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.
A mistake by a Congressional staff member ignited a review of research projects approved by the National Institutes of Health. But despite what U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) called “scientific McCarthyism,” it turned out Congress had not declared war on the NIH approval process.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill officials are once again voicing concerns over faculty retention. The “brain drain” concern is that other universities are “raiding” UNC-CH faculty with greater salary offers. UNC-CH officials say the university lost 53 professors to “raids” last year.
UNC-CH leftists are incensed about the decision to fund Coulter’s speech. Why should they pay — through their student fees — to support Coulter, whose views they find odious?
In other words, they’re sounding like conservatives, who’ve been objecting to their being made to support leftist causes through student fees for years.
Lyrically dealing with UNCG and N.C. A&T’s desire for bell towers, UNC-CH’s desire for a cancer center, and a young man’s desire for UNC-CH.
Why would our country’s leaders agree to trade deals that have resulted in the loss of so many jobs? International trade agreements involve costs and benefits for the American economy. Costs include the loss of jobs to countries that can manufacture certain products more cheaply than in the United States. But what are often ignored are the benefits of freer world trade.
North Carolina’s colleges and universities are hardly the only ones in the nation affected by an economic downturn in their home state. A report released this summer shows how many public universities and colleges across the country received cuts, some substantial, in their budgets.
