CHAPEL HILL— Despite worries of it being “cut to the bone,” the budget for the University of North Carolina is expected to be a little larger by the time the General Assembly concludes its short session this year.
Teaching students takes a backseat to universities’ new emphasis on “economic diversity.”
Two rival bills currently under discussion in the House of Representative Education and Workforce Committee would get the federal government involved in the debate regarding higher education tuition increases.
Here we go again. For the UNC system, a struggling economy means budget cuts. So we will be told, repeatedly. But this is by now a familiar process.
UNC schools are discussing raising tuition again, some schools by up to $300. For many UNC students, it is their first taste of hardship, and for many parents of UNC students, it could mean their last gasp at shielding their fledglings from hardship. “I may have to give up flying home,” says Weinlaud. “And if I drive to Florida for Spring Break, that’ll cut out two whole days of partying. It’s not fair!”
It’s a UNC ritual. Whenever a professor decides to take a better offer at some other university, usually a private one with a vast endowment and enormous alumni contributions, the administration will bemoan the “loss” and express fear over a “crisis” if the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill can’t spend enough money to compete with the top-tier schools. When the little drama is over, the administrators will go back to their offices and hope that they’ve convinced a few more politicians that UNC-CH’s budget must be increased.
The prospect of a tuition increase inspired a few students attending University of North Carolina schools to fight back. Their tack? Inundate the proposal with their tears.
Specifically, they have published 500 copies of a book entitled “The Personal Stories Project: Faces, Not Numbers,” which is a collection of some 800-odd sob stories about tuition costs.
A report by the American Association of University Professor describes potential threats to academic freedom since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
A key portion of the report, which was prepared by a special committee tasked with “assessing risks to academic freedom and free inquiry posed by the nation’s response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,” looks at provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which the report states “gravely threaten academic freedom.” In general, the report states, “The speed with which the law was introduced and passed [in October 2001], the lack of deliberation surrounding its enactment, and the directions it provides for law-enforcement agencies have raised troubling questions about its effects on privacy, civil liberties, and academic freedom.”
This semester the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has begun a semester abroad program in Cuba. UNC-CH officials say they want a “head start” on Cuba for when relations improve between Cuba and the U.S. Critics say the university implies legitimizing a dictatorship.
Among the highlights: When “Free Expression” isn’t; UNC seeks more illegal immigrants and others from out-of-state; crazy rape stats aplenty; another terrorist speaker; a “diversity czar”; a self-stated friend of terrorists seeking to shut up a newspaper; a professor fired for a tolerance demonstration gone awry; and two UNC schools find the idea of student groups keeping membership and leadership reserved for students who agree with the ideas of the group unconscionable.
