Is Campus Carry Just a Tempest in a Teapot?
Happily, college campuses are typically pretty safe places compared with the rest of the society. The strident debate on the issue is a tempest in a teapot, more about the political symbolism of guns than it is about safety.
Failing HBCUs: Should They Receive Life Support or the Axe?
Two years ago I attended a student debate at North Carolina Central University, one of the state’s five public historically black colleges and universities. It was fascinating, especially given the self-examination raised by its topic, “HBCUs: Can They Survive?” The moderator asked several incisive questions: Would the closure of HBCUs materially impair black students’ access to higher education? Would closing some HBCUs make the remaining ones stronger? Would the civil rights leaders of the 1950s and 1960s support an enduring HBCU presence today? As I reported at the time, the students eloquently argued both “pro” and “con” positions and deeply engaged with the relevant facts and issues. If only more of today’s political and higher education leaders did the same.
Why Many College Students Never Learn How to Write Sentences
Today’s college writing is a big, knotted mess, decades in the making, and I don’t know for sure how to untangle it or what sword will cut through it. Still, if you can’t write a sentence, you can’t write, and too many of today’s students just can’t write sentences. Many graduate without that fundamental skill.
If Adjuncts Are Treated Unfairly, Is There a Solution?
For the last several years, Big Labor has pushed for mandated higher pay for workers, rallying around the slogan “Fight for Fifteen!” Fifteen dollars per hour as the minimum allowable wage, that is. The academic world has something similar: The movement for a large increase in compensation for part-time, untenured faculty who teach on semester contracts—the adjuncts.
North Carolina Unveils Innovative Approach to Remediation
The North Carolina Community College System is poised to become a national leader in career and college readiness. At a time when there is a spotlight on both high schools and community colleges to do a better job preparing students for prosperous careers, the North Carolina Community College System has taken several key steps toward that goal.
Tantrums About History Don’t Help Education
Students on both sides of the Atlantic have declared war on the past.
To Fund or Not to Fund: That is the Question in Tennessee
Apparently, the more a school fusses over the inescapable fact that people are diverse, the more likely that it will experience campus turmoil—turmoil that will then be cited as the justification for still more diversity programs. Tennesseans are right to question whether the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Tennessee’s flagship campus produces educational benefits that are worth the cost.
The Frivolity of Free Community College (And What We Can Do Instead)
The idea of free community college has become a topic of national debate in recent years, highlighted by Tennessee’s and Oregon’s enactment of statewide plans, and President Obama’s advocacy for a nationwide program. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, who last week won the Democratic nomination for governor, has laid out a lofty education plan that includes tuition-free community college for North Carolina students. How to pay for this plan and its overall structure remains uncertain, but the flaws of similar plans—and more innovative ideas to improve access and outcomes for North Carolina’s community college students—are worth discussion.
B.A., M.A., Ph.D., But Little Education
Our universities once only took in students who wanted an education. Now those who want an education find it a challenge to get one. We are more and more preparing our students to work at jobs in the economy, but we are less and less preparing them to create, discover, and understand. That is a loss to both our culture and society.
What Faculty Unionism Really Accomplishes
I have spent nearly twenty years teaching at the City University of New York and to keep my job I have had no choice but to pay dues to CUNY’s faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC). Organized in 1974, the PSC was one of the first public university faculty unions. Since it is located in pro-union New York City, the PSC has had every opportunity to work with politicians to improve CUNY’s reputation, its students’ outcomes, and its faculty’s working conditions. It has failed on each of those measures. The main reason why is that the union leadership prefers to maximize its power and inflow of money at the expense of the students’ education and the well-being of many faculty members.