RALEIGH – The North Carolina Community College System does not have supporting documentation “to ensure appropriate internal controls” are in place regarding the system’s College Data Accounting System Application, according to an audit released Wednesday by State Auditor Les Merritt.
A similar finding was found in last year’s audit. There were no financial statements in the audit.
CHAPEL HILL – UNC-Chapel Hill reported net assets for the 2004 fiscal year of $2.2 billion, an increase of $216 million, according to an audit recently released by State Auditor Les Merritt.
That same audit also cited reporting violations at UNC-Chapel Hill regarding the institution’s noncompliance with the state’s daily deposit and reporting law. In spite of these minor auditing violations, the report states that the school’s financial position “remained solid.”
“Management’s view is that the [u]niversity is well positioned to continue demonstrating excellence in teaching, discovery, and public service,” the audit states. “Management believes that, although national and [s]tate economic conditions have affected resources in prior years, fiscal year 2003-2004, demonstrated an improved fiscal condition.”
For decades, higher education institutions have utilized racial preferences and quota programs, euphemistically called “affirmative action” in their admission policies. At least one member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights would like to see that practice come to an end.
Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who was appointed by President Bush, spoke to students Tuesday at UNC-Chapel Hill where he focused on ending the victim grievance model of civil rights. He also argued that the focus on civil rights activism should be on looking towards the future rather than to the past. In an interview prior to his speech, Kirsanow explained that higher education is focused too much on racial policies that were effective in the 1960s, but are now unnecessary and even counterproductive.
CHAPEL HILL – Maybe Ray Lane, former president and chief operating officer of Oracle, was onto something at my college graduation three years ago.
Lane rode into the West Virginia University Coliseum on what was at the time a new invention – a Segway scooter. He said that that moment would likely be all we would remember from the speech and graduation day itself.
“In 2036, when you’re standing where I’m standing now, you’ll be able to say, I don’t remember who my commencement speaker was, but I remember what he rode in on,” Lane said. “This baby is my insurance policy against obscurity.”
House Bill 1183 would give the children of illegal immigrants the privilege of attending UNC schools and community colleges in N.C. for in-state tuition. Looks like yet another talking point used to sell us on the $3.1 billion bond referendum for higher education in 2000 could turn out to be a big fat whopper.
“No one spends other people’s money as carefully as he spends his own.” So says Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman. Let’s keep that in mind as we consider a new spending proposal being pushed by one of the schools in the UNC system.
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNC-P) has advanced a plan to build a new school of optometry at the geographically remote campus. The budget contains $10 million for the initial planning and development of the project, but no funds can be expended until the UNC president’s office gives approval. A meeting to decide on the plan is scheduled for later this month.
CHAPEL HILL – UNC-Pembroke leaders are in the development stages of a proposed School of Optometry — a school some say is unneeded given the prospect for a surplus of optometrists in the country.
Already, $10 million in state funding has been appropriated for UNC-Pembroke to plan and develop the new school. According to UNC-Pembroke Vice President for University and Community Relations Glen Burnette, that money cannot be used until UNC Office of the President gives the proposal the green light. UNC-Pembroke officials are scheduled to meet with members of an administration committee within the Office of the President by the end of the month in an effort to obtain approval to go ahead with the project.
They promised 500 and delivered … a handful.
CHAPEL HILL - UNC President Molly Broad announced her retirement Wednesday in a letter to Board of Governors Chair Brad Wilson. The announcement comes two days after a Senate GOP letter lobbied to name former Clinton Administration Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles the system’s next president.
Broad’s retirement is effective at the end of the 2005-06 school year or once a successor is named. An economist by training, Broad came to the UNC system in 1997 after serving as the executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer for four years with the California State University system.
In Birmingham, Ala., a high school girl’s basketball coach, Roderick Johnson, noticed something he believed was a violation of Title IX regulations. The girl’s program was receiving fewer resources than the comparable men’s program, leaving Johnson’s program at a competitive disadvantage, in his opinion.
Historically, Title IX has been used as a way to increase the number of women’s athletics programs across the country. It has had an adverse affect, owing to Title IX enforcement by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, at cutting the number of athletic opportunities for men on college campuses.