RALEIGH (July 6, 2022) – With the 2022-23 budget they unveiled and adopted last week, state legislators simply aren’t taking care of their people – our people. The state has a $6.5 billion revenue surplus this year. Let that sink in: $6,524,141,444.00.1 Yet this state continues to systematically underfund public education. By one estimate, the… READ MORE
2021: Return to not quite normal
RALEIGH (December 29, 2021) – 2021 was slightly less chaotic than 2020, with distribution of vaccines that temporarily calmed the coronavirus pandemic before new variants began to emerge. The state also saw its first new budget in three years, with much-needed raises for higher education faculty and staff and generous investments in capital projects. It’s… READ MORE
Guskiewicz: Steering a $3B engine for NC
Each fall, UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz co-teaches a seminar for graduate students – professors of the future – called ‘The American Professoriate.’ The class focuses on the role of public universities. This year, he teaches with Matt Springer and Buck Goldstein from the School of Education and Dean Suzanne Barbour of the Graduate… READ MORE
NC budget: ‘A remarkable start on a new era’
RALEIGH (November 18, 2021) – For the first time in three years, it looks like North Carolina will have a budget for 2021-23. After extended negotiations between Gov. Roy Cooper, Senate President Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, the General Assembly is voting this week on a plan that would spend $25.9 billion in… READ MORE
Project Kitty Hawk takes flight
RALEIGH (November 17, 2021) – UNC System leaders have launched an ambitious effort called Project Kitty Hawk to use online offerings to reach adult learners in North Carolina. The state budget released this week includes $97 million for the project, which involves creating a nonprofit organization that would provide a platform to offer online programs.1… READ MORE
Leandro: A quarter-century of bickering
RALEIGH (November 15, 2021) – Robb Leandro was an 8th-grader at West Hoke Middle School in 1994, when the lawsuit over funding for poor North Carolina school districts that bears his name was filed. Twenty-seven years later, he’s 42 years old, with a family and children of his own, and practices law in Raleigh.1 Burley… READ MORE
Ramsey: Keep our faculty here
CHAPEL HILL – Whether it’s his boat-building company or the 48,000 faculty and staff of the UNC System, Randy Ramsey knows the most important part of any operation is the people. “The University is very large and very complicated,” Ramsey, Chair of the UNC Board of Governors, says in the accompanying video. “But regardless of… READ MORE
Hans: ‘The fiscally responsible thing to do’
CHAPEL HILL – After a pandemic and three years without a new state budget, the UNC System needs to invest in both its physical capital and its human capital, President Peter Hans says. “The university has thrived because of public support for its work,” Hans says in the accompanying video. In what Hans refers to… READ MORE
The cost of deferred maintenance at NC universities
GREENSBORO – Not many donors want to put their name on an HVAC system. Yet sometimes those systems need to be replaced. And across the UNC System, postponed maintenance amounts to billions of dollars. “There’s deferred maintenance on all of our campuses,” UNC Greensboro Chancellor Frank Gilliam Jr. says in the accompanying video. Then Gilliam… READ MORE
Support community colleges to make it happen
RALEIGH – To lead North Carolina’s economic recovery, the state’s community colleges will need support from the General Assembly and Gov. Roy Cooper, the NC Community College System’s president says. In the accompanying video, System President Thomas Stith III lays out what he calls a “moderate” agenda for this year’s legislative session. First and foremost,… READ MORE