Series: Summer Reading
Here is a list of Pope Center articles about summer reading programs at North Carolina colleges.
Author Profile
Martin Center Staff
Articles by Martin Center Staff
In the Rearview Mirror: 2009
The Pope Center staff takes a look back at some of the big events and trends of the last year.
Follow Your Heart
A high school student is forced to choose between attending the first-rate university of her dreams by herself or a lower-quality school with her boyfriend.
Firebrands, Critics and Seers
They came! They saw! They spoke!
At the 2007 Pope Center Conference on “Building Excellence into American Higher Education,” that is. They dissected higher education with the precision of surgeons, exposed collegiate absurdities and told tales of their battles with academic bureaucracies.
The conference is over, and the conference speakers are back fighting the good fight on campus. But their words live on! Just click on the links below to see to the conference speeches and panels:
What Does Excellence Mean?
Stephen H. Balch
Shakespeare’s Star Dims at North Carolina Colleges
Samuel Johnson called him the “immortal Shakespeare,” but his image is fading at colleges in North Carolina.
Nearly half the four-year colleges in North Carolina no longer require their English majors to take a course in the work of William Shakespeare, reports a new study from the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. Only eight out of the 15 University of North Carolina campuses with English majors require a course in William Shakespeare. Of 34 private colleges and universities in the state, only 17 require Shakespeare for English majors.
N. C. State does not require a course devoted to Shakespeare; UNC-Chapel Hill does. Some of North Carolina’s best-known private colleges, including Duke, Davidson, and Elon, do not require Shakespeare.
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.
About the Speakers
Stephen H. Balch is the founder and president of the National Association of Scholars, America’s largest membership organization of scholars committed to higher education reform. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley and for fourteen years taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. He is a trustee of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and has helped found four other higher education reform organizations.
Richard J. Bishirjian is president and professor of government at Yorktown University, an online university that espouses classical education. Bishirjian has a Ph.D. in government and international studies from the University of Notre Dame and has studied under philosopher Eric Voegelin and political theorist Michael Oakeshott. He is the author of a history of political theory and editor of A Public Philosophy Reader.
UNC Tomorrow Commission: Making the University “Demand-Driven
Editor’s Note: Peter Hans is a member of the UNC Board of Governors and was recently re-elected to a new four-year term. He is also a member of the new UNC Tomorrow Commission, which was created by the Board of Governors. In this interview, we ask Hans about the commission, its plans, and its purposes.
Clarion Call: First, what is the commission?
Peter Hans: This is our effort to assess what North Carolina needs from its public university system over the next twenty years, and how we should respond to those needs.
Pope Center Releases Report on UNC Faculty Compensation
Raleigh — University of North Carolina faculty compensation compares favorably with compensation at peer institutions around the country, says a new report by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
Using data from the AAUP (American Association of University Professors), Jon Sanders compared average faculty compensation (salaries plus benefits), adjusted for living costs, with compensation at peer universities around the country. He compared UNC campuses with institutions in the same Carnegie classification (a widely-used way of grouping higher education institutions).
Study on faculty salary to be released
A new study comparing faculty compensation in the University of North Carolina system with peer institutions around the country will be released on Wednesday, May 9, at 11:00 a.m. at a press conference in the Legislative Press Room.
The study is published by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and written by Jon Sanders, a policy analyst and research editor with the John Locke Foundation. Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger (R-District 26) will host the press conference.