Author Profile

Martin Center Staff

Articles by Martin Center Staff

Higher Education Notebook

Nov 3, 2006 ·

Increasing faculty salaries was the second-highest budget priority out of 11 presented to the Board of Governors’ Committee on Budget and Finance October 12. The administration plans to seek funds from the 2007 legislature to boost faculty salaries, on average, to the 80th percentile of their peers. This would mean adding $43.9 million in 2007-08 and the same amount for 2008-09. The $87.8 total would be in addition to 4 per cent merit-based increases, which will add up to $136 million for the two-year period, plus a proposed $2 million for distinguished professorships.

These numbers come from a “draft for discussion purposes only” list of priorities presented at the meeting and could change. The top priority is need-based financial aid, with a total proposed request for such aid $53.6 million. Other high priorities include $1.75 million for the “Academic Summer Bridge” program for students not ready to enter as freshmen, funds for University of North Carolina Online ($10 million over two years), and a variety of research projects totaling $59 million for 2007-8 and $29.6 million for 2008-09.

Jane S. Shaw Appointed New Executive Vice President

Oct 24, 2006 ·

RALEIGH – Jane S. Shaw has been appointed executive vice president of the J.W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a Raleigh-based nonprofit organization dedicated to improving higher education in North Carolina and the nation. The center is named for the late John William Pope, who was a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Shaw comes to the Pope Center from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana, where she was a senior fellow and director of outreach for over twenty years. PERC is a nonprofit institute that applies economics to understanding and solving environmental problems. Before joining PERC, Shaw was a journalist. She moved to Montana from New York City, where she was an associate economics editor for Business Week. Shaw has a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College.

Shaw is perhaps best known for her writing about the environment. With Michael Sanera she coauthored Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children about the Environment (Regnery, 1999). This book points out the exaggeration and pessimism typical of middle-school and high school textbooks and offers more balanced discussions of environmental issues from acid rain to global warming. She also edited a series of young people’s books on environmental topics published by Greenhaven Press, and coedited a book on land use, A Guide to Smart Growth (2000).

Efforts to get conservative speakers at UNC-CH bearing fruit

Sep 25, 2006 ·

CHAPEL HILL — Despite the rude reception given former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and other conservative speakers at UNC-Chapel Hill recently, there are indications that the effort to get conservative voices on campus is making progress.

One liberal student even complained in a local paper recently that the star power of conservative speakers now outshines liberal speakers.

Leftist and liberal students on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus have kept up their tradition of heckling, disrupting, and walking out of speeches given by conservatives, most recently when Ashcroft appeared on campus last month.

Textbook prices add costs to students

Sep 14, 2006 ·

UNC-Chapel Hill freshman Austin Fowler spent about $500 this semester on textbooks. His classmate Andrew Wein spent about $400.

“On top of that, Student Stores didn’t have a CD I needed,” Wein said. “They only had used copies, which don’t work because they are made so that they can only be activated once.”

Students like Fowler and Wein are experiencing a growing national problem. A 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office found that “college textbook prices have risen at double the rate of inflation for the last two decades.”

Bowles innagurated as president

Apr 13, 2006 ·

GREENSBORO – Erskine Bowles was inaugurated Wednesday as the 16th president of the University of North Carolina. His official swearing-in was held at UNC-Greensboro, four months after he took the job on Jan. 1.

The festivities began with a faculty procession down Spring Garden Street led by the N.C. A&T State University marching band. Wake Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. administered the oath of office, and Crandall Bowles held a family Bible for her husband. About 1,500 people filled Aycock Auditorium to hear the former U.S. Senate candidate outline his plan for the 16-campus system.

Tar Heels Turn it Green With Inefficient Solar Power Program

Jan 26, 2006 ·

Morrison Residence Hall at UNC-Chapel Hill was closed in the spring of 2005 for renovation. When it reopens in the fall of 2007, not only will students’ accommodations be nicer, but solar panels will be used to heat the building’s water.

While many campus activists and administrators are excited about the project, the solar heating system is financially inefficient.

The new Morrison Hall will have about 200 solar panels placed on the roof and their energy will heat about 60 percent of the building’s hot water. From that, a saving of $11,275 annually is projected.

The solar hot water system is funded by a $137,455 grant from the state legislature, $184,000 from student fees, and $125,000 from University housing and residential education funds. The project was originally anticipated to cost $309,000, but estimates are now as high as $446,000.

Inquiry Paper No. 23 The State of the First Amendment in the UNC system

Jan 10, 2006 ·

FIRE’s Report on the State of the First Amendment in the University of North Carolina System serves to educate the public about the rampant abuse of First Amendment rights within the UNC System, and to put North Carolina’s public colleges and universities on notice that it is unlikely—if not impossible—that most of the policies discussed in the report could survive a constitutional challenge.

House moves to repeal tuition waiver

Jun 16, 2005 ·

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.

Grade Inflation at Ohio University

·

Over the past four decades, grade inflation has become a hallmark (pun intended) of American higher education. A significant body of literature now exists which suggests that grade inflation is a serious social problem; part of which Callahan calls The Cheating Culture. Nearly everyone involved in higher education is now complicit in grade inflation one way or another, including professors, administrators, governing boards (of trustees, regents, etc.), students, their parents and their envetual employers, politicos and the public they serve. The immorality of this complicity speaks for itself and does not bode well for America.

Differences exist in House, Senate plans

·

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.