Do UNC Centers Benefit Students? Or Professors?

NC Capitol Connection has an editorial noting how the uproar over the UNC Poverty Center closing reveals much about liberalism in North Carolina.

Let’s just add here that the event should make us wonder who benefits from how the University of North Carolina is run.

For instance, we hear through the grapevine that Poverty Center chief Gene Nichol is a good teacher at the law school. That’s great! It is supposed to be his main job, after all. We just think he should spend more time teaching, less time politicking.

Remember, the time and energy put into running the Poverty Center are time and energy diverted from teaching. And the Poverty Center mostly benefits left-wing causes, not the poor and not UNC students.

And think about whether that applies to the university as a whole. Who benefits most from the current set-up: the students and the people of the state? Or those professors who have built their own private fiefdoms at UNC?

That’s one of the real themes of what’s going on. UNC has spawned a huge number of enterprises that have little or nothing to do with educating young people and making North Carolina better. Pruning them down will allow the university to focus better on its real mission.