How to Control College Costs in 2023 and Beyond
TRY WORKING HARDER The college-costs question invites a raft of sensible responses. But I’m a simple guy, and I’ll offer a simple place to start: Students, teachers, and staff should…
Posts tagged with
“general education”
Making General Education Meaningful
Higher education serves many purposes. One purpose dominates, however: to students, their parents, future employers, government officials, and many academic administrators, higher education is all about preparing students for the…
The Limits of Expertise
As a professor devoted to his college’s “pre-disciplinary” core curriculum, I was hooked by David Epstein’s title, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. The book is chock-full of…
Many NC Students Are Missing out on Core Knowledge
What will they learn? That is the question that the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has been asking America’s colleges for thirteen years in a report by the…
A Conversation with the Chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill
On December 13th, 2019, Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz became the 12th chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to his appointment, he had been serving as interim…
North Carolina Colleges Shouldn’t Confuse Cafeteria-Style Curriculum with Strong Liberal Arts
There are a lot of good reasons to question the value of a traditional college degree. Tuition costs have been rising at a rate that’s almost eight times faster than…
Fixing a Liberal Arts Education Requires a Standardized Curriculum
In higher education, the value of a liberal arts education has been frequently debated. Defenders on the left argue that it exposes students to coursework and teaches critical thinking skills…
The Four Perspectives of Higher Education Policy Explained
Explaining higher education policy is never easy (even to people who are involved in it). Over the years, while training young writers for the Martin Center, I have come up…
UNC’s New Gen Ed Proposal Reflects Major Philosophical Shift from Knowledge to Process
It is imperative that universities take the time to deeply reflect on their purpose (or rather, purposes). There is no better time for UNC-Chapel Hill to do so than now,…
Study Only What You Want? Not If You Want to Be Successful
Recently, a general education course at UNC-Chapel Hill, “Big-Time College Sports,” was canceled. This sparked controversy after the course’s professor, Jay Smith, argued that the class, which he had taught…