Recently I attended a meeting of a committee of the University of North Carolina system’s Board of Governors that has a mission of “setting goals for economic impact.” Higher education’s … Continue reading “Educating for the Workplace: A Dilemma”
An unlikely champion of more university oversight emerged at a recent University of North Carolina system Board of Governors (BOG) meeting. During a discussion about the board’s long-term strategic goals … Continue reading “UNC Leaders Should Keep a Closer Eye on Underperforming Degree Programs”
Many experts believe that the United States is facing a student loan crisis. Total student loan debt now exceeds $1.3 billion—more than total credit card debt for the country. And … Continue reading “States Should Work to Ameliorate Bad Federal Student Loan Policies”
In February 2015, the University of North Carolina System’s Board of Governors (BOG) concluded an extensive review of the 237 academic centers and institutes housed across the 16 UNC campuses. … Continue reading “UNC-Chapel Hill’s Center for Civil Rights Continues Leftist Agenda Unabated”
The number of non-academic administrators at colleges and universities has more than doubled in the last 25 years, far outpacing the growth in students and faculty. According to a report … Continue reading “Universities Are Churning Out the Next Generation of Higher Ed Bureaucrats”
Back in 2003, Thomas Benton—“the pseudonym of an assistant professor of English at a Midwestern liberal arts college”—wrote a brutally honest article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about graduate … Continue reading “The Academic Job Market Is Tottering, But Nobody’s Telling Graduate Students”
Now that another academic year is underway, many university administrators are anxiously awaiting the final tally of fall semester enrollment numbers. Such enrollment mania is a driving force at many … Continue reading “Yes, There’s Such a Thing as Too Much Enrollment Growth”
UNC System leaders are overhauling their 2013 strategic planning initiative. Whether that will result in sound reform ideas, however, is up in the air. North Carolina’s university system is a powerful force in the state—armed with its own lobbying team, almost 50,000 employees, and a $9.5 billion annual budget. It is a machine with a tendency to aggrandize. Curbing its appetite for expansion and self-serving policies won’t be easy.
Even before she assumes control of the University of North Carolina system, former Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has become a lightening rod for attacks by faculty, students, and activists on the left. It is an attempt to intimidate her into acquiescence to the leftist faculty’s agenda.
The search for the next University of North Carolina system president has finally concluded. Margaret Spellings, secretary of the U.S. Education Department during George W. Bush’s second presidential term, was unanimously elected by the system’s Board of Governors on October 23. Spellings, who will take the helm in March 2016, is a moderate Republican, but one who shows some promise of developing into a reform-minded university leader—a very welcome possibility. She opposes what she calls universities’ “send us the money and leave us alone” approach, and some of her views on higher education challenge those of the academic establishment.