Task Force On Tuition Talks Goals

The group is charged with developing a long-term strategy for campus-initiated tuition increases.

The main goal of Thursday's meeting was to specify goals for the next three years, whereas the past two meetings were dedicated to gathering information, said Pam Joyner, associate dean for professional education.

To begin the meeting, task force Co-chairman Provost Robert Shelton explained the breakdown of the $6 million that was generated from last year's $300 campus-initiated tuition increase.

Four facets of the University benefited from last year's increase -- student aid, faculty salaries, funding of faculty positions and graduate teaching assistants' salaries.

Task force members then voiced where they thought money should be spent in the future.

At the top of this list was improving the student-to-faculty ratio.

The money earned from last year's tuition increase led to the hiring of 14 new positions: 11 in the Division of Academic Affairs and three in the Division of Health Affairs. But Elmira Mangum, associate provost of finance, said, "You can't do a lot with 11 positions."

Shelton said that to affect the ratio, there needs to be a 10 percent increase in faculty members, which is close to 70 new positions in the College of Arts and Sciences alone.

TA salaries also were of great concern.

Steve Matson, chairman of the Department of Biology, said his department has to look for money from outside sources to attract graduate students.

"We are not competitive, and we are not competitive by a lot," Matson said. TAs need to see that there are efforts to help them financially, he added.

One possible suggestion was the creation of an endowment that would help pay TAs' salaries.

Student Body President Jen Daum, the task force's other co-chairwoman, said that the idea of an endowment for TA salaries had been considered in the past but that marketing strategies need to be reworked.

"People are much more willing to donate money when their name appears on a plaque," she said, adding that it is difficult to raise donations that go toward TAs' living expenses such as grocery money.

In addition to low TA salaries, task force members discussed the fact that there are staff members who have not seen a salary increase in two years.

Rebekah Burford, Daum's chief of staff, said students need to understand what the goals of a tuition increase are before action is taken.

This is in contrast to last year's increase because students were not aware of how that money would be spent, Burford said.

Shelton asked task force members to think about what they want the principles of campus-initiated tuition increases to be for their next meeting.

Daum stressed that she would like to get the principles down now and not in January after the decision of where the money should be spent has already been made.

The next task force meeting is scheduled for Oct. 31, one of three more meetings left this semester.

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