The Pope Center for Higher Education Policy used to skewer college classes in its "Course of the Month" selection, which heaped scorn on classes with a multicultural, feminist or pop culture theme.

Now it's taking a more positive approach, with its first Spirit of Inquiry Contest, according to a news release. The goal is to find the best undergraduate courses "that allow students freedom to explore ideas within the context of a serious academic discipline," the release said.

The faculty member who teaches the winning course will receive an award of $1,000 for education and research-related expenses, Jane Stancill reports. Second and third finalists will receive awards of $750 and $500.

That could provoke a ruckus among professors who have fought against proposed donations to UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State from the John William Pope Foundation, which tends to fund conservative causes.

Students are encouraged to nominate courses in the Pope Center's new contest. If a student nominates the winning course, he or she will receive $250 worth of textbooks. Courses taught at all public, private and community colleges in North Carolina are eligible.

The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy is holding its annual conference.

The event, scheduled for 9 a.m. Oct. 27 at the Hilton near the Raleigh-Durham Airport, will be called "Building Excellence into Higher Education."

It will feature policymakers, college presidents and scholars as they discuss what excellence means in today’s colleges and universities, Jane Stancill reports.

Featured speaker is Harry Lewis, former dean of Harvard College and author of "Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education." His talk could be provocative. It's entitled "Does Liberal Education Have a Future?"

The conference costs $20. To register or find out more, go here.

Forget about U.S. News & World Report's college rankings for a moment.

For those in North Carolina's higher education system, there are two lists that are more important: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.

Both have provided lists of peers for North Carolina colleges that could be used to determine whether professors are getting comparable salaries to their colleagues.

A study by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy*, which used the Carnegie peers, found that some North Carolina schools were doing just fine.

But those same colleges do worse when compared with the National Center's peers.

For a full discussion of the difference, click "Read More."

* Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the foundation which funded the survey. The analyst works for the John Locke Foundation, but the study was done for the Pope Center.

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Professors at N.C. Central get paid well, but those at UNC-Asheville might want to ask for a raise.

That's according to a study of higher education salaries released today by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy*.

The study found that salaries for all faculty at four state colleges — N.C. Central, UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Pembroke and Winston-Salem State — are at least 80 percent of those at similar colleges.

But some professors at Elizabeth City State and N.C. State and all UNC-Asheville and N.C. A&T faculty were below the mean and median levels of their colleagues at other schools.

Foundation analyst Jon Sanders said he looked at the pay scale in part to see if there is a "brain drain" at state colleges. He said the study alone would not answer the question.

"If there is a brain drain, it's not owing to salaries," he said.

The House budget proposal calls for a 2.5 percent salary increase and a one-time $400 bonus for state college professors.

* Correction: An earlier version of the post misstated the group which funded the survey. Jon Sanders works for the John Locke Foundation, but the study was done for the Pope Center.