What America Can Learn From North Carolina About Free Speech
What makes America the best country in the world? Freedom. And when it comes to free speech, North Carolina may be one of the best states in the country. In…
Universities Should Get Out of the Radio Business
Hardly anybody thinks better of themselves than journalists—their foremost competition being, perhaps, academics. The cacophony of self-congratulation reaches a peak in state-funded journalism; the fact of the venture’s unprofitability seems…
College Marketing Needs a Reality Check
Several years ago, when I headed marketing at a major public university, a colleague suggested we needed our own “moonshot” to stem the tide of declining enrollment. I took the…
UNC Wears Its History Well
It is today widely acknowledged that face-reading—the belief that you can work out the character of a person from the look of their face—is impossible. But what about institutions? Can…
Prestige Must Die
Anyone involved in higher education reform might recognize a very particular pattern—an “elite” university, often one of the Ivy League schools, does something inane. Reformers, usually but not exclusively conservatives,…
Michigan Thinks Grades Are the Problem
The University of Michigan plans to exclude first-semester letter grades from students’ transcripts to “curb the mental health crisis.” What would seem like a mundane university-level grading change has become…
Conservatives Need Not Apply?
While I was in graduate school, I regularly participated in a research program that paid students to taste test food. Many social science disciplines conduct research this way. While these…
Foreign Languages Are a National Interest
Ever since Benjamin Franklin wielded his fluent French to persuade Parisian elites to support the War of Independence, foreign language knowledge has enabled American diplomats and representatives—not to mention spies—to…
What Biology Can Teach Us About History
Stephen H. Balch’s Naturalizing History: A Biocultural Theory of Human Progress (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2026) is a grand synthesis of biology and history that articulates many of the concerns of…
The Pirates Are Pillaging Their Own Campus
East Carolina University is going through a bad stretch. Sexual assaults. Hazing reports. Drunken student behavior. Religious-property vandalism. A dorm peeping case. Alleged drug and alcohol use among prospective members…