CHAPEL HILL – One of the main criticisms being leveled against a proposed Western Civilization program at UNC-Chapel Hill is that the program would possibly be funded by a conservative philanthropy.
UNC-Chapel Hill leaders approached the John W. Pope Foundation about funding the proposed program. If the Foundation agrees, it could mean a $12 million donation for the school.
Professional and daily newspapers have recently let us know that 42 presidents of private universities and 17 presidents of public ones now make more than $500,000. In fact, seven presidents of private universities made more than $800,000 in the 2003 fiscal year, and the outside earnings of some of these (via payments made to them because they are corporate directors, for example) gave them total earnings of a million dollars or more. (Judith Rodin of Penn is said to have made $893,213 in university compensation and about $404,000 as a director of five corporations (for a total of nearly 1.3 million dollars. Boy, financially speaking, Rodin must be the original Thinker, eh?).
As the changing of the guard approaches in the General Assembly, it is important to reevaluate the direction in which the University of North Carolina system is headed. One issue that the legislators may face deals with the level of administrative salaries.
What is it really like to teach American college students these days? Very few professors bother to write much about that. Sure, they have a lot to say, but writing … Continue reading “I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student”
In Detroit Friday, Indiana Pacers’ Ron Artest ran into the bleachers, punching and shoving several fans after he was hit with a cup of beer that further incited a riot between players and fans that had already reaching a boiling point.
Less than 24 hours later, emotions in a heated rivalry game between Clemson and South Carolina ran high and resulted in a 10-minute, bench-clearing brawl in the fourth quarter.
The College of Arts and Sciences is putting together a proposal to give students the opportunity to partake in a program on Western Civilization. This is welcome news indeed. The study of Western Civilization is history making the case for liberty.
CHAPEL HILL – What a great day, Monday, to be in Chapel Hill!
There was a nice fall crisp in the air, people were still gloating about a possible bowl game, and the radicals on campus were pretending to be me. Well, they were at least passing themselves off as representatives from my office.
RALEIGH — A monthly column of mine is under fire by a handful of loud leftists at the University of Chapel Hill. The bunch, which includes a few professors (a very few, let it be said), are arguing that my column is acceptable grounds upon which the university’s College of Arts and Sciences must desist in their efforts to propose a program in Western Civilization that would win an outside grant worth several million dollars.
This talk has had a long gestation period – 24 years to be precise. In the fall of 1980, I was hired by a small, nonselective college to teach a number of courses – Business Law, Principles of Economics, and an upper-level course in Political Economy. An experience in the latter class one fall day was, as Senator Kerry would say, “seared” into my memory. I had asked the students to read a few pages from Hayek’s The Mirage of Social Justice, expecting that they would do the reading and come to class prepared for some discussion.
Sadly, I found out that the students a) had not bothered to read the assignment, or b) didn’t understand grasp anything from it and c) were not the least bit bothered by their inability to answer any of the questions I posed. After much embarrassing silence, one young fellow put up his hand, and I eagerly called on him. He said, “Couldn’t you, like, just tell us the main point?”
RALEIGH — The study of Western Civilization used to be a rite of passage for the university-educated. Now it is an afterthought at best, consigned to the shadows of the curriculum as universities pursue trendy multiculturalism. And the reaction to a proposal to bring Western Civ back shows just how feared the liberating study is by the campus radicals.
