- Details
-
Tuesday, 28 May 2024
-
Written by John Hood
Most students and their families invest time, effort, and resources into higher education for vocational reasons. They expect the knowledge, skills, and relationships acquired at a college or university will lead to good jobs — which will, in turn, generate income for graduates to support themselves and their families as well as the satisfaction and fulfillment that comes from productive employment or entrepreneurship.
Like it or not, this is a fact. Before the middle of the 20th century, colleges and universities were elite institutions, experienced by only a tiny share of the population and funded primarily by tuition and private gifts. Even then, most graduates weren’t just there to read Plato, study fine art, or master quadratic equations for their own sake. They were being prepared for leadership roles in law, medicine, religion, commerce, or civic affairs.
The GI Bill of Rights — and the contemporaneous expansion of state universities in access and funding — greatly expanded the scope of higher education. Now, more than a third of Americans have four-year degrees and nearly half possess at least an associate degree or post-secondary credential.
I write often about the productivity of higher education, and make no apologies for focusing primarily on the financial costs and benefits. That’s what concerns most prospective students and their families. But my own concerns are broader than that.
I do believe in the intrinsic worth of expanding one’s mind — of pursuing the true, the beautiful, and the good. I think all university students should, for example, study a core curriculum in the liberal arts before turning to professional preparation. I also believe state institutions such as the University of North Carolina should continue to fulfill one of their original functions: cultivating leaders.
In the past, only a small and unrepresentative elite could aspire to leadership roles. Thank goodness that’s no longer the case. Still, most of those who lead businesses, governments, nonprofits, churches, and other organizations are college or university graduates. Quite apart from teaching specific disciplines or professional skills, campuses should prepare their graduates for leadership roles in their communities.
That’s one reason the UNC system is implementing a new requirement that graduates complete courses that, among other elements, study six key documents: the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Of course, all voters ought to be taught the fundamentals of American government. That’s why we have civics requirements in high school, though one might argue that North Carolina should do more to improve the design and instruction of those courses.
The justification for doing more at the university level, however, is that future leaders — by which I mean not just future politicians, activists, and public administrators but the broader swath of community leaders who participate in and shape the public conversation — need a deeper dive into these foundational texts.
Similarly, the new School of Civic Life and Leadership at UNC-Chapel Hill will offer students the opportunity to develop the virtues and skills they need to practice prudent, effective leadership. Its new interdisciplinary minor will “bring people together to investigate deeply human questions about liberty, justice and equality,” says Jed Atkins, the school’s newly appointed dean, yielding “thoughtful citizens who think reflectively about our political life.”
The kind of citizens, in other words, who can lead North Carolina to a brighter future. “At a time of increasing polarization and declining public trust in our institutions,” Atkins says, “the development of SCiLL represents a remarkable opportunity for America’s first public university to continue to lead our country in preparing ‘a rising generation’ for lives of thoughtful civic engagement required for a flourishing democracy.”
In an article discussing SCiLL and comparable initiatives on other campuses, American Enterprise Institute scholars Beth Akers and Joe Pitts argued that in “a nation starved of formative institutions, universities are uniquely positioned to repair our civic fabric — if only they take their responsibilities to our country seriously.”
Good for UNC — and for all of us.
Editor’s Note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).
(Photo courtesy of UNC Chapel Hill's Facebook page)
- Details
-
Tuesday, 21 May 2024
-
Written by Pitt Dickey
Howdy boys and girls. It’s time once again to take a stroll into the deep woods of Grimms’ Fairy Tales to expose the real story of Rapunzel.
Buckle up, as this tale gets a bit hairy. Pull up a chair, light up a stogie, put Johnny Cash on the Hi-Fi, and here we go.
Once upon a time, long before in vitro fertilization existed or the Republicans tried to ban it, there lived a husband and wife who longed for a child but could not get pregnant.
They lived in a starter home next to a Witch’s mansion. The Witch’s property was surrounded by a high wall to keep out the riff-raff. Their house was zero lot line and had a small window that looked out through the wall into the Witch’s garden next door.
The wife eventually became pregnant. She developed the powerful food cravings that sometimes accompany that delicate condition.
Every day she looked out the window into the Witch’s garden. She became obsessed with the lamb’s lettuce which is sometimes called “rapunzel” growing in the garden. She told her husband that if she couldn’t get some of the rapunzel she would die.
The husband, not wanting her to die, promised to get her some despite the danger. He climbed the wall one night and got away with the precious veggie. Like the first shot of heroin is free, his wife liked the rapunzel so much, she demanded he get more. The next night when he went back the Witch caught him in the act.
The Witch was angry and threatened severe punishment. The husband begged her to spare his life because his wife might die without the rapunzel. Playing “Let’s Make a Deal,” the Witch agreed to let the husband live but they would have to give her the child when it was born. This is known as a contract of adhesion.
When the child was born, the Witch immediately took the beautiful little girl naming her Rapunzel. The Witch home-schooled Rapunzel until she was 12 years old.
Then the Witch took Rapunzel into the deep forest. She locked Rapunzel up in a tower that had no entry except a window at the top. Rapunzel never went to the beauty parlor so her long golden hair had never been cut. When the Witch wanted to visit, she would chant, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your hair.”
Rapunzel would let down her hair, which was now 60 feet long, so the Witch could climb up. One day a handsome Prince was riding by and heard Rapunzel singing. He was smitten but could not figure out how to see Rapunzel. He hung around in the woods for several days, eventually hearing the Witch’s hair chant. When the Witch left, the Prince chanted “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.” It worked like a charm. Rapunzel tossed her hair out the window.
The Prince climbed up her hair into Rapunzel’s room. At first she was afraid of him as she had never seen a man before. Fortunately, he was good-looking. After some awkward conversation, they hit it off.
After a series of visits, the Prince and Rapunzel got up close and personal. The Prince, being a gentleman, asked Rapunzel to marry him. She agreed. One day, when the Witch came to visit, Rapunzel complained her clothes no longer fit her. The Witch immediately realized Rapunzel was preggers. The Witch went into a rage. She cut off Rapunzel’s hair and teleported her to a distant wilderness. Rapunzel was homeless, miserable and soon, the new mother of twins.
The Prince came back to the tower and did the Rapunzel chant. The Witch dropped Rapunzel’s shorn ponytail out of the tower so he could climb up.
When he got into the tower, the Witch confronted him, calling him a “fancy boy, a leech, a lounge lizard, and a high-born mongrel!” She pushed him out of the tower where he fell into briars that blinded both his eyes. The Prince then had to live as a wandering beggar until he heard Rapunzel singing.
She recognized him, skedaddling over to the Prince who hugged her and the twins. Rapunzel’s tears of joy fell on the Prince’s eyes curing his blindness. The royal nuclear family was now intact. The Prince took Rapunzel and the twins back to his kingdom where they lived happily ever after.
So, what have we learned today? Lusting after a vegetable can have unforeseen and unpleasant consequences such as child kidnapping, social isolation, a bad haircut, poverty, unwed motherhood, and blindness.
If Rapunzel’s mother had just stuck to the Brussels sprouts in her own garden, none of this would have happened. The moral: Do not covet thy neighbor’s lettuce. Eat your own vegetables. Children in China are starving.
(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)
How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
