UNCG faculty’s gesture sends a lesson to legislators (well, it should)
The faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro have provided state legislators and others a lesson in responsibility and charity in the face of dire fiscal times.
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.
AAUP committee will work to ensure academic freedom — of the left
Oct 4, 2002 ·
Jon Sanders
If the announced concerns of the American Association of University Professors’ special committee to study academic freedom in the wake of Sept. 11 are any indication, look for more rarefied hand-wringing over the academic left’s travails and cricket-chirruping silence over others’.
The latest dip in the roller-coaster ride of N.C. State’s library improvements
Sep 27, 2002 ·
Jon Sanders
Hours and services will be restored to D.H. Hill Library on the campus of North Carolina State University, school officials have announced. Public pressure, student activism, work between library officials and the provost’s office, and the state legislature’s joint conference committee budget report all contributed to a restoration of library services, which will be effective Oct. 16.
How to teach about the war at America’s ‘leading public university’
Sep 20, 2002 ·
Jon Sanders
The fall semester has started. The war on terror is reportedly about to extend to Iraq. Both those events mean that “teach-ins” are about to return to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose chancellor recently spoke of his vision of UNC-CH as “America’s leading public university,” a “university with a moral compass.”
Scholars make the case, apparently, for sex studies at UNC-Chapel Hill
Sep 13, 2002 ·
Jon Sanders
A new academic program has been proposed for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It would be a certificate program, similar to a minor, in the field of “sexuality studies.” According to the News & Observer (July 29), students in the program would take five courses that “delve into issues of sexual identity, sexual ambiguity and the role of sex in society, politics, art, law, history and religion.”
Suggestions for a diversity of provocation at UNC-Chapel Hill
Sep 6, 2002 ·
Jon Sanders
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser recently told the National Press Club in Washington that the university would continue to pick “provocative” books for its infamous Summer Reading Program. No one asked, “Provocative to whom?”
Is it our colleges’ fault that our kids don’t know American basics?
Aug 30, 2002 ·
Jon Sanders
About every year or so, a group interested in education reform will poll college seniors about ought-to-be-well-known facts concerning American history, politics, and other subjects. These invariably find about the same thing: in those subjects, students know surprisingly little.
Approaching the Qur’an — Why Bother?
Aug 23, 2002 ·
George Leef
Suppose you are dining out at a fine restaurant. You look over a menu that has many excellent items you are sure you would enjoy. At the very bottom you see this: “Plate of Spaghetti Without Sauce.” It’s priced the same as the other entrees. Would you order the spaghetti, or something else?
The tragic life and death of a poster boy
Aug 16, 2002 ·
Jon Sanders
He was held up as the poster boy of racial preferences in the fight against California’s Proposition 209, the ballot initiative outlawing preferences passed overwhelmingly in 1996. An ardent defender of preferences, in 1995 he was profiled as their best defense in the pages of The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.
Poll results show college students are learning ‘do your own thing’ ethics
Aug 2, 2002 ·
Martin Center Staff
College students are being taught to behave unethically in today’s workplace despite their own personal beliefs, according to a report released July 23 by the National Association of Scholars.