As the University of Virginia approaches the 200th anniversary of its 1819 founding, university officials are thinking big. Very big. Change-the-world big. The university aspires to raise $4 billion over the course of a ten-year fund-raising campaign, and it has established a vision to match. “What will it take to extend the unique promise of this…

Bacon’s Rebellion reader “Izzo” pointed us to a National Science Foundation database that breaks down the R&D funding sources for U.S. universities. I have extracted the numbers for Virginia’s three leading research institutions — Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Commonwealth University — and converted them to pie charts. The yellow segments show…

More fascinating data from “Faculty Deployment in Research Universities,” co-authored by University of Virginia economics professor Sarah Turner…. Best paid fields. A key finding of her research is that average faculty salaries vary widely from department to department, depending upon supply and demand considerations specific to each field. Disciplines in which Ph.D.s are employed outside of…

Newly published research by Sarah Turner at the University of Virginia and Paul N. Courant at the University of Michigan sheds light on a critical factor driving the cost of attendance at public universities: faculty productivity. Turner’s and Courant’s findings buttress a point we have made repeatedly on this blog: that higher-paid faculty members spend more time on…

A few days ago, I delivered a rap on the knuckles to Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies professor at the University of Virginia. He had made what I found to be a remarkable statement in a radio interview: “The university systems throughout the state of Virginia are running lean. They’re serving students very well.” Really? Universities…

Once upon a time, the credo of American journalism was to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Today, the attitude of many reporters is quite the reverse: Defend the institutional status quo against Tea Partiers, Trumpkins, rabble-rousers and other yahoos. The bias is especially evident in coverage of that most elite and privileged of establishment institutions,…

Every so often, “Virginia,” the University of Virginia alumni magazine, runs articles shedding light on the administration of Mr. Jefferson’s university. The latest issue focuses on the challenge of replacing some 300 aging faculty members and recruiting 100 more as part of its five-year hiring plan. The university underwent a hiring boom in the 1970s…

Three Virginia universities received high rankings in the Heterodox Academy Guide to Colleges for their commitment to diverse viewpoints. The University of Chicago and Purdue University garner the top “heterodoxy” scores for freedom from politically correct strictures on speech, but the University of Virginia, College of William & Mary and George Mason University belonged to a cluster of…

The Douglas Muir controversy may have settled down now that the entrepreneurship instructor has abjectedly apologized for a stupid remark about Black Lives Matter on Facebook and will resume teaching at the University of Virginia. But questions about UVa’s commitment to freedom of expression linger. Muir’s comment was a flash in the pan; the worldview…

Douglas Muir has issued an apology for making a controversial Facebook statement about the Black Lives Matter movement and will resume teaching his classes at the University of Virginia next week. An excerpt from his statement, as reported by the Cavalier Daily: On October 4, I responded to a Facebook post about Black Lives Matter…

by James A. Bacon In light of the departure of adjunct faculty member Doug Muir from his University of Virginia teaching positions after making controversial statements about the Black Lives Matter movement on Facebook, the question has arisen: Does UVa have the right to fire employees for objectionable speech? (For background, see “Safe Spaces: Not…

When Douglas Muir lost his job teaching entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia after making a Facebook comment highly critical of the Black Lives Matter movement, WCVE reporter Hawes Spencer wondered if his treatment raised free speech issues. He couldn’t get any first amendment advocates to return his call. Recalling the column I wrote  a couple of days…

by James A. Bacon Narrowing the realm of politically acceptable speech, not only on but off the grounds, the forces of political correctness at the University of Virginia have compelled adjunct professor Douglas Muir to take leave from teaching positions at the School of Engineering and Darden School of Business. Muir’s offense: comparing the Black Lives Matter…

by James A. Bacon In morning testimony before the General Assembly, a state auditor provided a detailed breakdown of how the University of Virginia cobbled together its controversial $2.2 billion Strategic Investment Fund: UVa was in full compliance with the Code of Virginia, and all of its monies have been properly accounted for over the years.…