Having finally received a copy of the Carolina Alumni Review magazine’s story on the Western Civ controversy at UNC-Chapel Hill (“The Wild, Wild West,” by David E. Brown), I agree that it does attempt to get most sides of the story. Brown interviews the Pope family, the protesting UNC faculty, and the UNC administrators working for the Western Civ program (the article even goes so far as to point out early on that the idea originated at UNC, not with the Popes).
And frankly I am used to the portrayal of myself as the Ogre Who Does Not Deserve Calls for Clarification. Nevertheless, I simply must take issue with this particularly egregious misreading: “Sanders, who has said the term ‘Podunk College’ was a good analogy for Carolina.” Here is the source for that quotation. In that article I was taking issue with “the assumptions driving the recommendation” for a sexuality studies major at UNC, which I said sarcastically were “exactly the justifications one would expect from top scholars for beginning a new program of academic study.” (Note for UNC readers: That means I’m saying precisely the opposite, that those are not at all the sort of justifications one would expect from top scholars.)
Among those poor justifications:
“In the last five years, just about every podunk college [aside: good analogy] in the United States has established something [in the field of sexuality studies],” said John Younger of Duke University in the N&O.
In other words, I wasn’t saying UNC was analogous to a “podunk college.” I was commenting on the fact that the Duke professor noticed that one feature at “just about every podunk college” was something in sexuality studies. And I was pointing to how threadbare a justification it is to say that if something is done at “just about every podunk college,” then that is an argument for doing it at UNC.
If anything, my comment was based in arguing that UNC is better than, and ought to have higher academic standards than, a podunk college.
