I wrote the other day about the case of Terri Ginsberg, an adjunct professor at North Carolina State who appears to have been seriously mistreated--from the standpoints of academic freedom, fair procedure, and viewpoint discrimination--in her one-year stint as a film teacher there. NC State has refused to hear her grievance--and the AAUP is refusing to defend her. This is a case that goes far beyond Ginsberg and NC State; it touches on the hypocrisy of an academy that swears by the ideal of academic freedom, but then structures employment in such a way that the vast majority of college teachers don't have it.

Now there is a petition to get both to rethink their positions. Read it here, and sign if you wish.

Do you know about Berea College? If not, check out this morning's profile in the New York Times:

Berea College, founded 150 years ago to educate freed slaves and "poor white mountaineers, accepts only applicants from low-income families, and it charges no tuition.

"You can literally come to Berea with nothing but what you can carry, and graduate debt free," said Joseph P. Bagnoli Jr., the associate provost for enrollment management. "We call it the best education money can't buy."

Actually, what buys that education is Berea's $1.1 billion endowment, which puts the college among the nation's wealthiest. But unlike most well-endowed colleges, Berea has no football team, coed dorms, hot tubs or climbing walls. Instead, it has a no-frills budget, with food from the college farm, handmade furniture from the college crafts workshops, and 10-hour-a-week campus jobs for every student.

Berea's approach provides an unusual perspective on the growing debate over whether the wealthiest universities are doing enough for the public good to warrant their tax exemption, or simply hoarding money to serve an elite few. As many elite universities scramble to recruit more low-income students, Berea's no-tuition model has attracted increasing attention.

"Asking whether that's where our values lead us is a powerful way to consider what our values are," said Anthony Marx, the president of Amherst College, who considered the possibility of using Amherst's $1 million-per-student endowment to offer free tuition but concluded that it would make no sense, given Amherst's more affluent student body and the fact that the college already subsidizes about half the cost of each student's education.

"We're not Berea, much as we respect them," Mr. Marx said, adding there would be no social justification for giving free tuition to students from wealthy families.

Although this year's market drop is taking its toll, the growth in university endowments in recent years has been spectacular. Harvard's $35 billion endowment, Yale's $23 billion, Stanford's $17 billion and Princeton's $16 billion put them among the world's richest institutions.

Such endowments have helped make higher education one of the nation's crown jewels. As Harvard's president, Drew Gilpin Faust, said in her spring commencement speech this year, endowments at Harvard and other research universities help fuel scientific advances as government support is eroding, and help drive economic growth and expansion in a difficult economy.

Although most universities have only modest endowments, the wealth of the richest has made them increasingly vulnerable to criticism from parents upset about rising tuition costs, lawmakers pushing them to spend more of their money and policy experts arguing that they should be helping more needy students.

"How much do you need to save for future generations, and at what point are you gouging today’s generation?" said Lynne Munson, of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington.

In January, the Senate Finance Committee requested detailed endowment and spending data from 136 colleges and universities with endowments of at least $500 million, with a possible eye to forcing them to spend at least 5 percent of their assets each year, as foundations are required to do. Large, tax-free endowments "should mean affordable education for more students, not just a security blanket for colleges," said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who is reviewing the data.

And that points to the other problem with the article's implications--that perhaps there ought to be some sort of one size fits all set of requirements for how private colleges and universities use their endowments. While I tend to agree with those who find Harvard's amassment obscene--and while I, too, wonder about the ethics of that, both from the perspective of Harvard's non-profit status and from the perspective of Harvard as an educational institution and a standard-bearer for higher education around the world--I do balk at the idea that the solution might be for the government to tell these institutions how they ought to handle their money.

I just don't think the government has a very good track record with this sort of thing, I think we ought to know that by now, and I think we need to think twice before we get all offended, in a collectivist way, by wealthy institutions and decide that we ought to force them to redistribute the wealth. Still, part of me wishes they would do so voluntarily. Part of me also wonders whether we need a new classification for such institutions--if they truly need to operate as they do, and spending 5 percent of the endowment every year is not viable, then maybe they shouldn't be understood as tax-exempt charitable organizations.

