An Ambassador of Civil Discourse
In today’s universities—and in society in general—the ability to engage in intellectually rigorous and courteous conversation can appear to be a lost art. All too often, the rule of politically…
What to Look For in Higher Ed in 2018
New Year’s Day means a time to take stock of what’s happened on college campuses. Higher education in 2017 had more of students leading campus protests, college administrators struggling to…
Howling Cow Ice Cream: An NC State Experiment in Hands-On Learning
In the past, I’ve been critical of commercial activity on North Carolina’s public university campuses. It competes with private business, attracts unfair tax advantages, and may (in some cases) violate…
UNC’s New Gen Ed Proposal Reflects Major Philosophical Shift from Knowledge to Process
It is imperative that universities take the time to deeply reflect on their purpose (or rather, purposes). There is no better time for UNC-Chapel Hill to do so than now,…
The One Instance Where the Feds Should Spend More on Higher Education
The federal government has no constitutional authority to spend money on higher education, to give or lend students money for it, to direct how colleges will function, or anything else.…
Easing the Transition from Soldier to Scholar
The college diploma has long been regarded as the ticket to the good life. And most well-paid jobs require some kind of academic credential. But academia is not the only…
Cevro: An Interdisciplinary Czech College Run by Libertarians
For the past year, I was enrolled in a small graduate-level Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) program at the Cevro Institute in Prague, Czech Republic. To my knowledge, it’s one…
Standing Athwart Social Justice Protests
Today’s protest-ridden climate on college campuses might lead one to suspect that they are hotbeds of political disruption controlled by social justice warriors. All over the country, speakers are shouted…
Dual-Enrollment: a Head Start on College or Empty Credentialing?
Shortly after I moved to North Carolina in 2015, I learned about a dual-enrollment program for students to attend high school and Wake Technical Community College simultaneously. At the time,…
C.S. Lewis Was Right About Education
Postmodern academia no longer searches for truth. Except in the physical sciences, objectivity is too often replaced with moral relativism, “critical theory,” and the “lived experience” of individual scholars. But…