Mar 7, 2006 ·

Panelists at UNC event tell students free-press fight crucial to freedom

CHAPEL HILL — Journalists need to defend their First Amendment Rights in order to protect them, or “there’s not going to be a torch to pass to the next generation.” That’s the assessment of one of North Carolina’s leading free press advocates.

“I hope people don’t look back years from now and say, ‘Those guys were surrounded, and they all went down,’” First Amendment lawyer John Bussian said during a free press forum in Chapel Hill on March 6. The event was organized by the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

Bussian compared today’s journalists to the defenders of the Alamo. The forum at the University of North Carolina was scheduled on the 170th anniversary of the last day of battle at that Texas fortress.

Mar 2, 2006 ·

Revenge of the Tenured Radicals

The conviction that American higher education is a ship far off course and heading for the rocks was strengthened last week with the announcement that Harvard’s president Larry Summers had been pressured into resigning.

Since Summers assumed the post in 2001, the faculty – composed mainly of professors whom Roger Kimball accurately calls “tenured radicals” – had repeatedly quarreled with Summers because he didn’t fit their idea of a modern university president. They had already voted “no confidence” in him once and were preparing to do so again. Why?

A modern university president must – absolutely must! – bow down before the idols of the leftist thoughtworld. Those idols include the abhorrence of the American military, acceptance of the idea that the historical grievances of blacks entitle them to special treatment today, and the belief that discrimination is the only possible explanation for group differences. Not only did Summers not bow down to those idols, but he said and did things to indicate that he rejects them.

Feb 24, 2006 ·

BOG considers projects

CHAPEL HILL — With three months before the 2006 General Assembly short session begins, the UNC Board of Governors is trying to decide which projects the system will submit to legislators for approval.

Recently, in a work session before the monthly board meeting, members received updates on several projects and their budgets. No decisions were made on the budget appropriations. That is expected to come in April at a board meeting in Greensboro before inauguration ceremonies for UNC’s new president, Erskine Bowles.

In all, seven funding proposals were discussed during the workshop. Some are seeking a change in budget appropriations that were approved during the budget negotiations last year.

Feb 23, 2006 ·

John McWhorter Versus Affirmative Action

John McWhorter is one of the sharpest analysts of race relations in America. Born in Philadelphia in 1965 in a middle-class family, he earned a doctorate in linguistics and taught for several years at the University of California before accepting his current position as a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute. McWhorter rejects just about all of the “conventional wisdom” regarding race, especially the idea that the great obstacle to black progress is lingering racism.

When McWhorter engages a subject, he does so with relentless logic. I would bet that as a professor, he was known as one whom students couldn’t “BS.” In Winning the Race, his tenth book, McWhorter tackles a number of contentious issues revolving around the failure of many black Americans to advance and prosper despite ever-improving conditions in America. “It’s not that there is ‘something wrong with black people,’ but rather that there is something wrong with what black people learned from a new breed of white people in the 1960s,” he writes. That something is an attitude McWhorter calls “therapeutic alienation” – a preference for anger and scapegoating as opposed to the work needed for success.

Feb 21, 2006 ·

Bringing Health and Fitness to the University

The newly-installed Chancellor of the University of East Dakota at Middleburg (UED at M), Dr. D. Reginald Von Buskirk, was determined to make improvements at the campus. His predecessor had been content to collect his annual salary of $250,000 in return for a bit of tinkering with the curriculum to make it more relevant to students – the popular new Sociology course on “The Simpsons” had been his idea – but the school had mostly stagnated under his leadership. Von Buskirk was made of different stuff. The most important thing he had learned in earning his doctorate in education administration was that leaders must be bold. That idea had so overwhelmed him that he wrote his dissertation on it, “Leadership Styles and the Boldness Imperative.” His advisor had called it “the most inspiring twenty pages I’ve ever read.” Von Buskirk had a bold idea for UED at M.

