RALEIGH — Ten of the UNC system’s 16 universities were surveyed in the study covering 2010-14, and every one spent more than it collected in revenues — often much more. Of the 10 campuses, only UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University covered more than 85 percent of their athletic budgets with revenues from ticket and merchandise sales, financial donations, endowment profits, broadcasting rights, or sporting-goods contracts. The remainder came from subsidies, often paid with mandatory student fees.
RALEIGH — A change in faculty review policies implemented in June will bring the process outside the control of close-knit faculty groups by requiring a series of evaluations. Supporters say this should lessen the chances faculty members will engage in mutual back scratching when performance reviews are conducted.
DURHAM — In late August, Duke University received approval from the Chinese government to start a branch campus in Kunshan, China. The controversial venture has caused a number of critics to question Duke’s rationale, as well as the rationale of other prominent American universities that have tried similar operations, with limited success.
RALEIGH — Despite the economic downturn, university funding and spending in North Carolina grew in 2011.
RALEIGH — These days you can find pretty much anything you want on the Internet. Some college students are finding the Web to be a great source of getting out of work. They’re buying other people’s finished essays and term papers online. George Leef, director of research for the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, discussed this problem with Donna Martinez for Carolina Journal Radio.
RALEIGH — A reporter for USA Today, using data from the College Board, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Internal Revenue Service, wrote a front-page article that turned conventional wisdom on college prices on its ear. Dennis Cauchon wrote that the tuition burden shouldered by students at public universities “has fallen by nearly one-third since 1998, thanks to new federal tax breaks and a massive increase in state and federal grants to most students and their families.” In his analysis, Cauchon focused on “what students actually pay in tuition and fees” as opposed to “the published tuition price.”
RALEIGH — The executive committee of the Faculty Senate of North Carolina State University has joined the chorus in calling for an open chancellor search. Students, alumni, media organizations, and well-wishers have all sought an open search process. Officials with UNC and UNC President Molly Broad have always argued that openness has the potential to harm those whose candidacy becomes known. Members of the search committee at N.C. State have signed confidentiality agreements to keep the public from learning anything other than their selection’s name. Other universities, including other UNC schools, have followed the open route in selecting chancellors.
CHAPEL HILL — Ever since NC State University Chancellor Marye Anne Fox announced she was leaving to head up the University of California at San Diego, UNC officials have been discussing concerns over how the system pays chancellors and ways to address those concerns. Some argued that UNC institutions rely too much on the state and that UNC should instead should use private donations to supplement chancellor salaries. In July such talk was tabled when members of the UNC Board of Governors opposed a supplement plan. The practice was previously used in the early 1990s, but was ended in 1997.
RALEIGH — On June 11, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in favor of the petition language for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, a ballot initiative that would prevent the state from using racial preferences in public university admissions or state employment or contracting. The ruling overturns a lower-court ruling that invalidated the petition drive on the basis of the petition language. Two groups had argued that the language was deceptive because it did not state that by ending racial preferences, the initiative would end affirmative action. Supporters of the initiative don’t agree and prevailed in court, clearing the way for another petition drive for a 2006 referendum.
RALEIGH — 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. Someone from Congress sent the agency a list of hundreds of questionable projects, prompting the agency to undertake a review of those studies. A few days after the list was sent, the sender was revealed as a mere staff member for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
North Carolina’s institutions of public higher education 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.
