Commentaries | ArchiveShowing records: 1351 to 1380 out of 1524How to teach about the war at America's 'leading public university' The fall semester has started. The war on terror is reportedly about to extend to Iraq. Both those events mean that "teach-ins" are about to return to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose chancellor recently spoke of his vision of UNC-CH as "America's leading public university," a "university with a moral compass."... More » September 20, 2002
Scholars make the case, apparently, for sex studies at UNC-Chapel Hill A new academic program has been proposed for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It would be a certificate program, similar to a minor, in the field of "sexuality studies." According to the News & Observer (July 29), students in the program would take five courses that "delve into issues of sexual identity, sexual ambiguity and the role of sex in society, politics, art, law, history and religion."... More » September 13, 2002
Suggestions for a diversity of provocation at UNC-Chapel Hill University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser recently told the National Press Club in Washington that the university would continue to pick "provocative" books for its infamous Summer Reading Program. No one asked, "Provocative to whom?"... More » September 06, 2002
Is it our colleges' fault that our kids don't know American basics? About every year or so, a group interested in education reform will poll college seniors about ought-to-be-well-known facts concerning American history, politics, and other subjects. These invariably find about the same thing: in those subjects, students know surprisingly little.... More » August 30, 2002
Approaching the Qur'an -- Why Bother? Suppose you are dining out at a fine restaurant. You look over a menu that has many excellent items you are sure you would enjoy. At the very bottom you see this: "Plate of Spaghetti Without Sauce." It's priced the same as the other entrees. Would you order the spaghetti, or something else?... More » August 23, 2002
The tragic life and death of a poster boy He was held up as the poster boy of racial preferences in the fight against California’s Proposition 209, the ballot initiative outlawing preferences passed overwhelmingly in 1996. An ardent defender of preferences, in 1995 he was profiled as their best defense in the pages of The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.... More » August 16, 2002
State budget crisis brings UNC 'overhead receipts' under scrutiny Public universities in North Carolina this year received $120 million from the federal government in "overhead receipts." That money is intended to help pay the universities' administrative and institutional costs in conducting research for federal projects. It is also coming under legislative scrutiny in this tight budgetary era, as lawmakers question how the universities use that money and whether it duplicates any state funding efforts.... More » August 09, 2002
Poll results show college students are learning 'do your own thing' ethics College students are being taught to behave unethically in today's workplace despite their own personal beliefs, according to a report released July 23 by the National Association of Scholars.... More » August 02, 2002
Campus intellectual intolerance is back In 1976, I was a student at Duke Law School. One of the campus speakers that year was Milton Friedman, who had recently received the Nobel Prize in economics. Prior to his talk, leftist student groups posted signs around the campus protesting Friedman’s appearance on the grounds that since he had once given some economic advice to Pinochet’s government in Chile, he was therefore complicit in that regime’s repression.... More » July 29, 2002
The SAT or the racial gap it measures? What is so wrong with the SAT that it needs an overhaul? The SAT is, quite frankly, too objective -- and one of the things it measures objectively is the vast difference in educational preparation between black and white students.... More » July 19, 2002
Report urges sweeping changes to fix "LGBTQ Climate" at UNC-Chapel Hill UNC-Chapel Hill needs a great deal more courses in "Sexuality Studies," special theme housing for gay students, domestic-partner benefits for gay faculty and a revision of dependent benefits to include unadopted children in a domestic-partner arrangement, and the creation of a new campus office, complete with directors, staff, and an advisory committee, to consolidate academic and support resources for gay students, faculty, and staff. Those are just a few of the recommendations contained within a recently released report to the provost on "growing acceptance amid lingering and pernicious discrimination" at UNC-Chapel Hill.... More » July 15, 2002
Study finds foreign student program rife with corruption The Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., released in June a very damning evaluation of the Foreign Student Program. Conducted by George Borjas, Pforzheimer Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the evaluation finds the program rife with corruption and failing abysmally at achieving its advertised benefits.... More » July 12, 2002
What's still OK for public schools: a scorecard The recent ruling (now on hold) by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to declare the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional and therefore not fit for public schools is just one of the bewildering changes taking place in our public schools. At this moment, maybe it's time to take stock of what is -- and what isn't -- allowed nowadays.... More » July 05, 2002
UNC-Wilmington feminists abort free speech When a new Women's Resource Center was established at my university (UNC-Wilmington), I was concerned that it would serve as more of a resource for feminist professors than for female students. I also suspected that the center would try to advance a "pro-choice" agenda with little tolerance for the views of pro-life advocates.... More » June 28, 2002
College orientation can help students cope -- or drive them apart A freshman newly arrived on campus and inundated with the many college-orientation sessions that mark his first experience in a new situation might wonder, why all the fuss?... More » June 21, 2002
