Category: Education

Get Innovative at Carolina!

This week, the Innovate@Carolina series brings some exciting events related to entrepreneurship to UNC.  Chancellor Holden Thorp, author (with Buck Goldstein) of Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Century, is a member of President Obama’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.  Other members of the NACIE will be on hand on Monday and Tuesday to share… Continue Reading Get Innovative at Carolina!

A TEDx Talk by authors Thorp and Goldstein

Last week, Buck Goldstein and Holden Thorp, co-authors of Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Century, gave a talk at the TEDxAshokaU event. Thorp is Chancellor at UNC Chapel Hill, where Goldstein serves as University Entrepeneur in Residence. The theme of the TEDx event was “Universities Driving Global Change,” and the authors spoke about the importance of… Continue Reading A TEDx Talk by authors Thorp and Goldstein

The University Day Challenge: Innovate!

As we celebrate the University of North Carolina’s 217th anniversary on this University Day, chancellor Holden Thorp introduces a new project called “Innovate@Carolina: Important Ideas for a Better World” to lead the university forward. This three-year roadmap, described in detail at innovation.unc.edu, is designed to “build a culture of innovation that permeates every corner of campus, from the chemist in… Continue Reading The University Day Challenge: Innovate!

Celebrating Banned Books Week 2010

We’re revving our engines in anticipation of Banned Books Week 2010, which starts tomorrow and runs through October 2. Banned Books Week is a weeklong celebration of the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. The project is sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the… Continue Reading Celebrating Banned Books Week 2010

Paulo Freire, Lula, and the Next Step for Brazil

We welcome a guest post today from Andrew J. Kirkendall, author of Paulo Freire and the Cold War Politics of Literacy. In his political biography of Freire (1921-97), a native of Brazil’s impoverished northeast who developed adult literacy training techniques that remain influential today, Kirkendall gives new perspectives on the history of the Cold War, the meanings of radicalism, and… Continue Reading Paulo Freire, Lula, and the Next Step for Brazil

The Chancellor and the Entrepreneur: Joining Forces for the Future

Rolling off the presses now is a brand new book by UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp and UNC entrepreneur-in-residence Buck Goldstein. In Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Century, Thorp and Goldstein make the case for the pivotal role of research universities as agents of societal change. They argue that universities must use their vast intellectual and financial… Continue Reading The Chancellor and the Entrepreneur: Joining Forces for the Future

To Forge a Better NAACP

What happened to the NAACP? It’s odd to think that the venerable and historic National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has been reduced to a talking point in the national media cycle this week. They received national attention in June when the Los Angeles chapter lodged a protest against a Hallmark card with a recorded message that they… Continue Reading To Forge a Better NAACP

Septima Clark, Freedom’s Teacher

It is night. A lone black woman walks through a cornfield in South Carolina. The stars wink above her. Crickets and cicadas grow quiet as she passes and then resume their orchestral humming, now punctuated by the sound of rustling leaves a little farther off. She moves toward an unpainted one-room building. When she gets there, she will have to… Continue Reading Septima Clark, Freedom’s Teacher

Today’s Segregated Schools

A federal judge Tuesday ordered a rural county in southwestern Mississippi to stop segregating its schools by grouping African American students into all-black classrooms and allowing white students to transfer to the county’s only majority-white school, the U.S. Justice Department announced. (read the whole story here) When I saw the story yesterday headlined “Miss. county schools ordered to comply with… Continue Reading Today’s Segregated Schools

Up to Date in Kansas City

We welcome a guest post today from Joshua M. Dunn, author of Complex Justice: The Case of Missouri v. Jenkins. Dunn’s book explores the 1987 case that became the federal court’s most expensive attempt at school desegregation: Judge Russell Clark mandated tax increases to help pay for improvements to the Kansas City, Missouri, School District in an effort to lure… Continue Reading Up to Date in Kansas City

Battle Without End: Raúl Ramos on the politics of Texas history

Today brings us a guest post from Raúl Ramos, author of Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861. In his book, Ramos introduces a new model for the transnational history of the United States as he focuses on Mexican-Texan, or Tejano, society in a period of political transition beginning with the year of Mexican independence. Ramos explores… Continue Reading Battle Without End: Raúl Ramos on the politics of Texas history

The Long Civil Rights Movement conference videos now online

Last summer Rachel blogged about a new Mellon-funded project aimed at sharing scholarship on the civil rights movement. Last month, Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement (LCRM) sponsored a wildly successful conference here at UNC to discuss the project and possibilities for scholarly collaboration. LCRM director Sylvia Miller described the conference this way: All of the sessions made substantial efforts… Continue Reading The Long Civil Rights Movement conference videos now online

Baby/bathwater proposal, or a much-needed revolutionary idea?

As an interesting follow up to Friday’s post, in which I talked about publishing as one of those industries going through major shifts right now, Mark C. Taylor’s op-ed from Sunday’s New York Times, “End the University as We Know It,” proposes a BIG shake-up for universities in general. Taylor, chair of the religion department at Columbia, offers six big… Continue Reading Baby/bathwater proposal, or a much-needed revolutionary idea?

Snips and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails

That’s what little boys are made of. So what are fraternities made of? Nicholas Syrett, author of The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities, will be talking about the long and secretive history of male fraternities  on WUNC’s The State of Things at noon (and 9pm) today. You can listen live online or catch the podcast later… Continue Reading Snips and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails

New Project Aims to “Publish the Long Civil Rights Movement”

Cool activist-esque things to do through the years: early 1960s: register African American voters in the South; late 1960s: protest Vietnam War/attend large-scale concert in upstate New York; 1970s: burn bra while reading Erica Jong; 1990s: wear a red ribbon on an expensive tuxedo; 2008: get involved in the electoral process. Considering the upcoming election season, significant change seems possible,… Continue Reading New Project Aims to “Publish the Long Civil Rights Movement”