RALEIGH — When I joined the Pope Center three years ago, I thought I knew a fair bit about higher education. In addition to reading widely to prepare for the job, I’d spent more than 20 years as an editor working with academic scholars — and I am married to an emeritus professor and former department head.
But I had a lot to learn. The Pope Center’s goal is to help correct the problems facing academia — such as rising costs, left-wing ideologies, slipping academic standards, and the loss of a common curriculum. To be effective, I had to expand my knowledge. Let me share with you some of the curious things I learned, good and bad.
My first discovery: Many academics have a lot of time on their hands. Why else would the leading news journals for higher education, the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed, publish lengthy commentary, analysis, and, well, chit-chat, ranging from the arcane (“Empathy in the Virtual World”) to the popular (“Why We Love ‘Mad Men’”)? For people in the “real world,” — and indeed for the most productive academics — time to write such commentary is hard to come by.
People in academia (including administrators) can be nasty. In 2007, I wrote an article in Inside Higher Ed, defending regional accreditors against more government intrusion. My article may have been a little naive, but it wasn’t “strewn with factual errors” as one commentator blithely claimed. I had expected more decorum.
When aroused, faculty can respond like Furies. In late 2006, a group of humanities faculty at North Carolina State University heard that a dean was interested in obtaining a grant from the Pope Foundation (not the Pope Center). Because the Pope Foundation is considered a conservative organization, left-wing activist faculty members abhorred the thought. (They probably also sensed that they were unlikely to be recipients.) Their virulent reaction hit the papers.
Such reactions have occurred around the country. An alumnus at a small school in New York state, Hamilton College, donated $3.6 million to build a center for the study of Western civilization. Once an angry wing of the faculty spoke up, the school rejected it. The list continued. Even the University of Chicago was attacked from within for proposing an institute named for Milton Friedman.
And then there’s tenure. Barring extreme dereliction of duty, tenure gives faculty members job security for life. This security is costly to universities and creates disincentives for productivity, so administrations (especially public ones) are slowly cutting it (in some cases piling on administrative jobs at the same time).
But that leaves a privileged, tenured elite at the top of the faculty pyramid.
Just how cushy the life of the elite faculty can be was revealed at N.C. State this year. It was bad enough that the chancellor and provost had agreed to short-circuit normal channels to hire the wife of North Carolina’s governor and later to pay her lavishly. The arrangement (when revealed) led to their resignations. But then the perquisites associated with the two administrators’ “retreat rights” became known. The chancellor was given a six-month leave at his full pay of $420,000 — to prepare for the teaching job to which he would retreat, which was going to earn him $252,000 initially. The provost’s initial deal was even more generous. (Both were rescinded after heavy publicity.)
Such tales of real academic life notwithstanding, I’ve learned positive things, too. I have met wonderful teachers. In fact, the Pope Center honors North Carolina professors with our annual Spirit of Inquiry Award (watch for our report in the next month or two).
The world of higher education is an exotic one—too exotic when you consider that the taxpayer pays for so much of it—but it is never boring.
Jane S. Shaw is the president of the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Raleigh (popecenter.org).