The University of North Carolina at Asheville
www.tmca.elu/baancr!
Volume 27 Issue 15
The proud home of the 1998 UNCA Tool Awards tm
UNCA tries to remedy scholarship shortage
By Amelia Morrison
staff Writer
Due to a shortfall in scholarship funds for
the 1998-99 school year, UNCA will offer
a select group of incoming freshmen the
opportunity to participate in a “learning
community” as an alternative to scholar
ship money.
“A learning community is a structured
collection of courses that are taught in
collaboration by a group of faculty,” said
Merritt Moseley, dean of faculty develop
ment and professor of literature.
“We sent invitations to participate to new
freshman. That’s who we designed it for,”
said Patricia McClellan, assistant vice chan
cellor for enrollment management. “A
learning community involves a cohort of
students who share a common set of classes. ”
UNCA will be unable to offer a number
of prospective students scholarships “be
cause there was not as much money avail
able to award for Founders Scholarships as
earlier anticipated,” said McClellan.
McClellan said that for the 1997-98 school
year, UNCA awarded between $50,000
and $60,000 to new freshmen from the
Founders Scholarships, which are renew
able merit scholarships for new freshmen.
However, for the 1998-99 school year,
UNCA will only be able to award $12,000
to $15,000 to qualified incoming fresh-
Growth in funding must have been pro
jected that did not occur,” said McClellan.
“What happened this year is symptomatic
of the need for some planning with regards
to our scholarship program.”
“Whatever we thought was going to be
available this year, was not. (The confusion
about) who exactly is tracking scholarship
dollars is what is making this so murky,”
said Tom Cochran, associate vice chancel
lor for academic affairs.
Students participating in the learning
community will take the same set of classes.
“In the fall semester, we will have five
courses li.ik-d together, and the same stu
dents will sign up for all of them,” said
Moseley.
The five courses that will make up next
year’s learning community are Language
102, Sociology 240, Environmental Sci
ence 130, Spanish 120, and Computer
Science 107.
“The purpose, or goal, is to increase the
connectors between curriculum, promote
integrated and interdisciplinary (learning),
and to build stronger ties from students to
faculty and academic life to co-curricular
life,” said McClellan.
The faculty will meet on a regular basis to
make sure that each of them knows what is
happening in the others’ classes, so that the
overall experience is more unified, “rather
than the usually fragmented experience
that students get,” said Moseley.
Some currently enrolled UNCA students
-have complained that courses reserved for
the learning community students are
courses that students outside the learning
community may need in order to graduate.
“I know that some students have been
inconvenienced with respect to the learn
ing community,” said McClellan. “We ac
tually did not anticipate the magnitude of
the problem.”
There were originally two learning com
munities scheduled for next fall.
“We cancelled the second one because of
students’ concerns and requests, so we freed
up Sociology 210 and French 110,” said
McClellan.
“French 110 is a freshman course,” said
See SCHOLARSHIP on page 8
Administration
moves most
housekeepers to
graveyard shift
By Gene Zaleski
staff Writer
The UNCA administration ap
proved a plan to change the hours
that academic building housekeep
ers work from a daytime shift to an
overnight shift.
Housekeepers will begin their new
shift on the night of May 31.
“We got a hand-delivered, dated
letter last week that said we would
go on third shift from 10 p.m. to
6:30 a.m.,” said UNCA House
keeper James Teague, “It is kind of
set in stone now.”
According to Stephen Baxley, di
rector of facilities management, a
decision has not been made as to
the permanent hours which will be
worked by the housekeepers.
“We are still trying to work out
the details,” said Baxley. “We want
to be as sensitive as we can to the
personal needs of the housekeep
ers, so we are not locked into any
particular hours at the moment. ”
I caguc said tliat he does not like
tliechangc in hours, but is glad that
the administration finally made a
decision about hou.sekeepinghours.
us to clean more efficiently,” said
Brackett. “The students will have a
cleaner environment to work in,
and people will still be around dur
ing the daytime should there be any
spills.” , ,
Baxley said that having the clean
ing done before 8 a.m. will prevent
students from having to step over
buffing cords.
The recommendation to move
housekeepers to nighttime hours
was made in part by members of the
UNCA Outsource Steering Com
mittee.
Mike Small, director of the book
store and co-chair of the Outsource
Steering Committee, said that the
committee was assembled in re
sponse to a mandate by the North
Carolina General Assembly, which
called on all state universities to
increase the efficiency of their uni
versity support departments over a
three year period.
Small said that housekeeping was
studied by the Outsource Steering
Committee during the first year of
the study, 1996-97, but that the
coniinlttee did not make the final
deci.sion to change housekeeping
hours;
“ I'lie deci.sion was an administra-
E
PHOTO BY PRESTON GANNAWAY
JNCA Housekeeper Curtis Salter (pictured above) will
•egin working the nighttime shift on May 31. Administra-
ors say that the change in hours will increase
lousekeeper’s efficiency.