Report lists myriad ways to improve 'LGBTQ climate' at UNC-Chapel Hill UNC-Chapel Hill needs a great deal more courses in "Sexuality Studies," special theme housing for gay students, domestic-partner benefits for gay faculty and a revision of dependent benefits to include unadopted children in a domestic-partner arrangement, and the creation of a new campus office, complete with directors, staff, and an advisory committee, to consolidate academic and support resources for gay students, faculty, and staff.... More » June 14, 2002
The Supreme Court has another chance to review racial preferences The stage is set for the Supreme Court to tackle that thorniest of issues, the legality of racial preferences in college admissions. All that remains is for the Court to decide to review the case.... More » June 07, 2002
Of Title IX and 30 years of bureaucratic miasma Just from reading the preamble to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, one would not suspect it was the preamble to 30 years’ of controversy, fights over interpretation, compliance tests, and the noxious slew of bureaucratic miasma that followed: “No person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid.”... More » May 31, 2002
Today's students get to dictate what constitutes a general education Universities ostensibly provide students with rigorous training to prepare them for their chosen field. There's more to it than that, however, because if it were only that, the students could skip the addlepated rigmarole that has become an accepted part of what's blithely called "the college experience" (which amounts to hazing or coddling, depending upon one's fealty to the campus's hair-trigger socialist bent) and go directly to a private provider of vocational training.... More » May 24, 2002
Sign a form, get college credit Shortly after winning the glorified popularity contest to be next year's student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jen Daum announced her plans to develop a course to teach students how to lobby the legislature. As reported by The Daily Tar Heel March 8, "Daum said students' lack of knowledge about lobbying is a major reason why the university's governing bodies have not been receptive to students' concern in matters like the recent tuition proposals."... More » May 17, 2002
Va. Attorney General says universities can't justify preferences for remediation Racial and ethnic preferences in admissions and scholarships at Virginia state public universities can no longer be justified on the basis of remedying past discrimination, according to a memorandum from the office of Virginia Attorney General.... More » May 10, 2002
N.C. State supports civil discourse, embattled professor Administrators and professors at North Carolina State University have come to the support of embattled Prof. Philip Muñoz. Muñoz's Political Science 205 class on Law and Justice was the site of an alleged racial attack Feb. 19, when a white female student, angered by the heated comments made about America and its treatment of blacks by a black student, Najja Baptist, told Baptist "go back to Africa."... More » May 03, 2002
Sept. 11 figures in campus discussions on health, discrimination, and racism The terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent U.S. war on terrorism were the subjects of a recent teach-in at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and were also referenced by North Carolina State University students during two recent campus events focusing on an entirely different subject, the racial climate.... More » April 26, 2002
Racial hypersensitivity poisons the campus climate N.C. State has gone to great lengths to gauge its "racial climate." But how worthwhile is this activity, really? A voluntary demonstration ostensibly designed to list incidents of racial injustices at N.C. State produced only four, all of which were really examples of racial hypersensitivity, only two of which related to N.C. State, and one of which was from two decades prior.... More » April 19, 2002
Black student newspaper at N.C. State finds a real white devil On the back page of its Feb. 14-21 issue, the Nubian featured a large picture of "The infamous Darren O'Connor." A diabolical reddish glow suffuses O'Connor's face, almost crowding out his features, except for the dark hollows of his eyes, which are exaggerated by the hellish light.... More » April 15, 2002
N.C. State to issue bonds for conference center, hotel, and golf course project North Carolina State University is soon going into the hotel business. Construction is slated to begin this year on the Centennial Campus Executive Conference Center and hotel, which would offer 250 rooms and 29,000 square feet of meeting space, to be complemented by a 18-hole championship golf course, all built on the university's Centennial Campus.... More » April 12, 2002
Study: Women's studies texts full of deliberate factual errors, ideological bias The Independent Women's Forum has released a major review of textbooks used in college Women's Studies departments. The review, authored by senior fellow Chistine Stolba, challenges the "propaganda, not scholarship," being put forth by women's studies textbooks.... More » April 05, 2002
Survey finds one-sided political affiliation among UNC-Chapel Hill faculty A survey of faculty members in nine departments at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found that over four-fifths are registered Democrats. The results of the survey, conducted by the conservative student magazine Carolina Review for its March issue, called into question UNC-CH's devotion to diversity.... More » March 28, 2002
Discrimination for diversity's sake doesn't help minorities succeed The controversy over minority enrollment in North Carolina colleges gets right to the heart of diversity, the cardinal virtue of academe. Although the issue has been vexing colleges for years, it doesn't take an outside observer long to realize the absurdly simple crux of the matter. The problem with minorities is just that there are just so few of them.... More » March 22, 2002
N.C. colleges keep up with national trend toward sexualizing courses, events A class at the University of California at Berkeley came under fire in February when the public learned participants received college credit for a course that involved, among other things, visiting strip clubs, watching an instructor engage in sexual intercourse, and engaging in orgies at an instructor’s house.... More » March 15, 2002 [1] « 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 » [51]
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