End-of-the-year columns are usually replete with the old chestnut of honoring people who “made a difference” the expiring year. Heck with that. Let’s recall instead those who memorably inserted themselves into things to no avail. This column is dedicated to people everywhere who now seek comfort in the thought that but for them, their embarrassing setback would have really been a disaster.
Remember H.L. Mencken’s famous jest about Puritanism? “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere is happy.” Apply it to F.H. Buckley’s observations that “The modern Puritan devotes himself to political rather than religious duties” and that this Puritanism “is particularly pronounced in the academy.” Does that not explain this spectacle of self-righteous UNC professors carping about mockery and fearing political infidels in the classroom?
In the December 4 issue of The Washington Post, a column by Ellen Goodman entitled “Those Poor College Conservatives” claims conservative protests about the makeup of university faculty lacks substance. Goodman expresses her bafflement by exclaiming, “The only ones who take the universities as seriously as universities take themselves are activists on the right.”
What if the petty, snarling villain in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol were Bob Cratchit? What if Ebenezer Scrooge had tried from the beginning to help the hobbling young Tim, but Bob threw his money back in his face? What if the other Cratchits sat mute in fear of Bob as he said, “Bah! You don’t believe as I do, Mr. Scrooge! Sometimes you criticize my work! To me your money is tainted!”
Here’s what: You would have the situation now playing out at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Predictable as the falling of autumn’s last leaves, December brings news that the state’s budget has a big deficit, that the UNC system claims that it needs a lot more money, and talks of tuition increases.
UNC safety task forces release findings
Professors agree that conservatives are dumb; UNC-CH warmly welcomes “Sexuality Studies” and “Latina/o Studies” but balks (barks?) at Western Civilization; a lecturer discriminates; Duke holds a pro-terrorism conference; the School of the Arts does an “Enron” dance; and UNC-CH bravely takes rights and money from a three-member Christian group.
CHAPEL HILL – One of the main criticisms being leveled against a proposed Western Civilization program at UNC-Chapel Hill is that the program would possibly be funded by a conservative philanthropy.
UNC-Chapel Hill leaders approached the John W. Pope Foundation about funding the proposed program. If the Foundation agrees, it could mean a $12 million donation for the school.
Professional and daily newspapers have recently let us know that 42 presidents of private universities and 17 presidents of public ones now make more than $500,000. In fact, seven presidents of private universities made more than $800,000 in the 2003 fiscal year, and the outside earnings of some of these (via payments made to them because they are corporate directors, for example) gave them total earnings of a million dollars or more. (Judith Rodin of Penn is said to have made $893,213 in university compensation and about $404,000 as a director of five corporations (for a total of nearly 1.3 million dollars. Boy, financially speaking, Rodin must be the original Thinker, eh?).
As the changing of the guard approaches in the General Assembly, it is important to reevaluate the direction in which the University of North Carolina system is headed. One issue that the legislators may face deals with the level of administrative salaries.