Everybody is ready to go, be-
•*use this has been going on for so
•ig that we just want to get it over
"ith and in place,” said Teague.
Housekeeping Supervisor Mike
Jtackett says the new hours will be
'sneficial to students.
"Right now we only have three
ours to get any major cleaning
one so these new hours will allow
tive one based on the fact that the
housekeepers would be more effi
cient if they cleaned at night,” said
Small. “This is indirectly related to
outsourcing because we’ve told the
chancellor (Patsy Reed) that we can
do the job better ourselves if we
See HOURS on page 8
UNCA goes commercial
PHOTO BY PRESTON GANNAWAY
Students posed for a camera crew on the Ramsey Library steps earlier this week for UNCA’s new television commer
cial. The commercial will first be aired during the National Invitational Men’s Basketball Tournament this November.
By Nicole Miller
staff Writer
UNCA has hired The Alpha
(iroup, an Asheville advertis
ing agency, to produce a 30-
second television advertisement
designed to recruit new stu
dents to the university. Film
ing of the advertisement took
place on the UNCA campus
earlier this week.
“We’ve talked about doing a
new ad for about two years,”
said Merianne Epstein, direc
tor of public information and a
key coordinator of the project.
UNCA already has a 30 -sec
ond commercial that was filmed
six years ago, and has been re
vised twice, said Epstein. “We
felt like it was time to do a new
one.”
“This ad is really going to
have a lot of zip. It’s going to be
more contemporary,” Epstein
said.
The purpose of the new com
mercial is “to recruit traditional-
aged students to the campus,”
Epstein said. “We really looked
at this as an admissions ad.”
The commercial features in
terviews with UNCA students
and faculty members. “We are
using our own students, and
they are no t scripted (as to what
to say),” said Epstein.
According to Epstein, the ad
vertising agency came to UNCA
twice to meet with focus groups
about the commercial, Fhe focus
groups consisted of students and
administrators.
“The concept came from stu
dent focus groups,” Epstein said.
“We very much appreciate the
involvement ofstudents and how
much they appreciate this pro
duction.”
Despite the opportunity forstu-
dent involvement, some mass
communication students are up
set that the university hired an
external agency to produce the
commercial, rather than having
the school’s mass communication
department produce it.
“By using an outside agency,
UNCA is undermining its own
education. It is saying that we, as
students, are incapable of doing
projects that we are supposedly
being trained to do,” said Eric
Jacobson, a sophomore mass com
munication major. “I feel that the
UNC system, as a college system,
should have more of its students
doing the projects on campus that
are relevant to their majors.”
“We discussed having students
make this. We certainly respect
student work,” said Epstein.
However, she added that the uni
versity is not technologically
equipped to produce such a high
quality commercial.
Some students, however, are not
bothered that the mass commu
nication department is not un
dertaking rhe project.
“It would have been cool if they
had used someone from the (mass
communication) department, but
we are all tied up with our own
projects right now,” said Jack
Walsh, a senior mass communi
cation major. “Plus, I don’t think
we have the technology to pro
duce what they are looking for. ”
Senior mass communication
major Chanse Simpson agreed
with Walsh.
“It doesn’t bother me,” said
Simpson. “Once the department
has the new lab with more digital
cameras and computer equip
ment, it will be able to do these
kinds of projects.”
The mass communication de
partment, which is currently
housed on the second floor of
Karpen Hall, plans to move to the
building’s third floor. The floor
will include a new video produc
tion lab, once scheduled renova
tions to Karpen Hall are com
pleted.
Simpson said that the amount
of filming and editing time such
a large scale project takes would
make it difficult for students to
produce. Epstein said that the
commercial will cost UNCA
$26,000. The fee includes The
Alpha Group’s work with the fo
cus groups, the presentation of
storyboards for the ad, the film
ing, editing, and graphics and
sound that will be added in dur
ing the editing.
According to I'om Byers, spe
cial assistant to the chancellor,
$14,000 of the total cost will
come from the university’s dis
cretionary funds. These are
funds set aside in the university
budget for special needs and
•some scholarship funding. A
deci.sion has not yet been made
on where the remaining
$ I 2,000 will come from.
“We have to get it from some
where, and we are committed
to doing that,” said Byers. “It is
going to have to come from one
of two places, and it has not
been decided yet.”
Byers said that one source of
funding may be from money
that the university had previ
ously budgeted, but never used.
For example, if money was set
aside to hire a new employee,
and the hire never took place,
that money is subject to use for
other projects. However, Byers
said that there are several other
items on the list besides the
commercial that are competing
for these leftover funds. If this
money is not applied to the cost
of the ad, the university may
have to “dig further into the
discretionary money,” said
Byers, “but we don’t want to do
that.”
Epstein said that the commer
cial will first air in mid-Novem
ber, during the National Invi
tational Men’s Basketball Tour-