The Modern University’s Greatest Failing
In 2006, I clipped a “Non Sequitur” cartoon that captured perfectly the mystique that surrounds our nation’s universities. The cartoon pictured a professor ensconced in a cubicle surrounded by an…
Posts tagged with
“UNC”
Will This New College Ranking System Upend the Status Quo?
Higher education reformers have long argued that colleges’ admissions selectivity reveals little about their educational quality and how well they prepare students for the workforce and civic life. The U.S.…
Universities Are Churning Out the Next Generation of Higher Ed Bureaucrats
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…
The Academic Job Market Is Tottering, But Nobody’s Telling Graduate Students
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…
Athletics Reform Is Possible Without the NCAA
In the past two decades, North Carolina higher education leaders have tried to address problems related to college athletics. But whether they’ve focused on the increasing pressure to admit academically ill-prepared…
The Freshman Experience: Social Justice Indoctrination and Academic Handholding
It took less than a week into the 2016-2017 academic year for several outrageous stories to surface on college campuses. At the University of Texas at Austin, thousands of students…
Skills Without Frills: The Rise of Coding Academies
The basement of a once–abandoned tobacco factory may seem to be an odd place to teach the most cutting edge computer technology, but that’s where The Iron Yard, a computer…
Universities Spend Big Money on Public Relations
Recent studies reveal a disturbing trend in higher education: colleges, both private and public, are increasingly devoting a significant amount of time and money to public relations. In a time…
Pokémon Go Is Booming on Campus, and That’s a Good Thing
On the surface, Pokémon Go players appear to be zombified millennials walking aimlessly, eyes fixed on their cellphones. But in reality they are engaging with a new community of young…
Fears Surrounding the Privatization of Campus Services Are Unfounded
Last semester at my school, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, students protested the privatization of the campus bookstore through rallies and social media uproar. Such backlash seemed…