Category: Education (higher ed)
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Why So Many Students Drop Out of College
by James A. Bacon Roughly 70% of all high school graduates in the United States pursue higher education. Among first-time full-time students who enroll in four-year institutions 40% fail to complete a bachelor’s degree within six years, and most of those never will. The non-completion rate is even higher for community college enrollees. This “completion…
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Bettina Love at Virginia Tech – a Different Context
by James C. Sherlock A bad penny keeps on turning up. This appearance is however critically different in context from Ms. Love’s appearance at the University of Virginia School of Education. The Tech online get together is for faculty, and I have no problem with that. It represents legitimate academic inquiry. Presumably the audience will…
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VMI Wins with Wins as Interim Superintendent
by James A. Bacon The Virginia Military Institute has appointed retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins, an African-American, as interim superintendent. He will serve while the Board of Visitors searches for a permanent replacement for retired Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III, who resigned after Governor Ralph Northam announced an investigation into charges of “relentless…
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A Challenge to the University of Virginia Ed School on the Teaching of K-12 Black Children
by James C. Sherlock I provided an extensive review in this space of the latest book by Dr. Bettina Love, an assistant professor in the education school of the University of Georgia. She advocates separate but equally funded schools for black children and a radically revised curriculum unique to black children. Readers can see in that…
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Black Georgia Professor, UVa Ed School Teachers Conference Keynoter, Trashes Brown v. Board and Offers Return to Segregated Schools
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love (2019) Reviewed by James C. Sherlock Background and Introduction I became interested in reviewing this book when I watched Dr. Bettina Love, as Associate Professor of Education at the University of Georgia, speak at a seminar for…
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WaPo’s Journalistic Jihad Against VMI Continues…
by James A. Bacon President-elect Biden may be calling for national unity after a contentious presidential election, but the Washington Post hasn’t gotten the message. Post reporter Ian Shapira continues his campaign against the Virginia Military Institute, which he has charged is guilty of “relentless racism,” by slanting coverage of the pending state investigation of…
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Higher Education and Economic Mobility
Virginia’s top public universities are largely stratified by socioeconomic status. Consider the following statistics that appear in the new book by James V. Koch and Richard J. Cebula, “Runaway College Costs: How College Governing Boards Fail to Protect their Students.” At the College of William & Mary only 13.6% of the student body comes from…
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Initial Observations on the Virginia Election Results
by James C. Sherlock Nobody asked, me, but I offer my Wednesday morning initial assessment of the elections in Virginia. In no particular order, here they are. Until there is a Republican Party of Virginia, not the current Republican Party of me, the party candidates will remain eclectic to the point of statewide incoherence. Not…
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The University of Virginia Eastern Virginia Medical School
by James C. Sherlock With additional information and thoughts generated by responses to my original posts on this matter, I offer this post as a final proposal before the November 15 release of the Sentara-funded “study” of what I call the Sentara Plan for Eastern Virginia Medical school. The nation is short of doctors and…
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A Tale of Two Professors
by James A. Bacon On the one hand, we have David Astin Walsh, a left-wing University of Virginia PhD student specializing in far-right politics, who taught a class at George Mason University last year. On the other hand, we have Jeffrey Leopold, an assistant professor who teaches the Foundation of Commerce course at the University…
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UVa Medical School Takeover EVMS – A Real Opportunity for A Lot of Good
by James C. Sherlock I recommend the transformation of healthcare and physician training in the Hampton Roads. I reject both the presumptions and the terms of the current study of a merger of ODU, EVMS, Norfolk State and Sentara to improve EVMS. That study is funded by the organizations involved and the outcome is pre-ordained. But…
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The Strange Case of a Proposed Medical Merger in Hampton Roads
by James C. Sherlock There was a story — “Could EVMS merge with ODU, Sentara?” – in the Virginian Pilot this morning. It was well done and rendered a major public service. A private study is “assessing” a regional merger of Sentara, ODU, EVMS and Norfolk State. “Its task will be to provide recommendations to Gov. Ralph Northam on…
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Indoctrination U
by James A. Bacon This January the University of Virginia offers what it calls “signature” courses, which address inter-disciplinary topics that are “timely and of enduring significance.” The University has just released a preliminary list of 11 courses for the 2021 term. Four appear to be devoid of overt political bias. But judging from the…
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How Title IX Created the Campus Sex Police
by James A. Bacon When Congress enacted Title IX in 1972, the intent of the federal law was to ban discrimination against women at higher-ed institutions receiving federal funds. The application of the law morphed over the years to require equal funding of women’s athletic programs, ban “hostile” workplace environments, and in 2011 under Obama…
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The “Rat Pack” Makes the Point
By Peter Galuszka On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman took the historically enormous step of integrating the U.S. Armed Forces. The Virginia Military Institute, which prides itself on its warrior panache, didn’t get around to that until 1968 and even today there are serious questions about racism at the state-supported school. The past…