Inside Higher Ed’s recent story “Has Chapel Hill’s ‘Civic Life’ School Become a Conservative Center?” (Dec. 11, 2024) on UNC Chapel Hill’s pioneering School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL) missed a golden opportunity to explain to your readers what the new pro-democracy school is teaching, how it’s teaching, and what its students think of it.
Instead of offering a discerning inside view of higher education in Chapel Hill, the article’s more than 3,500 words presented an outside take rehashing old, ill-informed arguments over SCiLL’s founding and airing ironic angst about the composition of its faculty.
That would be like another news outlet’s publishing a 3,500-word profile of IHE that noted who works there, where they went to college, and how the organization is funded, while saying nothing about what subjects IHE covers, how it covers them, and how subscribers assess it.
IHE’s story noted of SCiLL’s faculty: “the initiative has hired professors with similar backgrounds — including a few who’ve expressed sharp political opinions.”
Whoa, Nelly! You’ve discovered like-minded professors in Chapel Hill? With sharp political opinions? Say it ain’t so!
Progressives in academia and the news media might treat ideologically conservative and centrist scholars like exotic zoo animals – to be viewed warily from a safe distance, securely caged, and in small numbers – but those academic outliers contribute to the richness of the education of all students, including liberals.
For the betterment of everyone, surely a variety of intellectual perspectives is as important as any other kind of diversity at taxpayer-funded institutions of higher education, particularly one as prestigious and ambitious as The University of North Carolina.
Former Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz himself said of SCiLL’s vital role: “As the nation’s first public university, UNC-CH has a responsibility to be a place that brings together people of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints to debate the issues of our day.”
Hear, hear! And here’s hoping that next time you show how.
Matthew Eisley is a politically independent communication consultant and former journalist. He is a member of UNC-CH’s Board of Visitors.
