Statement may lead to compromise
A statement from the American Council on Education may pave the way for a compromise between academic institutions and supporters of the Academic Bill of Rights.
The statement, dated June 23, was endorsed by 26 organizations, including the College Board and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. In it, the organizations outline their support for intellectual diversity on college campuses, which was the basis of the Academic Bill of Rights legislation proposed in several states and Congress by David Horowitz. Legislation in North Carolina, sponsored by Sen. Andrew Brock, did not make the June deadline for it to be considered for full passage in the General Assembly during the two-year session.
The Perils of Annoying the Diversicrats
Last week, a federal court in Kansas ruled that the administration at Kansas State University did not violate the First Amendment rights of a journalism professor who was fired from his position as adviser to the school’s student newspaper. It’s an amazing case that shows the extent to which school administrators will go in order to appease the campus diversity crowd once it decides to feel aggrieved.
Professor Ron Johnson had for many years been the faculty adviser to the Kansas State Collegian, a student newspaper that had received an award in 2004 as the best daily college newspaper in a national competition. Alas, he and the students committed an unpardonable sin of omission. The paper failed to cover an event on campus. Of course, there are lots of events at a large university like K-State, so what’s the big deal about failing to write about one of them?
Congress debating bill to enhance studies
WASHINGTON – Congress is considering legislation that would provide grants to colleges to promote programs in Western Civilization and American history education as a way to improve educational quality in those subject areas.
The Higher Education for Freedom Act was introduced earlier this month by Rep. Thomas E. Petri, R-Wis., and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., with the purpose to sustain postsecondary education programs that deal with traditional American history, the American founding, and Western civilization. The bills, H.R. 2858 and S.B. 1209, are currently in education committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
A New MBA Program That’s “Outside the Box”
For half a century, Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs have been a growth industry in the U.S. In 1955-56, only 3,200 MBA degrees were awarded. But in the 1960s, the numbers started to climb; in 1998, more than 102,000 MBA degrees were awarded. MBA programs have sprouted up in colleges and universities great and small as administrators sought to cash in on the increasingly prevalent idea that MBA studies were very useful if not essential for success in many business fields.
The trouble is that in trying to cater to a mass market, many programs offer an education that is of little practical value. In a September 2002 article in the Academy of Management Learning & Education, authors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Christina Fong observe that “possessing an MBA neither guarantees business success nor prevents business failure” and point out that the nation’s top business consulting firms often hire people who have degrees other than an MBA. They quote a Stanford MBA who regards the curriculum as “irrelevant” and believes that students get “a pedigree rather than learning.”
House moves to repeal tuition waiver
RALEIGH – A provision in the state House’s version of the state budget would eliminate the controversial tuition waiver program for graduates at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.
Created during the 2003 budget negotiations, the tuition waiver gives NCSSM graduates free tuition if they choose to attend any school in the University of North Carolina system. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Guilford County Democrat, pushed the tuition waiver policy through the General Assembly in 2003, saying at the time that the tuition waiver was one of the best provisions in the budget because it would keep more of North Carolina’s brightest students in the state.
Grade Inflation at Ohio University
Over the past four decades, grade inflation has become a hallmark (pun intended) of American higher education. A significant body of literature now exists which suggests that grade inflation is a serious social problem; part of which Callahan calls The Cheating Culture. Nearly everyone involved in higher education is now complicit in grade inflation one way or another, including professors, administrators, governing boards (of trustees, regents, etc.), students, their parents and their envetual employers, politicos and the public they serve. The immorality of this complicity speaks for itself and does not bode well for America.
Study Recommends Major Changes in UNC Governance
RALEIGH – A newly-released study commissioned by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and undertaken by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni recommends several key changes in the way the UNC system is governed. The two foremost recommendations are that the governor should appoint members to the UNC Board of Governors and that the Board should be reduced from 32 members to 15.
The study, entitled “Governance in the Public Interest: A Case Study of the University of North Carolina system” and was researched and written by Phyllis Palmiero, an education consultant who previously served as the executive director of Virginia’s higher education system.
Study: Gov. should select BOG members
RALEIGH – The governor should appoint members to the UNC Board of Governors, according to a report released Monday by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and commissioned by the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
The independent study made five key recommendations to improving the Board of Governors with the gubernatorial appointment the most prominent of the recommendations. Other recommendations included retaining the Board of Governors, delegate more powers to the individual campuses’ board of trustees, ensure a more proactive Board of Governors, and reduce the board’s size from 32 to 15.
How dare you question the Edwards Center at UNC?
All right, you skeptics, just why is it so hard to believe that John Edwards’ center at UNC Law isn’t really about solving poverty? Why don’t you believe all those statements about how Edwards’ interest in the center is not political? Why do you continue to think it’s simply about giving Carolina publicity and Edwards an issue for 2008?
Is it because of the timing of the center’s creation? Is it because no one’d heard a peep out of Chapel Hill about a poverty center until the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity was announced in early February? Does it have anything to do with the fact that shortly after Edwards lost in November, UNC Law School Dean Gene Nichol openly talked about his desire to get Edwards into UNC Law? Could it be that you’re suspicious over the center’s whirlwind creation in a matter of weeks without input from lawmakers or the public? Did all that make you think UNC’s real interest was in rescuing a darling of a desperate politician on the brink of political irrelevancy?
Diversity Mania Gets More Costly
East Carolina University recently announced the hiring of a new administrator with the title Assistant to the Chancellor for Institutional Diversity. ECU’s choice, Sallye McKee, currently associate vice provost for urban and educational outreach at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, begins her duties at ECU July 1.
According to ECU, the Assistant to the Chancellor for Institutional Diversity “will play a principal role in crafting and articulating a vision of East Carolina University as a diverse and inclusive institution of higher learning.” More specifically, this administrator “will contribute to the institution’s diversity efforts through honest, open dialogue and collaborative networking with administrative, faculty, staff and student colleagues in the development and evaluation of campus diversity programs, policies, and practices.”