Erskine Bowles to Depart UNC; Pope Center Comments

In today's Clarion Call, my colleague Jay Schalin writes about Erskine Bowles, who has served as president of the UNC system for five years but is stepping down to work on a problem far more daunting than improving efficiency in higher education -- the national debt problem. Jay's take is that Bowles did a pretty good job and I'm inclined to agree. He was willing to listen to ideas about higher education that did not emanate from within the system. I hope he'll be equally willing to listen to "non-mainstream" ideas on curing the federal addiction to spending.