If UNC-Chapel Hill officials can unceremoniously dump me for speaking out against the injustice done to my son and the lack of due process in campus sexual assault cases, they can and will do it to others who speak out on other issues. This is bigger than my job or myself; it is about the right to raise your voice on the UNC campus—a school that prides itself on a tradition of free speech—in protest of all and any injustice.
If you think that universities are not making the best use of endowment funds, you should look to persuasion rather than government regulation. There are many ways of trying to convince presidents, trustees, and other college leaders that they should change their approaches to the use of their endowments; that would be vastly better than turning to a recently proposed federal mandate.
In trying to avoid liability for “sexual harassment” under Title IX regulations, many schools have gone way too far. They have allowed hyper-sensitive or vindictive students to use the regulations as a weapon against anyone whose speech offends or annoys them.
North Carolina’s community college “earnings gains” measure may make the community colleges look good to those who do not look too closely, but it does not tell us much about how good they actually are. The system needs to go back to the drawing board; the new measure is more public relations than a true measure of performance.
People in and out of the academic world have been pointing to a glaring defect in our education system for many years. That defect is the failure to teach students to write competently. Unfortunately, it’s hard to see how colleges will break their bad habit of allowing students to coast through with miserable writing skills. Despite the presence of a few traditionalists and reformers, academic writing instruction still seems to be heading in the wrong direction.
The ultimate responsibility in higher education rests with the governing boards of trustees. If trustees are to be thoughtful overseers, they need to be informed about the role of the board, higher education issues generally, and the challenges facing their state and their campuses. Their knowledge of such matters cannot be taken for granted; they need focused, ongoing education.
Rising student default rates at University of North Carolina schools are rising, with particularly troubling rates at the system’s HBCUs.
After several decades away from academia, I am back pursuing the Ph.D. in political philosophy that I just missed attaining at a much younger age. My decision to return and finish my degree after a rewarding and lucrative career in government and business has met with a variety of reactions: surprise, delight and, yes, envy—but never indifference. Here’s my story.
Going forward, new technology will likely bring out the best in traditional universities by forcing them to justify their existence. If brick-and-mortar schools offer nothing better than the digital sphere does, they will be finished.
Millennials can be a hypersensitive bunch and nowhere is this more apparent than in the academy. American institutions of higher learning have become veritable minefields of trigger warnings, safe zones, and speech codes. It appears we can add another line item to the growing list of things too radical for college students: humor.