Oct 26, 2006 ·

Windows on College Readiness

The Bridgespan Group, working for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has just released a report called “Reclaiming the American Dream.” The study was intended to find out how to get more U.S. high school students prepared for and through college.

Much of the report is about getting kids to go to college, and it finds that if there is enough money provided, and if parents, peers, counselors and teachers say going to college is important, more high school students are likely to go.

The major weakness of the report, in my view, are its suggestions for the kind of high school work that will help students to do college work and to graduate.

Oct 24, 2006 ·

Jane S. Shaw Appointed New Executive Vice President

RALEIGH – Jane S. Shaw has been appointed executive vice president of the J.W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a Raleigh-based nonprofit organization dedicated to improving higher education in North Carolina and the nation. The center is named for the late John William Pope, who was a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Shaw comes to the Pope Center from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana, where she was a senior fellow and director of outreach for over twenty years. PERC is a nonprofit institute that applies economics to understanding and solving environmental problems. Before joining PERC, Shaw was a journalist. She moved to Montana from New York City, where she was an associate economics editor for Business Week. Shaw has a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College.

Shaw is perhaps best known for her writing about the environment. With Michael Sanera she coauthored Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children about the Environment (Regnery, 1999). This book points out the exaggeration and pessimism typical of middle-school and high school textbooks and offers more balanced discussions of environmental issues from acid rain to global warming. She also edited a series of young people’s books on environmental topics published by Greenhaven Press, and coedited a book on land use, A Guide to Smart Growth (2000).

Oct 23, 2006 ·

App State Gets Wine-Study Grant

BOONE — Two Appalachian State University professors recently received a grant from a joint program between the United States and the European Union to create a degree track in wine science. Four institutions will be involved in the program.

The grant program is a venture between the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and the European Union’s Directorate General for Education and Culture. It attempts to create dual degree programs among universities in the United States and Europe.

Grant Holder and Lucian Georgescu of Appalachian State were awarded a $65,000 grant from the European Union-United States Atlantic Program. Holder and Georgescu are professors in Appalachian State’s viticulture and enology program. Once the program is fully implemented it would create transatlantic degrees and dual recognition of degrees and credits. There also could be exchanges among students and professors.

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Miami officials miss opportunity to set an example

In the aftermath of the Oct. 14 brawl between Florida International and the University of Miami, Miami President Donna Shalala has said all the right things. She’s done all the wrong things when it comes to punishing the players involved.

Shalala issued essentially 12 slaps on the wrists – or vacations – to the players who participated in the third-quarter fight. Only one player, Anthony Reddick was suspended indefinitely. Miami’s punishment standards are like a parent sending a child to their room, which is fully equipped with a television, Xbox, computer and cell phone. Sure, “punishments” have been issued, but the players involved will play again this season.

Oct 19, 2006 ·

Overselling Higher Education, British Style

Prime Minister Tony Blair clearly believes in education. When he took office in 1997, he announced his priorities: Education, education, education.

He believes in education so strongly that he has set a target of inducing 50 percent of our school leavers (graduates) to go to university. There is, of course, something a bit fishy about this: why not 48 percent, or 61 percent? If there was any rational basis for deciding on this figure, we have not been told.

The trouble is that the Blair government—which has almost doubled public spending since he took office—cannot possibly afford to pay for all this. Until recently, students were entitled to free tuition, and grants to pay for their living expenses. In terms of public spending, this was affordable when only 7 percent of our school leavers went on to university.

Oct 18, 2006 ·

Connerly says it is time for America to be colorblind when it comes to race

RALEIGH – As a member of the University of California Board of Regents, Ward Connerly experienced pressure to increase diversity on the campuses of the university system. After a 12-year term that ended in 2005, he still doesn’t know what the system was seeking.

“There was a lot of mindless blather about celebrating diversity,” Connerly said about his period on the board. “When I left, I didn’t know more about diversity. I asked a lot of questions. I could never get an answer that made sense to me.”

Connerly was the keynote speaker at the recent Pope Center Conference on “Diversity: How Much and What Kinds Do Universities Need?” held in Raleigh at the Brownstone Inn. As a regent, Connerly successfully fought for the elimination of race-based admission practices at the University of California. He also led a successful statewide campaign in 1996 to adopt Proposition 209, which prevented the state government from giving preferential treatment based on race. Today he is supporting a similar initiative in Michigan.

Oct 13, 2006 ·

UNC governors discuss system-wide study

When Jim Phillips took over as UNC Board of Governors chairman this summer, one of his top priorities was to conduct a study detailing what North Carolina citizens want from their university system. On Thursday some of the initial planning for the study began to take shape.

Board members spent the afternoon discussing the structure of the study, designed to answer the question “What do the people of North Carolina need from their university, for the state to be successful in the 21st century?” Eva Klein and Associates, a consulting firm based in Great Falls, Virginia, along with Gottlieb and Associates of Washington, D.C., presented it during the work session, which was held in conjunction the October Board of Governors meeting.

Oct 12, 2006 ·

Some Further Questions about Diversity

Will a diverse college campus – where “diverse” means that there is at least a “critical mass” of students and faculty members who are regarded as being members of certain “underrepresented” groups – lead to better results than if the school did not make any effort at being “diverse?” In my previous Clarion Call essay, I looked at the argument that diversity is beneficial because it causes people to better relate to one another. I didn’t find that argument very persuasive. What I want to do here is to examine some other arguments that have been advanced as justifying the hiring and admission preferences that are integral to the diversity movement.

Globalization

The first argument is that diversity helps prepare American students for the diverse and increasingly globalized world they will live and work in. A “diverse” campus is therefore good preparation for the future. A college that failed to give its students that preparation would be remiss, wouldn’t it?

Oct 5, 2006 ·

Some Questions about Diversity

The Pope Center’s 2006 conference, set for October 14 will focus on the much-discussed topic of diversity in higher education. Coincidentally, The Chronicle of Higher Education recently devoted an entire 40 page section to diversity, packed with articles on diversity and advertisements by schools large and small touting their commitment to diversity. A reader with no familiarity with American higher education would probably conclude that having more “diversity” is an unquestioned good – that one would no more ask if it’s beneficial to have more diversity than one would ask it’s beneficial to have better health. Not once in the entire section (and very rarely in anything written about higher education) is there a hint of skepticism about the diversity movement.

There is something odd about the insistent adulation of diversity. Individuals don’t usually tell themselves, “I’d be better off with more diversity in my life. I’m going to listen to all the different kinds of music available, not just the stuff I’ve been enjoying. I’m also going to have more diversity in my diet, eating many kinds of food I don’t normally eat.” Of course, we sometimes choose to try something new – a country-western fan could tune into a Met broadcast because a friend said that she might enjoy the music in The Marriage of Figaro – but that isn’t the same as a determination that a more diverse array of music would necessarily be better.

Sep 28, 2006 ·

Just What Do Students Learn?

Getting a college education is frequently touted as the passport to a prosperous and successful life. Americans are apt to believe that college coursework does a great job of building up “human capital,” without which young people will be limited to menial “burger flipping” kinds of work.

It is becoming increasingly plain, however, that many college students don’t gain much at all when it comes to skills and knowledge that count in the job market. College grads who read and write poorly, can’t do elementary math problems, and wind up in low-paying jobs they could have done while in high school are a sad fact of life.