On Berea -- this is a higher ed, successful version of the boarding school where I taught a few years ago, and I have to say it is inspiring to see that the school's project is working so well. That was not the case at the boarding school, largely because it was way over-stepping its financial capacities. This school was very tiny--only 80-90 students. And very experimental, in ways that echo Berea--students were deeply embedded in the work of maintaining the school, cleaning their own living spaces and classrooms, maintaining the grounds, cooking much of the food, even chopping and shifting the wood that fed the various buildings' old wood-burning furnaces.

The school discouraged and even actively prevented the kinds of distracted, anti-social tech-based behaviors that affect the concentration and maturation of most teens today: there was no television; there was no internet in the dorms (only in classrooms and the library), so students could not surf and IM all night; cell phones and iPods were frowned on, and Facebook and MySpace were eventually blocked. This was intrusive and, of course, doomed--kids always find a way to plug in. But there were good reasons for it, and it did have the effect of getting kids to be more present, and to invest more completely in one another, in their studies, and in the life of the school.

And this school, like Berea, was deeply committed to providing an otherwise unavailable opportunity to disadvantaged kids. Something like half of the kids were on full or substantial scholarships, which lifted them out of neighborhoods and schools, in Harlem and elsewhere, where the dangers are legion and the likelihood of going on to college is small. These kids went on to college, and they developed an expanded sense of what they could do and be, and of what the world could be for them, along the way.

All to the good--except that the school couldn't afford to pursue that particular mission with the absolute integrity such a mission requires. It had a tiny endowment of only a couple million dollars, and so it found itself dependent on the tuition dollars of paying students to finance the educations of the scholarship kids. That created predictable tensions.

Meanwhile, there was all sorts of skimping at precisely the point where there should have been no skimping at all. With the exception of a few older, excellent teachers, educational quality was abysmal. The school did not pay teachers properly--when I was there, they were paying just about half what more traditional, well-known boarding schools paid--and knowing that it could not compete for top teachers with such low salaries, it did not, for the most part, even bother to try to recruit them. There were thus math teachers who could not do the math they were teaching, and language teachers who were not skilled in the language they were teaching--and this was visible to the kids. There were very few experienced teachers of any sort--and a great many fresh college grads who had never taught, had never thought of teaching, and had no special expertise in any field--but who were hired because they were fondly remembered alums, who would work for cheap in exchange for the nostalgic rush of returning to the scene of so many happy memories. That, it seemed, was the theory, anyhow. That's not quite how it worked out. Instead, you got an institutional culture that was weirdly stagnant, weirdly anti-intellectual, and highly politicized (progressive ideology came increasingly to replace educational substance, the one being easier to produce than the other, and easy, too, to pass off as the other).

Still, the kids themselves were utterly remarkable. They needed this unusual place, and they grew in phenomenal ways from the experience of living and working together to sustain and enhance what one older teacher liked sonorously to call "our shared collective life" (you can see the ideology there, wrapped up in charm).

All of this is to say that the project of the school was a noble one indeed, and that there was much that was wonderful and inspiring about the place. I still think fondly of the kids I knew there--the youngest of whom are going to college this fall--and I still hope that their natural buoyancy and intelligence will allow them to transcend, in college, the educational limitations the school may well have imposed on them without their even knowing it.

It's also to say that my metaphorical hat is off to Berea, which seems to be making highly effective and ethical work of its mission. May more schools take the educational road less travelled by. And may they have the freedom to do so.

We all know academic freedom is not something untenured faculty have. And most of us can agree that everyone teaching college courses should have academic freedom. So, there is a problem, especially when you consider that well over half of undergraduate courses are taught by non-tenure track faculty. There is a lot of debate about the nature of that problem--some think it's a by -product of tenure, which they see as an unsustainable institution that protects the privileged few at the expense of the many; others think it's proof tenure is necessary; still others think the answer is to create tenure-like protections for contingent faculty. Whatever you may think about it, it's important to refuse to let quarrels about the causes mask or marginalize the problem itself. I've seen that happen a lot, and it's ugly to watch, not least because of how quickly such quarrels convert the real people affected into abstractions. It's easy and inconsequential to play rhetorical volleyball with abstractions--and it can go a long way toward easing the consciences of tenured folks who just don't think the adjunct problem is their problem. But just because a rationalization feels good doesn't mean it is good.

