Engineering Education: Social Engineering Rather than Actual Engineering
We engineers like to solve technical problems. That’s the way we think, that’s why we chose our major, that’s why we got into and stayed in engineering. There are several…
Study Only What You Want? Not If You Want to Be Successful
Recently, a general education course at UNC-Chapel Hill, “Big-Time College Sports,” was canceled. This sparked controversy after the course’s professor, Jay Smith, argued that the class, which he had taught…
Student Free Speech Suffers a Defeat
Since launching its Stand Up for Free Speech project in 2014, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has had a great deal of success in defeating college officials…
My University Treated Me Like a Criminal Over a Joke
For the past six years, I have taught an undergraduate course on international economics at Johns Hopkins University. Most of my students thought it was a very good course. So…
Student Governments Can Help to Restore Faith in Higher Education
Higher education has a public relations problem on its hands. The results of a new Pew Research survey show that almost 60 percent of Republicans believe higher education has a…
Professors Should Write Books That Seek Truth, Not Inflame Passions
The academic enterprise is supposed to be about truth. Those who are entrusted to teach are expected to convey knowledge to their students, not their opinions. And when academics write…
An Inside Perspective on Radicals’ Treatment of Wake Forest’s Eudaimonia Institute
Last fall Wake Forest University announced a $4.2 million donation to fund “the study of human flourishing” at the university’s newest institute—the Eudaimonia Institute (EI). Although it took people a…
How Colleges Themselves Bring About Racial Protests
This academic year has been punctuated by a series of high-profile campus protests. Many student grievances have, as in previous years, centered on claims of racial injustice. If next academic…
North Carolina’s New Institutional Neutrality Policy Is a Win for Preventing Campus Bias
Yesterday, I came to bury Caesar. That was a mistake, so today, I’m going to praise him. By “Caesar,” I mean the North Carolina Legislature. I wanted to “bury” them—in…
Making Legal Education Great Again
Legal education has become a surprisingly regular topic of news media for several years now. Most of this commentary has focused on enrollment and matriculation problems, bar passage rates, accreditation…