The Education Trust Falls for the Chivas Regal Effect
One of the pillars of our education establishment, The Education Trust, recently published a report that’s meant to pressure colleges and universities with large endowments into spending more of their…
The University of Chicago’s Support for Free Speech Sparks Opposition
Last month, just before the new academic year began, the University of Chicago’s dean of students, John Ellison, sent a letter (reproduced in this piece) to all incoming students. It…
Should Universities Be Outsourcing Their Chancellor Searches?
Among the duties of a university’s board of trustees, there is perhaps no bigger responsibility than helping to select the leader of the campus—the chancellor/president. Such an important responsibility requires…
How Our University Reacted to an Exposé of its Grade Inflation Problem
In a 2011 Pope Center article entitled “Too Many Rhinestones,” Professors T. Norman Van Cott and the late Clarence Deitsch examined Ball State University’s (BSU) grade inflation problem. After comparing…
College Sports: Isn’t it Time to De-escalate the Arms Race?
With college football season upon us, this is a good time to consider again the allure that fielding winning teams in the big-money sports (football and basketball) has for many…
Student Learning Outcomes and the Decline of American Education
Educational fads always come with a shelf life; the implacable resistance of reality eventually makes them expire. Usually, the promised educational miracle has done more harm than good. The wreckage…
The Freshman Experience: Social Justice Indoctrination and Academic Handholding
It took less than a week into the 2016-2017 academic year for several outrageous stories to surface on college campuses. At the University of Texas at Austin, thousands of students…
UnFree My Campus
Freedom of speech has been under siege at many American colleges and universities. Sometimes the attack comes from aggressive students who can’t stand having others say things they disagree with,…
Are Professors Going Too Fast?
I doubt that many people think of college professors as harried and overburdened to the point where they’re putting their very health at risk, but two Canadian English professors, Maggie…
These Professors Are Working to Restore Free Speech on Campus
Four classically liberal professors and an economist named Adam Smith walk into a room. No, this isn’t the beginning of a bad joke; it was the first event of the…