2nd Tuition Meeting Zeros In on Faculty Salary Needs

Student Body President Justin Young and Provost Robert Shelton, co-chairmen of the committee, drew up a draft after the meeting that identified faculty salaries as a possible need for a tuition increase, Young said Wednesday night.

The 14-member committee debated about issues such as retaining senior faculty, decreasing class size and lowering the faculty-student ratio.

Committee members cited what most saw as a worrisome gap in the level of UNC faculty salaries as compared to peer institutions like the University of Virginia. "We are not even in the second quartile of faculty salaries, and then we sit around and are amazed when top faculty leave," said committee member and BOT chairman Tim Burnett.

While the need for improved faculty salaries was accepted by the committee with little dissent, members debated for an hour and 15 minutes of the two-hour meeting about the priorities the committee should use to guide its proposal.

The priorities that the committee agreed upon in the recommendation for the BOT include a sense of predictability for future tuition increases, a guarantee for financial aid support to students and an increase in graduate student stipends.

The most contentious element of the debate was a principle proposed by student committee member Eric Johnson to guarantee the price of tuition.

"Students should know what tuition is going to be while they are in school here."

But other committee members said it is not feasible to predict or freeze tuition because of factors like inflation.

"There is no way to legitimately tell an entering student the predictability of tuition," said Rusty Carter, trustee and member of the tuition committee.

Carter said the unpredictability results from the University's limited control over tuition because both the UNC-system Board of Governors and the N.C. General Assembly have the power to raise tuition.

Committee members did resolve to promote predictability for campus-based increases as much as possible and pressure the BOG and General Assembly to work toward similar measures. The committee also reached a consensus to continue "hold harmless" grants, which set aside 35 percent of revenue generated from a tuition increase for financial aid purposes.

In addition, the committee agreed to use part of the tuition increase funds to improve graduate student stipends.

Members avoided discussion about extending the deadline for the committee to finish its proposal. After the meeting, student committee members said they were concerned that there is not enough time to consider all related issues.

Shelton has set a strict deadline of Jan. 17 for the committee to finish and release its proposal so that there is time for campus groups to weigh in on the proposal before the Jan. 24 BOT meeting, where trustees are slated to act on tuition.

Young brought up the deadline concern several times during the course of the discussion, but it was never fully addressed by the committee.

"There is no way to ignore that almost one-third of the committee has a problem with making a hasty decision," Young said. "If they do (ignore the dissenting members), then the committee isn't functioning as it should."

Young said he plans to ask committee members before the next meeting, set for Jan. 15, to extend the deadline. The committee's next meeting will hash out specific numbers and scenarios for a tuition increase.

But Young said tuition alone will not cover the disparity in faculty salaries and that alternative sources of fund raising as well as lobbying the General Assembly must be included in the recommendation.

"Tuition is not the Band-Aid that is going to cover up the wound of losing top University faculty," Young said.

"The committee also needs to look at the long-term vision because we need to come up with a better method of dealing with tuition in the future."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.