What's Way Down South? Excellent Universities!

"Being in the South Holds Back Southern Universities." That could have been the headline of a November 30th article in The New York Times instead entitled "In Desire to Grow, Colleges In South Battle With Roots."

In an attempt to manufacture news out of a rehashing of Southern stereotypes, the Times article uses an ill-defined controversy over the growth plans of the University of the South (Sewanee) to imply that an obsession with the Civil War prevents Southern universities from attracting high-quality students and competing nationally.

Iif anything is stuck in the Civil War, however, it is the view of the South presented in the Times article. While it is true that Southern universities historically lagged behind Northern ones ,that is no longer the case. Since the Second World War, many Southern universities have flourished and have reached the upper levels of American higher education.

Today, the South is home to a wide variety of competitive universities, ranging from "Public Ivies" like North Carolina and Virginia to selective private schools like Vanderbilt and Wake Forest to extraordinary liberal arts colleges like Davidson and Washington & Lee. Such institutions - not to mention other top-notch schools like William & Mary, Texas, Spelman and Morehouse - attract talent from all over the world to the South, graduate future leaders and churn out vital research.

This is not to say that Southern campuses are immune from the need to confront the past, especially slavery. Yet that painful challenge should not blind observers to the remarkable strides that Southern universities have made in recent decades. Rather than being mired in the past, Southern universities now stand on the edge of the future.