A rising senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, recently won a scholarship worth up to $20,000 to study Tajik and Russian languages in the Asian nation of Tajikistan. Since that scholarship obliges him to work in national security upon graduation, UNC-CH’s Prof. Charles Kurzman is worried about what kind of “dirty deeds” he might be up to.
A statement from the American Council on Education may pave the way for a compromise between academic institutions and supporters of the Academic Bill of Rights.
The statement, dated June 23, was endorsed by 26 organizations, including the College Board and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. In it, the organizations outline their support for intellectual diversity on college campuses, which was the basis of the Academic Bill of Rights legislation proposed in several states and Congress by David Horowitz. Legislation in North Carolina, sponsored by Sen. Andrew Brock, did not make the June deadline for it to be considered for full passage in the General Assembly during the two-year session.
WASHINGTON – Congress is considering legislation that would provide grants to colleges to promote programs in Western Civilization and American history education as a way to improve educational quality in those subject areas.
The Higher Education for Freedom Act was introduced earlier this month by Rep. Thomas E. Petri, R-Wis., and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., with the purpose to sustain postsecondary education programs that deal with traditional American history, the American founding, and Western civilization. The bills, H.R. 2858 and S.B. 1209, are currently in education committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
RALEIGH — Business owners in many areas of North Carolina are mobilizing to oppose a bill under consideration in the state Senate that they feel would make it easier for the University of North Carolina to compete unfairly with small businesses.
Mark Zimmerman, a Chapel Hill businessman and chairman of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors, says the bill, which would amend the Umstead Act, could hinder businesses in Chapel Hill and other university communities. He mentioned specifically businesses on Franklin Street that sell UNC-Chapel Hill-related merchandise. If UNC is allowed to sell merchandise to alumni it could damage those companies.
“We are very, very concerned,” Zimmerman said. “There are real businesses and real people that will be affected by this.”
RALEIGH – A provision in the state House’s version of the state budget would eliminate the controversial tuition waiver program for graduates at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.
Created during the 2003 budget negotiations, the tuition waiver gives NCSSM graduates free tuition if they choose to attend any school in the University of North Carolina system. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Guilford County Democrat, pushed the tuition waiver policy through the General Assembly in 2003, saying at the time that the tuition waiver was one of the best provisions in the budget because it would keep more of North Carolina’s brightest students in the state.
RALEIGH – With House leaders approving its version of the $17 billion state budget early Thursday morning, members will now work towards ironing out the several differences that exist between the two documents.
Those differences also include funding for programs with the University of North Carolina system. House leaders approved a budget that cuts several proposed spending initiatives approved in the Senate budget, while also including new appropriations as well.
RALEIGH – A newly-released study commissioned by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and undertaken by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni recommends several key changes in the way the UNC system is governed. The two foremost recommendations are that the governor should appoint members to the UNC Board of Governors and that the Board should be reduced from 32 members to 15.
The study, entitled “Governance in the Public Interest: A Case Study of the University of North Carolina system” and was researched and written by Phyllis Palmiero, an education consultant who previously served as the executive director of Virginia’s higher education system.
RALEIGH – The governor should appoint members to the UNC Board of Governors, according to a report released Monday by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and commissioned by the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
The independent study made five key recommendations to improving the Board of Governors with the gubernatorial appointment the most prominent of the recommendations. Other recommendations included retaining the Board of Governors, delegate more powers to the individual campuses’ board of trustees, ensure a more proactive Board of Governors, and reduce the board’s size from 32 to 15.
All right, you skeptics, just why is it so hard to believe that John Edwards’ center at UNC Law isn’t really about solving poverty? Why don’t you believe all those statements about how Edwards’ interest in the center is not political? Why do you continue to think it’s simply about giving Carolina publicity and Edwards an issue for 2008?
Is it because of the timing of the center’s creation? Is it because no one’d heard a peep out of Chapel Hill about a poverty center until the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity was announced in early February? Does it have anything to do with the fact that shortly after Edwards lost in November, UNC Law School Dean Gene Nichol openly talked about his desire to get Edwards into UNC Law? Could it be that you’re suspicious over the center’s whirlwind creation in a matter of weeks without input from lawmakers or the public? Did all that make you think UNC’s real interest was in rescuing a darling of a desperate politician on the brink of political irrelevancy?
East Carolina University recently announced the hiring of a new administrator with the title Assistant to the Chancellor for Institutional Diversity. ECU’s choice, Sallye McKee, currently associate vice provost for urban and educational outreach at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, begins her duties at ECU July 1.
According to ECU, the Assistant to the Chancellor for Institutional Diversity “will play a principal role in crafting and articulating a vision of East Carolina University as a diverse and inclusive institution of higher learning.” More specifically, this administrator “will contribute to the institution’s diversity efforts through honest, open dialogue and collaborative networking with administrative, faculty, staff and student colleagues in the development and evaluation of campus diversity programs, policies, and practices.”