You can see how badly adjuncts need the support of the tenured--and how poorly the tenured defend the academic freedom of adjuncts--in cases such as that of Thomas Klocek, the DePaul adjunct who was effectively fired after he offended the sensibilities of some pro-Palestinian students (not his students, not in his classroom). Klocek was hung out to dry by the DePaul administration--and while FIRE did its best to defend him, the DePaul faculty sat back and watched. Not their problem!

Now a new case is breaking, and it's an interesting companion piece to Klocek's. It might surprise some of the more cynical readers of this site, but I actually do think every college teacher, no matter what his views or politics, should get the same fair, procedurally neutral treatment. Always have. So, I was disturbed by this report about a visiting professor at North Carolina State who claims she was subjected to repeated violations of her academic freedom because of her pro-Palestinian viewpoints--and whose attempt to then use existing university procedure to address the situation was summarily dismissed by the Chancellor:

After filing a grievance against the University for violating her right to academic free speech, former film professor Terri Ginsberg had her case dismissed by Chancellor James Oblinger Wednesday in an act that Jim Martin, chair of the Faculty Senate called "very disturbing and an unwise practice for the University."

Ginsberg, who taught a film class focusing on media treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the spring, filed the grievance for a "number of administrative decisions" which took place last semester.

The grievance centered around her alleged violations of academic freedom by the University, and around her treatment by Marsha Orgeron, director of the film studies program, and Akram Khater, director of the Middle East studies program.

Ginsberg alleged the two program directors excluded her from the primary extra-curricular activity for which she was hired, helping curate a Middle Eastern film series, that Orgeron refused to purchase many of the requested materials - particularly pro-Palestinian materials - for Ginsberg's class, and that Orgeron submitted Ginsberg's teaching evaluation prematurely according to University rules.

All of the allegations, Ginsberg said, contributed to her not receiving an interview to remain at the University.

Oblinger dismissed Ginsberg's grievance based on a late filing, which had been cleared by Martin, and because Ginsberg is no longer employed by the University.

Oblinger, Orgeron and Khater all refused to comment, based on personnel matters, and on the issue of ensuring academic freedom in general, they said.

Martin, who had already met with the University's Legal Counsel, met with Oblinger on Monday regarding the timing issue.

Since there was no clear date of a triggering moment that Ginsberg would grieve, the timing of the filing should not be a reason to reject the grievance, Martin said.

"His dismissal was based on technicality arguments," Martin said. "The timing on the case was a common problem we've had with all the grievances that I have seen - what is a decision versus what is an action?"

Ginsberg asked the American Association of University Professors to file an appeal, but on Monday, the AAUP rejected the request, noting the group is not in a position to challenge Oblinger's ruling.

Now, professors from around the country have started sending letters to the AAUP, protesting the rejection, and concerned individuals have started a petition that they will send to Oblinger, urging him to reverse his decision and allow for a grievance trial.

Ginsberg's superiors indicated that they had issues with her politics and her style; after she introduced a Palestinian film at a campus event, the directors of the film studies and Middle East Studies programs accused her of "bias" and of trying to "politicize" the campus. And who knows? Maybe she was biased, and maybe she did try to make a political splash. But that is her prerogative in that setting. Those overseeing her had no business responding by subjecting her to punitive double standards, if indeed they did--they ought to have treated her as they did every other professor, tenure-track and not. Likewise, Ginsberg ought to have had a means of registering a complaint about her treatment--the lack of options available to her, combined with the summary refusal to take her grievance seriously, are real problems.

