Seymour Hersh, who won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting after breaking the story of the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, spoke to a packed audience in Gerrard Hall on Tuesday night about his opinions on current foreign policy and his extensive international reporting experience.
Anti-abortion groups see this as their best opportunity they’ve had in years to pass “right to know” legislation, which they say would encourage women to make more informed decisions, but which abortion rights groups have condemned as inappropriate and misleading.
Chancellor Holden Thorp recommended that the maximum allowed tuition increase come before the Board of Trustees today. In making his selection, Thorp cited the difficult economic and political climate as reasons for his decision to pass over at least two other proposals that would have lessened the burden on some students.
UNC’s tuition policy-making body approved three different increase recommendations Wednesday, each of which would raise undergraduate tuition by at least 5.6 percent, or about $250 for residents and $1,300 for non-residents.
Chancellor Holden Thorp said administrators are unsure of how Republicans will form their leadership and craft the state budget, but that the University is preparing for significant cuts from the state — a move that could force the school to consider dramatically raising tuition to private-school levels or reducing services offered.
U.S. Rep. David Price, D-N.C., won re-election Tuesday night, defeating Republican challenger B.J. Lawson in a race most expected Price to handily take. Unofficial results report Price won 57 percent to Lawson’s 43 percent. Price declared victory around 10 p.m. at the Brownstone Hotel in Raleigh.
Administrators will consider devoting a portion of revenue generated from the 2011-12 tuition increase to raising salaries for faculty, who haven’t seen increases in several years as a result of financial cutbacks. Salaries of state employees have been frozen by the state since early 2009. Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Bruce Carney has proposed allocating about $2.5 million of the approximately $15 million in tuition revenue toward raising salaries for faculty members on a merit basis.
For Chancellor Holden Thorp, the immediate future doesn’t look bright. He has to cut approximately $54 million from UNC’s budget, determine the future of Greek life at the University, rebuild a football team marred by an NCAA investigation and find funding for the delayed Carolina North development.
Several members called for a new, comprehensive tuition plan that would streamline the process and provide predictability for students in future years — likely through much higher tuition that could more closely align UNC with its peer institutions’ in-state cost of attendance.
UNC administrators often brag that their newest students are the best and the brightest.
