Category: Education (higher ed)
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Your Alumni Association Dollars at Work
by James A. Bacon Above is an ad that The Jefferson Council submitted to run in the University of Virginia Alumni Society publication, Virginia. Before I tell you the fate that befell this ad, please take a moment to read it, and then ask yourself: is there anything political about it? Is there anything contentious…
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The Stakes are High in Reform of Higher Education
by James C. Sherlock I exposed in detail yesterday the ironclad control of the University of Virginia by the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy at that school. Maoist-like insistence on radical progressive ideological purity is overseen there by the Red Guards of DEI in every school in the university. To claim otherwise is to…
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A More Politically Diverse Board for VMI
by James A. Bacon Governor Glenn Youngkin’s board-of-visitors appointments to the University of Virginia and the Virginia Community College System are bound to shake up the status quo, as Bacon’s Rebellion has documented in earlier posts today. His designation of four new members to the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors could generate controversy as…
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UVa’s Invasive, Ubiquitous DEI Program, Its President and the New Board of Visitors
by James C. Sherlock As a public service and a primer for new UVa Board of Visitors members, I will offer here a brief summary of the extent and costs in dollars, time, distraction and suppression of debate by the University’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program. Put briefly, they are everywhere, overseeing everything at the…
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UVa Board Meetings Should Get a Lot More Interesting
by James A. Bacon Governor Glenn Youngkin has announced his appointments to the boards of visitors of Virginia’s colleges and universities, at least one of which has the potential to be highly consequential — Bert Ellis, a serial entrepreneur and major donor, at the University of Virginia. Ellis has been a prominent critic of UVa’s…
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Youngkin Appointees Can Expect the Queally Treatment
by James A. Bacon Any day now, Governor Glenn Youngkin will announce his appointments to the boards of Virginia’s public colleges and universities. He has used his bully pulpit to urge governing boards to suppress hikes in tuition and fees, and he has called upon administrators to preserve free speech and promote intellectual diversity. In…
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A Senseless Fight
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Sometimes I shake my head in dismay at the Democrats in the General Assembly. They sometimes seem so eager to score points against Governor Youngkin that they end up shooting themselves in the foot. Current case in point is Budget Amendment No. 9 sent down by the Governor. Rather than summarize it,…
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Hoos the Best Software Engineering School?
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes we get nice surprises. Yesterday was one of those days. A friend on the UVa Board of Visitors sent me a report by CodeSignal. Founded in 2015, (CodeSignal is) the first company to develop an objective skills-based assessment platform that can be used as a standard for technical hiring. The report…
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The New Racial Calculus in UVa Admissions
by Walter Smith and James A. Bacon On March 20, 2022, The Cavalier Daily student newspaper trumpeted the fact that the University of Virginia set a record low acceptance rate, offering slots to only 9,534 applicants, or 19% of the nearly 51,000 total. Of particular note, 52% of the offers went to “students of color”…
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Bacon Bits: School Meltdown Update
The latest news about our dysfunctional schools: Another day, another beating. A 15-year-old boy at Freedom High School in Prince William County was hospitalized Friday after three other students punched and kicked him in the head after an argument in the hallway. His injuries were not considered life-threatening. Prince William police said the case resulted…
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The VMI Alumni Association as Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy
By Larry Repress and Sal Vitale Virginia Military Institute Class of 1961 NOTE: This OPEN Letter was originally Sent to Mr. Thom Brashears, VMI Alumni Association COO with a request it be provided to all VMI Alumni in advance of the Special Meeting of the Association scheduled for 11 June 2022. On June 6, 2022…
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Commonwealth Set for Major Broadband Expansion
by Dick Hall-Sizemore One of the issues underlined by the pandemic was the need for all areas of the state to have access to broadband internet. Without access to broadband, kids (and adults) in rural areas cannot take advantage of courses offered online. To the extent that more people will be working remotely, rural areas…
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Legislators Deal Huge Blow to Upwardly Mobile Poor Kids
by James A. Bacon Anna Julia Cooper School was founded as a private, nonprofit middle school in 2009 in Richmond’s poverty-ridden East End. The first-year enrollment in the middle school was 29 students. The founders offered a proposition to students’ families: the school would charge no tuition, but parents had to be committed to the…
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Lessons in Education, Democracy and Western Civilization from a Great Man
by James C. Sherlock I recommend that every reader view a one-hour teleconference discussion between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and higher education leaders from around the United States. You will watch a great and remarkably insightful man, in the middle of leading his country’s war for survival, speak and answer questions about preserving higher education,…
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What Role Will “Equity” Play in UVa’s Pay Raises This Year?
by James A. Bacon The College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia will be using “equity” as a criterion in allocating pay raises in the coming year, according to a memo distributed by Interim Dean David L. Hill. Hill has divided the 5% pool of funds available for pay raises into three…