Even if NC State does not want to reappoint Ginsberg (it has no obligation to do so, after all), it does have an obligation to determine if department and program heads are abusing their authority and imposing ideological litmus tests on faculty. There's a really big problem if they are--one far larger than one teacher's localized complaints. Does North Carolina State take academic freedom seriously? What is it doing to ensure that all teachers there have it--and to ensure that those with power don't violate it? Does the tenured faculty have a responsibility to stick up for those without job security?

To his credit, the chair of the Faculty Senate is defending Ginsberg. But as the case of Thomas Klocek reveals, adjuncts can't always count on that. And when the tenured faculty won't stand up for the academic freedom of their untenured colleagues, who will? Not the administration. And not, it appears, the AAUP.

Colorado State is taking the idea of measuring learning outcomes--and of becoming accountable for them--seriously. It's launching a pilot testing program this fall that will measure what students know coming in, in order to be able to compare that to what they know when they leave. Of course this is raising all sorts of hackles among faculty members who object to the idea that testing can be a means of seeing what--and how well--college students learn.

George Leef, who writes regularly, intriguingly, and contrarianly about the value of college education, is all over it:

Students spend years and a great amount of money in college, yet we have to take it on faith that the pursuit of the degree is sensible.

That was all right for most people in bygone days when college didn't cost so much and academic standards were solid enough to create a strong presumption that a student had gained in knowledge and skills from having earned a degree. But the cost of college has skyrocketed and academic standards have been plunging. Those facts have many people wondering if higher education is worth it.

One school, Colorado State University, is taking an initial step toward answering that question. According to this Denver Post story, before classes begin this fall, one hundred CSU freshmen will take a test to measure their writing and reasoning abilities.

"People want evidence that their tax dollars and tuition money are being well-used," says CSU vice provost Alan Lamborn. That's putting it mildly. With many college graduates ending up in the competition for jobs with low educational requirements and low pay – a point I have written about here -- proof that studying at a college or university demonstrably adds educational value for students could be the equivalent of the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) seal. It would give students and parents some assurance that its degrees are worth more than the paper they're printed on.

Colorado State's efforts hardly warrant a full-throated cheer, however. Incoming freshmen don’t have to take the test -- the Collegiate Learning Assessment -- and the inducement for them to do so is rather weak; they get to move into their dorms a day early and get a $10 voucher good in the university cafeteria. If you only test a rather small number of students who are probably the least test-averse, you won't learn much about educational value added. Still, it's a step in the right direction.

The Collegiate Learning Assessment is an interesting development. Designed in 2002 by a high-powered research group, the three-hour test is not your typical multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank exam. Instead, it requires students to write three essays that are meant to probe their thinking ability. Several dozen schools including Harvard and Duke are now using CLA, but only for internal evaluation. So far, no one is using CLA the way hotels and restaurants use Zagat ratings – to attract more business.

Perhaps the leading reason why colleges aren't racing to show how well they succeed in educating their students is that the faculty, which has huge clout at most schools, isn't enthusiastic about the idea testing to make comparisons. The Denver Post article quotes a professor at the University of Colorado: "But many faculty will be perturbed at the concept of a standardized test that could be used to blame them for inadequate teaching. As if that's the sole factor when a student doesn't succeed."

That defensiveness is revealing. A lot of professors know that their courses are short on content and give students credit for very little learning. They like things the way they are. If CLA or some other test were used to show the lack of student improvement, the hunt would be on to identify the weak links in the school. A frightening prospect to those with a vested interest in avoiding measurement of their efforts.

Higher education is ready for an entrepreneurial move by some college president who will get serious about the need to show that his institution adds to its students' foundation of skills and knowledge. Furthermore, the goal of such testing ought to be not only for internal use to show where the school is more or less effective, but as a metric by which individual students can demonstrate their accomplishments.

Suppose that a major state university adopted the Collegiate Learning Assessment or some other test that it devised to show how much each student improved in fundamental knowledge and skills (and also specific mastery in his major field) over the course of his studies. Its graduates would then be able to say to prospective employers or graduate schools, "I didn't just get a degree there, but as you can see from my scores, learned a lot."

Knowing that one university was testing in this manner would put pressure on others to follow suit.

