Category: Education (higher ed)
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Did Southern Poverty Law Center and James Madison Museum Team Up to Put ‘Anti-racist’ Curriculum in Virginia Schools?
by Brenda Hafera The Albemarle County school district in Virginia has been subjected to two lawsuits related to its implementation of an “anti-racist” curriculum, which one parent said was “incubating a culture rooted in grievance, discord, and victimhood.” But parents in the school district near Charlottesville may be alarmed to discover that it is not…
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UVa Takes Steps to Protect Students from Increasing Crime in Charlottesville
by James C. Sherlock The University of Virginia has to be careful what its officials say because of the ongoing lawsuits over the November massacre. But the school is taking concrete steps to address the spike in violent crime in Charlottesville. I congratulate them. UVA Today ran an article on those initiatives on March 15th. In…
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Who Runs UVa? Part II
Yeah, yeah, another UVa post. Think of it this way: the governance issues at UVa are similar to those of every public university in Virginia. by James A. Bacon In past posts The Jefferson Council has highlighted a recently published screed, “We’re Pissed Off; You Should Be Too,” that criticizes the governance structure of the…
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The Left’s New DEI Bureaucracies at Virginia’s Colleges and Universities – What Do They Do All Day?
by James C. Sherlock We are left to imagine what Dean of the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development Stephanie Rowley would possibly do without the assistance of LaRon Scott, her Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). How in heaven’s name without Mr. Scott could she keep reactionaries like Catherine…
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Another Virginia National Champion
Because I have been highlighting Virginia collegiate teams that have been in the national spotlight lately, here is another one to add to the list: The UVa women’s swimming and diving team won its third consecutive national Division I championship over the weekend. Senior Kate Douglass won three individual events in NCAA, American, and U.S.…
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CNU Wins National Championship!
The Christopher Newport University basketball team is the national Division III champion! It was an exciting finish. With the game tied and 4.3 seconds left, Trey Barber of CNU drove about 60 feet into the lane and put up a shot. The game-ending buzzer sounded just after the ball left his hand on its way…
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A Virginia Team in the Championship Game
by Dick Hall-Sizemore During this time of year, the sports world is fixated on the NCAA Division I basketball tournament. Richmond fans give the VCU Rams a big sendoff. Hokie fans cheer their top-seeded women’s team. UVa. alumni die a little bit inside when the Cavaliers lose to Furman in the last seconds. Despite being…
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Virginia Hospitals Under Pressure on Finances and Personnel
By James C. Sherlock I have written for years about Virginia hospitals and their state oversight, including Virginia’s monopolistic Certificate of Public Need (COPN) law and its administration by the Department of Health. Virginia hospitals, and indeed those across the nation, are now under more stress than in generations. Hospitals nationally are under financial pressures…
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Who Really Runs UVa?
by James A. Bacon Earlier this month, an anonymous group distributed a pamphlet, “We’re Pissed Off: You Should Be, Too,” on the University of Virginia grounds that issued a broadside against the university’s governance structure. Although Board of Visitors member Bert Ellis was the primary object of their ire, the authors criticized the Board generally…
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Is a Reckoning Coming for the Management and Administrative Costs at Virginia’s State Colleges and Universities?
by James C. Sherlock In 2015, Professor Paul Campos of the University of Colorado at Boulder wrote an op-ed for The New York Times that clarified for many a major issue in the rising costs of a college education — the exponential growth of the number and costs of administrators. According to the Department of Education…
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Private Hospitals show Virginia’s State Hospitals, Colleges and Universities the Way to Efficiency
by James C. Sherlock We read far too often about funding “crises” in government institutions and programs. The general public, me included, would be far more attentive and sometimes supportive if government would follow the lead of private companies and continually right-size itself and emphasize customer-facing services. The health care industry — or rather the…
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Massive New Bureaucracy in JMU Faculty Hiring Procedures
The Academic Affairs Guidelines for Recruiting and Hiring Instructional Faculty manual provides a glaring look into the bureaucratic and deeply troubling hiring procedures for faculty at James Madison University. Highly bureaucratic systems and policies are nothing new in American higher education, but this manual of edicts from the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice…
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At George Mason: Statement of Commitment to Academic Freedom and to Intellectual Merit
The undersigned members of the GMU Department of Economics express their commitment to academic freedom and to intellectual merit. American universities have professed allegiance to two ideals. First, the ideal of academic freedom – the right of students and faculty to express any idea in speech or writing, without fear of university punishment, and secure…
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Virginia Republicans, in Need of a Public Education Strategy for the Fall Elections, Should look to Florida
by James C. Sherlock Virginia still supports in law the pillars of the progressive takeover of public K-12 and higher education. Our elected Democrats, having made those laws even crazier in 2020 and 2021, resist any efforts to change them even at the margins. Mystifyingly, Virginia Republicans seem not to have a public education strategy…
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Empty Gesture? UVa Board Endorses Diversity of Thought.
by James A. Bacon The University of Virginia Board of Visitors did more than endorse free speech on university campuses Friday when it voted to adopt a Council of Presidents statement on free speech: it endorsed the principle of viewpoint diversity. In 2021 the Board had embraced a statement on free speech by a commission…