Jane Shaw has headed the Pope Center for more than eight years and has decided to retire, effective this Friday. In this week’s Clarion Call, Jane reflects on what she’s learned here.

I believe I’m right in saying that when Jane came to the Pope Center (from the Property and Environmental Research Center), she was generally inclined to accept most of the conventional wisdom about higher education — the notion that America’s colleges and universities were the envy of the world, for example. That is certainly no longer the case!

In the article, Jane surveys both the good and the bad in higher education; there undoubtedly is much good, but that’s because the corrosion caused by governmental intervention has not yet reached every corner.

The bad aspects of higher education include: a heavily politicized professoriate, a climate on campus that’s more devoted to political correctness and never giving offense than to open debate, rapidly escalating costs (little of which is essential to learning), easy grading and low expectations so that students who want to coast through to their degrees with minimal effort can do so, and the mania for education credentials that causes many young Americans to go to college even though they have little academic ability or inclination.

Jane has done great work in helping the Pope Center illuminate the shortcomings of higher education and catalyze change. That’s particularly in the UNC system, where we have had some success, she writes, “including greater scrutiny of budgets, expansion of the number and nature of speakers on campus, and a new look at colleges’ core curriculum.”

Adieu, Jane, but I hope you’ll write for the Center any time you get an idea for an article extolling something good or condemning something bad in the realm of higher education.