Academics

Future leaders in business, government, and civil society need more than just job skills. The following articles defend the value of liberal education, with a focus on academic quality and rigor, fundamental knowledge, and the ideas that have shaped Western Civilization. They also scrutinize academic programs that have departed from these ideals in the name of progressive ideology.


Scandal at School of the Arts

RALEIGH — High-level administrators at the North Carolina School of the Arts engaged in “willful, deliberate, and intentional” violations of N.C. law in what State Auditor Ralph Campbell described Tuesday as “similar to the debacle at Enron.”

Campbell said the findings at the NCSA were as serious as any his office had uncovered previously.


Racial and Sexual Discrimination at UNC, and All

RALEIGH — Last week the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights issued a ruling that a lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had sexually and racially discriminated against, and harassed, a student in her class last fall. I repeat: the OCR found that, at UNC-CH, a teacher abused her authority to discriminate against and harass one of her students based upon the student’s race and sex.


Carolina Covenant increased

CHAPEL HILL – During his annual State of the University Address Wednesday, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser announced plans to increase the number of students covered under the school’s Carolina Covenant.

The Carolina Covenant, first proposed during Moeser’s 2003 State of the University address, is a measure to provide a debt-free college education to low-income students. Moeser said the school intends to increase the scope of the program to include students who are at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, up from 150 percent this year.


Improving Institutions From Within

RALEIGH – The lack of a general requirement for students to study Western civilization in the University of North Carolina system is nothing new to National Association of Scholars President Steve Balch. UNC system school’s reluctance to require students to study Western civilization is party of a growing national trend to focus more attention and resources towards multicultural or cultural diversity courses.


What Do Students Have to Learn to Graduate?

A young man I know who attends UNC-Chapel Hill recently told me, “People would be amazed if they knew how easy it is to get a degree from Chapel Hill without really learning anything.” He’s probably right, and much of the blame for that should be placed on the erosion of the college curriculum.


Study: UNC’s general-education core is weak

RALEIGH – General-education requirements at 11 University of North Carolina institutions are weak, according to a new study commissioned by the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. UNC students are seven times more likely to be required to take a cultural diversity course than they are to study a foreign language, unlikely to be required to study Western history or civilization or even introductory literature, and not required at all to study United States history.



Free Market Pays for Tuition

More students than ever are attending the nation’s colleges and universities, but we nevertheless hear a lot about how terribly expensive it is. Even with the very low in-state tuition charged by UNC schools, the cost of a year in college, including housing and living expenses, can be a strain on the budget for low-income families. It can be a strain for not-so-poor families too, if they haven’t saved enough money.


Using Free Market to Pay for College

More students than ever are attending the nation’s colleges and universities, but we nevertheless hear a lot about how terribly expensive it is. Even with the very low in-state tuition charged by UNC schools, the cost of a year in college, including housing and living expenses, can be a strain on the budget for low-income families. It can be a strain for not-so-poor families too, if they haven’t saved enough money.