Panel's stipends raise questions

Several faculty members have questioned the legitimacy of a proposed program in Western studies after learning that faculty members who developed the program received funding from Art and John William Pope.

To fund the planning stage of the project, the Popes donated $25,000 to faculty members who served on the committee charged with developing a Western studies curriculum.

The Popes' charitable organization, the Pope Foundation, is considering donating $14 million to UNC to fund the curriculum. But it has come under fire from faculty members who say a conservative think tank it once funded, the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, has been highly critical of UNC.

Members of the faculty learned of the stipends during a Sept. 28 faculty meeting, when the initial draft for an interdisciplinary program in Western studies was presented.

"Most of the time, faculty sit on committee because it's part of our service. It's not typical for faculty to be paid for this," geography professor Altha Cravey said.

"I don't recall any of us who didn't get paid recommending more courses in Western studies."

But officials stressed that this practice is common and is not meant to be surreptitious.

"This is not secret information that's being kept under wraps," said Judith Wegner, chairwoman of the faculty. "The people who had been working on this proposal had been working extremely hard and received a stipend of $1,600 - relatively small in comparison to similar situations."

The revelation likely will fuel the escalating controversy surrounding the Pope Foundation's possible multimillion dollar donation.

Opponents say accepting funds from the Pope Foundation to create a program in Western studies would give the organization too much influence over the curriculum.

Officials from the foundation maintain that the University initiated the program.

"We got a request for $25,000 for the planning stage, and we naturally donated the money," said Art Pope, former state senator and co-founder of the Pope Foundation. "All we're trying to do is support education and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill."

Committee members rejected the idea that the money influenced their decisions.

"Yes, there was a summer stipend made to people who served on the committee," said Lloyd Kramer, chairman of the Department of History and a recipient of the funds. "But I insist that the people who were given this stipend were in no way forced to develop this specific study."

He stressed that it is not unusual for faculty to receive summer funding for course development. Summer funding usually comes in the form of seed money, provided to a department to create courses.

Kramer said faculty were not instructed on how to use the funds and added that he donated the money he received to the history department's special fund.

"I only accepted because I thought it was a good way to get funding for the history department," he said.

Some faculty members further questioned the approval process for the program during last Friday's Faculty Council meeting and made jokes about some committee members being "bought off."

"It's a conflict of interest when you're paid to develop something for the person who paid you," Cravey said. "This whole situation revealed that it's a tainted process."

He criticized the course development process and said it is in need of reform. "If we cave in to the lure of money, we might as well close our doors, because we no longer offer what we have historically stood for."

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.