Repairing Academia’s Crisis of Meaning
Traditionally, higher education introduced students to life’s most fundamental questions: “What is good?”; “What is true?”; “Do our lives have meaning beyond the material?”; and so on. The focus used…
Our Accreditation System Has Bennett College Struggling for Life
Founded in 1873 in Greensboro, North Carolina, Bennett College is one only two of historically black colleges just for women. It has been a four-year college since 1926, but in…
What We’re Reading: A Defense of the University, Governance Guidebooks, and a Higher Ed Satire
Jenna A. Robinson, President In March, Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay penned “A Principled Defense of the University” for Areo. Coming from two of the authors of the “Sokal…
Can Americans ‘Handle the Truth’ About Individual Achievement Differences?
In the 1992 movie A Few Good Men, there is a courtroom scene where the prosecuting attorney (played by Tom Cruise) tells the defendant Marine officer Nathan Jessup (played by…
Commencements Show the UNC System’s Struggles with Political Neutrality
In 2017, the North Carolina legislature passed House Bill 527 (now State Law 2017-196) to foster open inquiry in the state’s public colleges and universities. One of the provisions ordered…
Identity Politics Versus Basic Logic: Should Colleges Offer Affirmative Action for the Female Majority?
Academic postmodernism is no stranger to the idea that classical Enlightenment values such as reason, equal treatment, and individual agency should be cast aside for the sake of racial and…
Politicized Art Schools Are Losing Students to the Atelier Movement
A series of disasters face art colleges and the art departments of American universities. Their campuses are closing, their freshmen numbers are dwindling, and their graduates are struggling. Getting more…
Bill Roundup: The Higher Ed Topics Prioritized by the North Carolina General Assembly
May 9 was the “crossover” deadline for bills in the North Carolina General Assembly. For a bill to have survived past that date, it must have either passed at least…
Keeping Journalists in the Dark: ‘Citation Cartels’ Limit Public Knowledge
The public relies on journalists to learn about and share academic research. Public knowledge can be undermined, however, when academics try to influence what research journalists cover or limit the…
Forgiving Student Debt Isn’t the Solution to Anything
The time-honored American tradition of outlandish political promises continues apace. Now, the spotlight is on student debt. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren added to the debate recently when she put…