Pope Conference Saturday
RALEIGH – Space is still available for the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy’s annual conference to be held Saturday at the Hilton Hotel in the Research Triangle Park.
Author and economist Richard Vedder is the keynote speaker for this year’s event, titled “Higher Education in America: Do Students and Taxpayers Get Their Money’s Worth.”
Space is still available for those interested in attending. To resgister for the conference, contact Executive Director George Leef at georgeleef@popecenter.org. You may also register online.
“The cost of higher education continue to rise faster than the rate of inflation, but many observer think that quality delivered is going down just as fast,” Leef said. “This conference is designed to explore the important question of how much students and taxpayers are getting for all the money they pour into the quest for college degrees.”
Last year, Vedder’s book Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much examined the rising costs of going to college, how only a fraction of those costs goes toward instruction, and how many colleges are failing to educate their students. Vedder’s speech, entitled “The High Cost and Low Productivity of Our Colleges and Universities” will focus heavily on his research in the book.
Besides Vedder other guests and presenters include UNC-Wilmington professor Mike Adams, Indiana University professor Murray Sperber, Melana Zyla Vickers, and Gary Brasor among others.
Registration will begin Saturday at 8 a.m., with the first session beginning at 8:30 a.m. A luncheon will be held at noon.
UNC Gets Serious About Grade Inflation…Maybe
In the great majority of courses at UNC-Chapel Hill, the average gradepoint is above 3.0 and in a few, it is 4.0, meaning that every student received an A. The question is whether that is a problem.
Evidently, some people at the university believe that it is a problem because the Educational Policy Committee, a subcommittee of the Faculty Council is going to address the matter of grade inflation. Said Professor Peter Gordon, who chairs the committee, “We have begun to explore techniques that give an alternative to the traditional grade point average.”
Bowles named UNC president
CHAPEL HILL – Former Clinton Administration Chief of Staff and two-time U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles was named Monday the 16th president of the University of North Carolina system.
Bowles’ appointment will become effective Jan. 1, when he will then succeed current President Molly Broad, who announced in April her plans to retire at the end of the 2005-06 academic year or when a successor had been named. His appointment was unanimously approved during a called special session of the Board of Governors.
Professors and Unions – Do the Two Mix?
A recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has given the green light to the formation of a faculty union at a private, church-affiliated college in Wisconsin. The case is important not only because it may stimulate unionization drives at colleges and universities around the nation, but also because it highlights some of the glaring problems in the law governing labor relations for all kinds of workers.
Carroll College is a liberal arts college located in Waukesha, WI. While nominally affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, its religious ties are not much in evidence. An administrative decision in 2001 to divide the college into schools of liberal arts and professional studies led to considerable faculty dissension and ultimately a drive for unionization. Some professors felt that their interests would be better represented by a union, specifically the United Auto Workers.
The University Needs to Know Its Own Limitations
One of my favorite movie lines occurs when Clint Eastwood (“Dirty Harry” Callahan) says to a criminal he has just subdued, “A man has got to know his own limitations.”
Knowing one’s limitations is a good idea for institutions as well as individuals, but for some years now, it’s been evident that UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser doesn’t recognize any limits on his university. His September 15 “State of the University Address” shows that he believes the university to have a far wider range of capabilities than it actually does.
One example is the Chancellor’s statement that “North Carolina must compete in this global economy, so it is absolutely critical that its flagship university be a player on the world stage.” That’s why UNC is building a new Global Education Center.
DTH columnist fired for controversial column
CHAPEL HILL – A UNC-Chapel Hill student was fired from The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s student newspaper, Wednesday after she wrote a column on airport security that maintained Arabs should be “stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport.”
Jillian Bandes, a junior from Florida, was the author of the controversial column that ran in Tuesday’s edition of the school paper. She says she was just stating her opinion on airport security in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and was never given an opportunity from The Daily Tar Heel editors to defend herself.
Power Corrupts in Academic Style
College professors and administrators are supposed to be dedicated to liberty to challenge ideas, to argue, to dissent. They often say that they are. But when they have the power to punish someone for deviating from one of their cherished notions, do they stick to the principles of academic freedom, or do they fall into Lord Acton’s famous statement about the corrupting nature of power?
A recent case involving a respected history professor shows that some academics love academic freedom, but only for those who agree with them.
Slowly gathering momentum within the education establishment is the idea that students and faculty members should not just be evaluated on the basis of their objective performance – their knowledge of the subject matter and their ability to teach it – but also on their acceptance of certain philosophical views having nothing to do with that subject matter.
Why is the NCAA silent about all those Fighting Scots?
What if I, an American of Scots heritage and “therefore” representative of all, no matter what the rest say, were to complain about the “Fighting Scots?” It seems the NCAA would have to do something about them, right, to show equal consideration to Indians and Scots?
UNC, Dole research initiative announced in Kannapolis
KANNAPOLIS – More than two years after Pillowtex closed in July 2003, a major public-private research initiative is in development that will transform the site of the former manufacturing company into what is billed as a national leader in biotechnology research.
The plan, known as the North Carolina Research Campus, will utilize research initiatives from institutions within the University of North Carolina, Dole Food Company, and other private research companies. Full details of the project were announced during a press conference in Kannapolis on Sept. 12.
Better Way to Nominate BOG Members
CHAPEL HILL — Every two years, the General Assembly is charged with appointing 16 members to the UNC Board of Governors, half of the board’s 32-seat voting membership. The Board of Governors is invested with great power, and its decisions affect the state’s citizens, especially those with children in the UNC system.
State law tasks the House and Senate each to choose eight members, but it doesn’t stipulate exactly how the selections are to be made. That is left up to the rules adopted by the respective chambers. You might expect that the procedures would be fair and open, but that isn’t the case.
Recently, the process has been conducted under a veil of secrecy that does a disservice to the taxpayers who fund the UNC system to the tune of more than $2 billion annually.