More By James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal | Eastern NC Now
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In the first installment of this series, I offered several reasons why conservative families ought to consider sending their kids to the local community college
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State governments have long favored giving preferential treatment to businesses in the state
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In my 45 years of teaching I have never filed an academic complaint against another faculty member-nor has one ever been filed against me. I have long believed that this demonstrates the overwhelming integrity of the teaching profession
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For many parents, the prospect of sending their kids off to college can be daunting
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Within the fractious realm of higher education policy, one of the few ideas to gain bipartisan support is the expansion of technical training for young workers, largely through apprenticeships
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Our topic today is the importance of intellectual diversity on campus. I doubt there is anyone here who does not believe in the importance of intellectual diversity on campus, so I would like to approach the topic somewhat indirectly
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At the end of every semester, at nearly every college in the country, millions and millions of students fill out student evaluations of teachers. These forms ask very sensible questions
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As I watched the antics of the hooded "Antifa" mobs at Berkeley and other large universities last year, I thought that I'd missed something in my many years as a college professor.
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In his long-awaited book, George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan argues that "the education system is a waste of time and money." He is emphatically not against people learning skills and knowledge but argues that our current system of education does a poor job of that
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The Great Books-the primary texts that include the greatest writings of Western Civilization-once formed the basis of all higher education. The highest levels of society were often closed to those who could not discuss the important works of the Classical period, Christianity, or the Enlightenment
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Professor Brian Wansink is head of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University. The lab has had problems, some described in an article called “Spoiled Science” in the Chronicle of Higher Education early in 2017
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Does social science research and understanding suffer because most of the individuals working in the field are on the left side of the political spectrum? A new book gives us strong reasons to think so
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Drone pilots have assumed an increasingly valuable role in military operations. Soon they may be able to leverage their unique experience into academic credits through the North Carolina Community College System
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In today's universities-and in society in general-the ability to engage in intellectually rigorous and courteous conversation can appear to be a lost art
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Look at any map of our recent presidential elections and a key fault-line in our fractured country becomes clear
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The British journal Nature, home in 1953 to Watson and Crick’s important DNA paper, was by 1966 rather in the doldrums, with a backlog of submitted manuscripts and losing ground to the general-science leader, the U.S. journal Science
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In June 2017 the North Carolina General Assembly requested that the state's university system conduct a thorough analysis of its diversity and inclusion efforts as part of an ongoing assessment of programs' cost efficiency and performance
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For a few years in the mid-2000s, David Horowitz was one of the most prominent figures on the campus scene. He didn't have a PhD and he didn't belong to any discipline or department
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In the last few years, higher education has suffered an embarrassing series of well-publicized incidents of overt censorship by members of the academic community
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When students (and others) disrupt events where speakers are trying to make arguments they dislike, they say that their conduct is justified
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Once upon a time, there was a happy, sleepy university system in which nobody quarreled
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On November 2, House Republican leaders unveiled their tax reform plan. A number of its provisions affect higher education. While this is only a proposal, it’s worth looking into those provisions
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It's been 30 years since then-Education Secretary William J. Bennett took to the pages of The New York Times to chide colleges for their "greedy" behavior
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There has been mounting evidence that the financial payoff from the traditional bachelor's degree is declining, particularly for men.
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For the past year, I was enrolled in a small graduate-level Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) program at the Cevro Institute in Prague, Czech Republic
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Legislators returned to Raleigh last week for the beginning of a special session. Education was at the top of the agenda, with the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee meeting Tuesday to discuss various changes to North Carolina's K-12 programs
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The college diploma has long been regarded as the ticket to the good life. And most well-paid jobs require some kind of academic credential
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In the past, I've been critical of commercial activity on North Carolina's public university campuses. It competes with private business, attracts unfair tax advantages, and may (in some cases) violate provisions of the Umstead Act
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It is imperative that universities take the time to deeply reflect on their purpose (or rather, purposes). There is no better time for UNC-Chapel Hill to do so than now, as it crafts a new general education curriculum
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Once again, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has kicked the hornet's nest, this time by changing the rules for deciding if a student will be relieved of his or her obligation to repay federal college loans
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In last year's campaign for the presidency, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tried to attract votes with promises of free college. In the British elections earlier this year, one reason for the Labour Party's surge was its pledge to do more to help students afford college
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Postmodern academia no longer searches for truth. Except in the physical sciences, objectivity is too often replaced with moral relativism, "critical theory," and the "lived experience" of individual scholars
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The state of Arkansas is facing an existential threat to academic freedom
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Just over a year ago, the University of Michigan launched a new, five-year-long initiative named the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) plan
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