Articles

Articles

Feb 9, 2006 ·

Women Dominate on College Campuses

Here’s a fact that has received little attention. On American college campuses, the ratio of women to men is approaching 60 – 40. Of every 100 students who entered college last fall, 58 were women. That isn’t a one-year anomaly either. The trend of more women and fewer men in college has been going on for decades.

UNC-Chapel Hill is typical. The incoming class of 2010 was only 41.6 percent male. Although group statistical disparities usually set college administrators into a frenzy of concern over “fairness,” and “social justice,” this one elicits only yawns. Stephen Farmer, director of undergraduate admissions at Chapel Hill says, “We really have made no attempt to balance the class. We are gender blind in applications, very scrupulously so.”

The administrators in Chapel Hill (and at most other colleges and universities) aren’t worried about the increasing dominance of women on campus, but there isn’t any reason why it should concern us? I think the answer is both no – and yes.

Feb 2, 2006 ·

UNC Can Run More Efficiently

Recently, the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems and the Pew Charitable Trusts released a study on higher education funding on the state level. The study is noteworthy because it questions whether high spending on public colleges and universities correlates with high quality.

Included in the study, “A New Look at the Institutional Component of Higher Education Finance: A Guide for Evaluating Performance Relative to Financial Resources” by Patrick Kelly and Dennis Jones, is a section where the authors discuss higher education spending and results. They focus on two state university systems – Colorado and North Carolina. According to the study, Colorado and North Carolina perform nearly the same on various measures. For example, 70.3 percent of Colorado’s students earn a bachelor’s degree and 68.5 percent of North Carolina students do.

Jan 26, 2006 ·

Tar Heels Turn it Green With Inefficient Solar Power Program

Morrison Residence Hall at UNC-Chapel Hill was closed in the spring of 2005 for renovation. When it reopens in the fall of 2007, not only will students’ accommodations be nicer, but solar panels will be used to heat the building’s water.

While many campus activists and administrators are excited about the project, the solar heating system is financially inefficient.

The new Morrison Hall will have about 200 solar panels placed on the roof and their energy will heat about 60 percent of the building’s hot water. From that, a saving of $11,275 annually is projected.

The solar hot water system is funded by a $137,455 grant from the state legislature, $184,000 from student fees, and $125,000 from University housing and residential education funds. The project was originally anticipated to cost $309,000, but estimates are now as high as $446,000.

Jan 19, 2006 ·

How Literate Are Americans?

Late in 2005, government officials in the National Center for Education Statistics released the results of the most recent study done by the National Assessment of Adult Literacy(NAAL). The study finds that the already weak literacy of American adults – including college graduates – has declined since the last assessment was done in 1992.

More than 19,700 people participated in the study, which was conducted between May 2003 and February 2004. The tasks involved three kinds of questions – to assess prose literacy, to assess document literacy, and to assess quantitative literacy.

The prose literacy questions were designed to see how well the individual could perform prose tasks such as searching for and comprehending information contained in written material – for example, describing what a poem is about. Document literacy questions were designed to see how well the individual could understand documents – for example, finding what time a certain bus arrives at its destination. Quantative questions were designed to see how well the individual could perform mathematical tasks such as calculating the cost per ounce of a brand of peanut butter.

Jan 16, 2006 ·

Gasper out at Halifax CC

WELDON — Halifax Community College President Ted Gasper was fired Friday following allegations of impropriety including using college resources on political efforts, especially those of former U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance of North Carolina.

Gasper had been placed on administrative leave since September while an investigative committee looked into the political allegations as well as other allegations that dealt with the way he ran the college. His personal secretary, Faye Pepper, was also placed on leave while the investigation was ongoing.

Jan 12, 2006 ·

UNC Should Pay Closer Attention to the First Amendment

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson wrote in the landmark case of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) that “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.” His words were a ringing affirmation of the freedoms of conscience and expression that are central to American liberty.

Unfortunately, however, the notion that the government may not dictate what people may express or believe about controversial subjects has remained hotly contested. Those in power inevitably find it convenient to restrict expression or even dictate matters of conscience in order to ensure a more “just,” “fair,” or “orderly” society or organization.

Today, rules and regulations that restrict expression or dictate matters of conscience are often found at college or university campuses—including at the 16 schools that comprise the University of North Carolina System. As public institutions—agencies of the State of North Carolina—the universities in the UNC System are legally bound to uphold the First Amendment rights of their students and faculty. Unfortunately, they are failing miserably.

Jan 11, 2006 ·

Campuses restrict free speech

RALEIGH – Most University of North Carolina campuses are “failing miserably” in upholding the First Amendment rights of students and faculty, and speech-limiting codes at 13 campuses could be overturned in court, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

Thirteen University of North Carolina campuses have speech code policies that limit free speech, according to the report, the findings of which were announced at a press conference on Tuesday.

The report should serve as a warning to the UNC system that, should it be sued over the policies, it would lose in court, said Greg Lukianoff, FIRE’s interim president, who co-authored the report with Samantha Harris, a FIRE program associate.

Jan 10, 2006 ·

Inquiry Paper No. 23 The State of the First Amendment in the UNC system

FIRE’s Report on the State of the First Amendment in the University of North Carolina System serves to educate the public about the rampant abuse of First Amendment rights within the UNC System, and to put North Carolina’s public colleges and universities on notice that it is unlikely—if not impossible—that most of the policies discussed in the report could survive a constitutional challenge.

Jan 5, 2006 ·

How Do We Get Students Ready for College?

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.