 15, 2007 ·

Socket Wrenches in the Book Bag

Since the 1990s, NASCAR has grown from a sport rooted in the Southeast to an American institution with a fan base second only to the National Football League. Throughout NASCAR’s history, North Carolina has always been among its central locations and the sport has done fine here without government assistance.

Today the sport has its home base in the state, with most of the in its three main divisions (Nextel Cup, Busch Series, Craftsman Truck) setting up shop in the Charlotte region. Industry estimates claim that auto racing contributes $5 billion annually to the state’s economy and creates more than 24,000 jobs, most of them related to engineering, design, and fabrication of the stock cars. Those are jobs that, for the most part, require a higher level of training that that of your typical auto mechanic.

Aug 15, 2007 ·

From Christian Gentleman to Bewildered Seeker

Russell K. Nieli’s new essay tells the story of the increasing loss of purpose and focus suffered by American universities over the ages.

Nieli, a lecturer in Princeton University’s politics department, has authored an important study of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, written numerous articles on public policy topics and edited an anthology of writings on affirmative action. Nieli graduated summa cum laude from Duke University and received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1970. He previously authored a Pope Center research paper in March 2007, “The Decline and Revival of Liberal Learning at Duke: The Focus and Gerst Programs.”

Aug 15, 2007 ·

From Christian Gentleman to Bewildered Seeker

A new essay from the Pope Center fills a critical void in understanding today’s university. “From Christian Gentleman to Bewildered Seeker” reveals how the nation’s universities lost their coherence and purpose and became fragmented and over-specialized.

This beautifully woven history reports on the major transformation that began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and received new momentum during the late 1960s.