Duke’s Curtis Crisis
Last spring, 88 Duke faculty members signed a public statement stating unequivocally that something “happened” to the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case. They promised to “turn up the volume” regarding the “social disaster” the lacrosse players had unleashed. And the professors said “thank you” to widely publicized protesters who had put up “wanted” posters with the lacrosse players’ photos while carrying signs reading “Time to confess” and “Castrate” outside the lacrosse players’ house.
The “Group of 88” included Kim Curtis, who before late March had compiled a lengthy if unspectacular tenure as a longtime visiting political science professor. Then came the lacrosse incident. For faculty members predisposed to an extreme version of the race/class/gender trinity, the case was too tempting not to exploit. Before signing onto the Group of 88’s statement, Curtis attended rallies denouncing the players (background, in this photo). On March 29, she emailed fellow Durham activists expressing outrage that defense attorneys had (correctly) stated that no DNA match would occur to any lacrosse player. “The self assurance,” wrote Curtis,
in the statement issued yesterday by the team that they will be exonerated by the results of the DNA testing makes me wonder if we’ve gotten the full story about who was at the house that night. Were there others present who in fact carried out the rape and who are being protected by everyone else who was there? How do we know who was there?
The Top 10 Nuttiest Campus Events in 2006
Tis the season for traditional fare, and here it’s been tradition to take one last, not-so-fond look back at ten campus events of the expiring year that made us blush, cringe, or otherwise experience unpleasantness.
Blue Ridge CC censured by state board
RALEIGH – The Blue Ridge Community College’s Board of Trustees was censured Friday for its actions after an investigative audit in January found multiple financial violations involving the school’s baseball program. The expression of disapproval comes after talks failed between the school and the state to resolve some of the concerns listed in the audit report.
The censure took the form of a resolution approved during a special meeting called to address Blue Ridge Community College. It specifically deals with the board’s failure to monitor the actions of Blue Ridge Community College President David Sink and his involvement with the athletics department.
Bi-Weekly Notebook
RALEIGH – The North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities is pushing to extend the state’s Legislative Tuition Grant program to part-time students. Hope Williams, president of the association of non-profit private colleges in the state, made the appeal at a meeting of the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee in December.
The legislative tuition grant (called NCLTG) is a popular state program that has been in effect since 1975. In the 2006 short legislative session, the General Assembly raised the maximum grant per student from $1,800 to $1,900 per year.
The NCLTG program was created primarily to bolster private schools rather than provide financial aid. Even before the NCLTG program was created, the General Assembly adopted a need-based financial grant program for private education, the State Contractual Scholarship Fund program. That program continues today, but pays out less — $33. 7 million to colleges, compared with $48.1 million through the NCLTG program.
Higher Education Would Benefit From an Economic Perspective
It is often said that the United States has the best system of higher education in the world, and certainly North Carolinians take pride in their universities. But readers of these pages know that the image often differs from the reality.
While there are some excellent courses, all too frequently students are getting trendy and shallow courses such as those described in CJ’s Course of the Month. As George Leef has written, academic standards are falling, even while grades are going up. Today, college graduation is more a rite of passage than a sign of accomplishment.
How do we get our universities to adopt a more rigorous curriculum and provide young people with an education that values liberty, limited government, and free markets? These are questions that the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy has asked and will continue to address.
Jane S. Shaw Appointed New Executive Vice President
RALEIGH – Jane S. Shaw has been appointed executive vice president of the J.W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a Raleigh-based nonprofit organization dedicated to improving higher education in North Carolina and the nation. The center is named for the late John William Pope, who was a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Shaw comes to the Pope Center from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana, where she was a senior fellow and director of outreach for over twenty years. PERC is a nonprofit institute that applies economics to understanding and solving environmental problems. Before joining PERC, Shaw was a journalist. She moved to Montana from New York City, where she was an associate economics editor for Business Week. Shaw has a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College.
Shaw is perhaps best known for her writing about the environment. With Michael Sanera she coauthored Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children about the Environment (Regnery, 1999). This book points out the exaggeration and pessimism typical of middle-school and high school textbooks and offers more balanced discussions of environmental issues from acid rain to global warming. She also edited a series of young people’s books on environmental topics published by Greenhaven Press, and coedited a book on land use, A Guide to Smart Growth (2000).
Miami officials miss opportunity to set an example
In the aftermath of the Oct. 14 brawl between Florida International and the University of Miami, Miami President Donna Shalala has said all the right things. She’s done all the wrong things when it comes to punishing the players involved.
Shalala issued essentially 12 slaps on the wrists – or vacations – to the players who participated in the third-quarter fight. Only one player, Anthony Reddick was suspended indefinitely. Miami’s punishment standards are like a parent sending a child to their room, which is fully equipped with a television, Xbox, computer and cell phone. Sure, “punishments” have been issued, but the players involved will play again this season.
Higher Education has been Oversold
It was just this time of year – the beginning of a new academic year – in 1980, when it first occurred to me that higher education in America had been oversold.
I was new to the college teaching ranks and didn’t know just what to expect from students. A few days earlier, I had handed out copies of a chapter from a book that I wanted the students to read and be prepared to discuss. It was an 8-page assignment.
Once the class began and I asked some questions about the assignment, it became evident that few (if any) of the students had done the reading — or if they had read it, they hadn’t bothered to make sure they understood it. After several tries at jump starting a discussion, one student put up his hand and I eagerly called on him.
He said, “Couldn’t you, you know, just tell us the main point?”
New Paper Claims Higher Education is Oversold
RALEIGH – A new paper published by the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy argues that higher education has been oversold to the public. Many students who are not really interested in academic pursuits are spending a lot of time and money to get a credential that is much less valuable than they suppose.
The paper, “The Overselling of Higher Education,” was written by Executive Director George Leef and focuses on many of the common themes that dominates higher education policy today. Among the topics addressed in the paper is the common belief that we have entered a “knowledge economy” where it’s important for nearly everyone to go to college. Leef contends that that idea is mistaken, but because it is so widely believed, colleges have been flooded with students who would have been better off if they had chosen to do something else.
Bowles makes cuts to streamline UNC administration
CHAPEL HILL – When Erskine Bowles, the business executive who had served as President Clinton’s chief of staff, took over the UNC system in January, he proposed a visionary agenda that would dictate his activities. Among the top priorities was running the organization more effectively and through the prism of his business experiences.
In the past week, we’ve seen some of the results of that agenda. Bowles announced last week that he plans to cut 10 percent, or $1.3 million, from the UNC General Administration budget. The move would eliminate 15.5 positions, half of which are currently filled, including four vice presidents and six associate vice presidents. However, when taking into account three new positions created by Bowles earlier this year, the net reduction of the cut is 12.5 positions.
Higher education is very high in labor cost and approximately 80 percent of the UNC General Administration budget in the past has gone towards personnel.