Feb 16, 2006 ·

UNC out of bounds with cartoon flap

It seems as though every time you turn around there is a situation at UNC-Chapel Hill involving the First Amendment. This week’s topic – a controversial cartoon printed by The Daily Tar Heel that depicted the Prophet Mohammad — led to an uproar. University officials and the UNC-Chapel Hill Muslim Student Association said that the paper was “insensitive” to publish the cartoon.

The cartoon showed Mohammad between a window through which Danish flags could be seen and another window depicting a terrorist attack, and saying “They may get me from my bad side … but they show me from my worst.” The author meant to make the point that Islam has the bad features of intolerance and violence. The Muslim Student Association stated that the cartoon offended members of the Muslim community on campus. UNC-Chapel Hill Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Margaret Jablonski said the cartoon was “hurtful” and Chancellor James Moeser said the paper should apologize.

Has the DTH really done something bad here?

Feb 13, 2006 ·

Controversy surrounds DTH cartoon

CHAPEL HILL – For the second time this school year, The Daily Tar Heel, UNC-Chapel Hill’s student newspaper, is in the middle of a firestorm over content in its publication. This time the criticism comes from UNC-Chapel Hill administrators.

On Thursday, the student newspaper published a controversial cartoon of Muhammad – the founder of the Islam – showing him in between two windows. In the first window – one showing Danish flags – Muhammad is quoted as saying “They may get me from my bad side.” The second window – which shows a scene following a terrorist incident – he says “… but they show me from my worst.” Philip McFee, an UNC-Chapel Hill student, drew the cartoon.

Feb 9, 2006 ·

Women Dominate on College Campuses

Here’s a fact that has received little attention. On American college campuses, the ratio of women to men is approaching 60 – 40. Of every 100 students who entered college last fall, 58 were women. That isn’t a one-year anomaly either. The trend of more women and fewer men in college has been going on for decades.

UNC-Chapel Hill is typical. The incoming class of 2010 was only 41.6 percent male. Although group statistical disparities usually set college administrators into a frenzy of concern over “fairness,” and “social justice,” this one elicits only yawns. Stephen Farmer, director of undergraduate admissions at Chapel Hill says, “We really have made no attempt to balance the class. We are gender blind in applications, very scrupulously so.”

The administrators in Chapel Hill (and at most other colleges and universities) aren’t worried about the increasing dominance of women on campus, but there isn’t any reason why it should concern us? I think the answer is both no – and yes.

Feb 2, 2006 ·

UNC Can Run More Efficiently

Recently, the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems and the Pew Charitable Trusts released a study on higher education funding on the state level. The study is noteworthy because it questions whether high spending on public colleges and universities correlates with high quality.

Included in the study, “A New Look at the Institutional Component of Higher Education Finance: A Guide for Evaluating Performance Relative to Financial Resources” by Patrick Kelly and Dennis Jones, is a section where the authors discuss higher education spending and results. They focus on two state university systems – Colorado and North Carolina. According to the study, Colorado and North Carolina perform nearly the same on various measures. For example, 70.3 percent of Colorado’s students earn a bachelor’s degree and 68.5 percent of North Carolina students do.

Jan 26, 2006 ·

Tar Heels Turn it Green With Inefficient Solar Power Program

Morrison Residence Hall at UNC-Chapel Hill was closed in the spring of 2005 for renovation. When it reopens in the fall of 2007, not only will students’ accommodations be nicer, but solar panels will be used to heat the building’s water.

While many campus activists and administrators are excited about the project, the solar heating system is financially inefficient.

The new Morrison Hall will have about 200 solar panels placed on the roof and their energy will heat about 60 percent of the building’s hot water. From that, a saving of $11,275 annually is projected.

The solar hot water system is funded by a $137,455 grant from the state legislature, $184,000 from student fees, and $125,000 from University housing and residential education funds. The project was originally anticipated to cost $309,000, but estimates are now as high as $446,000.