Three years ago, a battle began.
A battle between higher education faculty and the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy began only a year after the center became an independent organization in 2003.
The center shares a namesake with the John William Pope Foundation. The two organizations maintain that they are separate entities, although the center receives all of its funding from the foundation.
The center’s goal is to reform higher education where it needs to be reformed, especially in North Carolina, and it does this by creating reports and projects, according to Jane Shaw, the center’s executive vice president in Raleigh.
The foundation has a mission of advancing the well-being of the citizens of North Carolina through developing and expanding the institutions of liberty, according to David Riggs, the foundation’s vice president of operations and programs. In addition to universities, the foundation also gives to the N.C. opera and ballet.
Shaw explains the difference monetarily.
“[The center] achieves its goal by grants — [the foundation] is a grant-making foundation,” she said.
Emotions began stirring when a student at UNC-Chapel Hill accused his professor, Elyse Crystall, of violating his civil liberties by chastising him via e-mail after he spoke anti-gay language in class, according to an Independent Weekly article by Richard Hart published on March 31, 2004.
The Pope Center took up for the student and Cat Warren, professor of English, took up for Crystall.
One year later, at the end of March 2005, the Pope Center published an article criticizing the practicality of women’s studies programs at public universities. Warren acted as the director of the minor and responded to the Pope Center that the study misrepresented the program, supporting its unpopularity with inaccurate numbers.
One and half years after the study, the new dean of CHASS, Toby Parcel, approached Art Pope about a grant to fund study-abroad and foreign-language programs. A few faculty members revolted.
Warren identified it as a problem, accepting money from a foundation that dedicates so much of its money to a center that undermines programs in African studies, Hispanic studies and women’s studies.
“[I am] zero-tolerance about taking money from foundations with anti-public-education agendas,” Warren said. “[They are] profoundly anti-women’s and Hispanic studies.”
Warren said if there were a way to take money from an organization with no strings attached, then she would be for it.
But the Pope Foundation claims its money comes without strings.
“What we are seeking to do is provide students with opportunities that they would otherwise not have — we are unabashedly conservative,” Riggs said. “However, our objective in higher education is not to create a conservative campus, but to create education opportunities for students that they would not otherwise receive without our support.”
The debate between faculty and administration about this issue is ongoing, and the Student Senate passed a resolution Feb. 21 asking for an open town hall meeting on the issue.
