LET TERS
Comparing APPLES: Professor
Defends ‘Learning for its Own Sake’
Your piece about the origins of the
APPLES program in the September/
October issue of the Review was enlightening and basically unobjectionable, but it
also conveyed two very troubling impressions. The implicit comparison made
between service-learning courses and non-service-learning courses had the effect of
devaluing learning for its own sake. Your
writer suggested that, in the bad old days
before the invention of APPLES, students
spent their time “listening, taking notes
and spitting it back in papers and blue
books” in their “insular” classrooms, sadly
detached from what one APPLES instructor called the “real world.” Given this perspective on the pre-APPLES environment
of teaching and learning at UNC, it’s no
wonder that the blurb introducing the
article in your table of contents credited
the University’s “paying customers” — i.e.,
students — with demanding and achieving
a more “real” and applicable form of
instruction in the service-learning model.
The article thus makes two highly
dubious assertions: That non-service-learn-ing courses are by definition inferior to
service-learning courses; and that knowledge is a commodity like any other, one
that should be packaged in a way that
pleases the consumer. This rhetorical conflation of consumerism with processes of
intellectual growth, which has become all
too common at UNC and
throughout the world of higher
education, not only misrepresents what actually happens in
most of our classrooms but also
discounts the special value that
comes from cultivating the life
of the mind.
As a professor of history, I
refuse to regard myself as a
shopkeeper who turns out a product (not
that I have anything against shopkeepers or
their products). I take it for granted that
my students will “produce” knowledge in
dialogue with other bright minds; they
won’t “consume” it as they pass unreflectively down the shopping aisle of the
directory of classes. Metaphors of the market have their place in our culture, to be
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pletely banned, a fertile source of politically correct puffery will be gone forever,
just like the appreciation we once had for
the honesty and integrity of countless Tar
Heel men and women whose livelihoods
(and revenue contributions) depend on
“Big Tobacco.”
Bo Harrison ’ 87
Durham
sure, but when they reduce ideas to the
level of the basest currencies in circulation,
they are best avoided.
Jay M. Smith
Professor of history and associate dean
for undergraduate curricula
The following four letters responded to
online articles in “Out of the Blue,” the
GAA’s e-newsletter. The smoking ban article
appears in this issue on page 5.
‘Innovative’ Smoking Ban
Draws Support
The smoking ban is innovative and an
intellectual way to promote healthy
lifestyles for all of us who love this University. Hurray to being an influence in
order to promote healthy life skills among
students and faculty.
I am proud not only to be a UNC
alumna along with numerous family members but a supporter of the smoking ban.
Dr. Frances Burch-Scott ’ 70 (MEd)
Clearwater, Fla.
Smoking Ban Approach Called
Piecemeal Assault on Rights
I’m writing to express my dismay at the
news that “Campus Would Be Almost
Smoke Free Under Proposed Ban.” Why
on earth do the opponents of the legal
right to smoke tobacco insist on removing
that right piecemeal, rather than all at
once? Surely the current policy (that
smoking is not allowed within any build-
ing on campus, or within 100 feet of any
hospital building) has not been
in place all that long; has there
recently been a heightened con-
cern about the dangers of “sec-
ond-hand smoke” on campus
because of the unfettered ability
of nicotine addicts to indulge
their pitiable habit under the
open sky, where they might visit
their noxious gases upon the
unfortunate downwind?
What I suspect is that this is yet
another self-congratulatory step on the
slow march to the ultimate goal: the complete ban on smoking anywhere on the
UNC campus. Why not hurry up and get
there, rather than continue this incremental assault on personal rights? I think I
know the answer: Once smoking is com-
As Leaders Listen, Ideas of
How UNC Can Help N.C.
UNC has the School of Government.
Most older graduates knew it by the Institute of Government. Thanks to the vision
of Albert Coates [class of 1918] and the
devotion of John Sanders ’ 50 and many
others, many N. C. government officials
have been trained to do other jobs better
and ethically. Many law enforcement officers, mayors, legislators, county commissioners and city councilmen have benefited, too.
It is time to use the resources of the
University to teach about and renew the
best traits of citizenship — the knowledge
and appreciation of our federal and state
constitutions and of the Bill of Rights, the
importance of learning about public
affairs, of participating in the political
process, of running for office and of voting. A course of good citizenship should
be developed and offered to students,
alumni and others who are interested. It
should not be partisan but should be honest about the strengths and weaknesses of
our present system and the strains it is
under due to the “War on Terror” and the
new theory of unitary executive government. How other republics lost their way