Sometimes left and right meet--and it's so interesting to see where they do. Consider this piece on American eating habits and the socialization of kids:

Alice Waters might not seem like a conservative. A veteran of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement, who once cooked a $25,000-a-seat fundraising dinner for Bill Clinton, she eagerly compares her campaign for "edible schoolyards"--where children work with instructors to grow, prepare, and eat fresh produce--to John F. Kennedy's attempt to improve physical fitness through mandatory exercise. Her dream of organic, locally and sustainably produced food in every school cafeteria, class credit for lunch hour, and required gardening time and cooking classes is as utopian as they come. The name she has given her gastronomic movement, the "Delicious Revolution," strikes the ear as one part fuzzy-headed Marxism, the other Brooksian bobo-speak. This woman is not, as they say, one of us.

But a closer look tells a different story. In a 1997 talk, Waters quoted from an essay by Francine du Plessix Grey about the film "Kids," which portrays the sex-, drug-, and violence-crazed lives of a circle of New York teenagers. Du Plessix Grey writes of being haunted by the adolescents' "feral" and "boorishly gulped" fast-food diet: "we may," she suggests, "be witnessing the first generation in history that has not been required to participate in that primal rite of socialization, the family meal." Such an activity "is not only the core curriculum in the school of civilizing discourse; it is also a set of protocols that curb our natural savagery and our animal greed, and cultivate a capacity for sharing and thoughtfulness." These teenagers "are deprived of the main course of civilized life--the practice of sitting down at the dinner table and observing the attendant conventions."

Today's children, Waters goes on to say, "are bombarded with a pop culture which teaches redemption through buying things." But schoolyard gardens, like the one she helped create at the middle school a few blocks from my home in Berkeley, "turn pop culture upside-down: they teach redemption through a deep appreciation for the real, the authentic, and the lasting--for the things that money can't buy: the very things that matter most of all if we are going to lead sane, healthy, and sustainable lives. Kids who learn environmental and nutritional lessons through school gardening--and school cooking and eating--learn ethics." Good cooking, she writes in the introduction to her 2007 cookbook, The Art of Simple Food, "can reconnect our families and communities with the most basic human values, provide the deepest delight for all our senses, and assure our well-being for a lifetime."

The proposal, put slightly differently, is that our attitudes toward food--which nourishes and sustains us, which binds us most fundamentally to place, family, market, and community--provide a measure of our respect for what Russell Kirk called the "Permanent Things." We are not just what we eat but how we eat. The cultivation and consumption of our meals are activities as distinctively human as walking, talking, loving, and praying. Learning to regard the meal not merely as something that fills our bellies and helps us grow, but as the consummate exercise of beings carnal and earthbound yet upwardly and outwardly drawn, is a crucial step in the restoration of culture. The suggestion that the inculcation of such values might be an essential part of an adequate education ought to resonate beyond the confines of the doctrinaire Left.

Adopting an alternative view of food does not require rejecting the possibility of a free and prosperous market economy. Indeed, the rise of the New American Diet--meals eaten in a rush and very often alone, made from processed and prepackaged ingredients--was not solely or even primarily the product of Adam Smith's invisible hand. Historian Harvey Levenstein has argued that the spate of government regulations in the wake of early 20th-century food-safety scares played a crucial role in the rise of industrialized agriculture and centralized food processors. Early nutritionists and home economists, many distinctly of the quack variety, found a key ally in their attempts to reform American cuisine in Herbert Hoover's Food Administration. The goal of reducing consumption of scarce foods and eating in accordance with "scientific" principles was tied to the cause of Allied victory in the First World War.

Official dietary guidelines inevitably became the product of collaboration between government agencies and representatives of the industries that stand to benefit. The substitution of state-sponsored nutritionist technocracy for the collective wisdom of taste, instinct, common sense, and tradition is a perfect example of the triumph of Tocqueville's feared "immense tutelary power" ("absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild"). The same goes for the extraordinary industrialization and global "flattening" of our culinary economy, which Waters's focus on community gardening, seasonal eating, and local markets is meant to combat.