Newspapers / Fayetteville State University Student … / Nov. 6, 1985, edition 1 / Page 6
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? Chancellor Speaks Out I^e Voice t Dr. Charles “A” Lyons, Jr., Chancellor discusses with the Editor-in-Chief lis views on the future development of fayetteville State University. His continued leadership will nelp enhance the greatness of this University. Because his keen insight into the possible futures for Fayetteville State Uni versity the Board of Governor’s has designated FSU as a Comprehensive Level I University. Voice: Dr. Valeria Fleming, Provost/Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, has said ■hat the University is hoping to double the size of the freshman classes in the near future. Are there any plans to build new housing facilities? Lyons; We have not laid any definite plans for any new nousing facilities. As you know, up until this year Afe’ve had some vacancies m our current facilities. This year we have all of our beds filled and we have some excess in the residence halls. If this continues into another year, I’m certain that we will have to begin to think seriously about planning for additional beds. Voice; What are some of your long range goals for Fayetteville State Uni versity? Lyons: Well, long range to help the institution realize the potentials it has had to serve the people of this area of NC. That is to say, continue to expand the offerings of the institution, to address the needs that are evident and that are continously made evident by the der '.nds of the populaf 1 01 this area at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The Board of Governors has designated this as a Comprehensive Level I Institution. That means treme/idous expansion at the graduate level and I think we can anticipate the expansion of approved programs at the graduate level for FSU. There will be some expansion also at the undergraduate level. Voice; The institution is undergoing some struc tural changes because of the Board of Governors upgrading it to a Compre hensive Level I University. What will these changes be and how will these changes affect the students as well as the population of Fayetteville? Lyons; Well, basically the structural changes involve reorganizing the Universi ties academic programs into schools and colleges. The beginning step was taken this fall and we have established a college of Arts and Sciences, a School of Business and a School of Education. We have a major program in grad uate studies which will eventuate into a School of Graduate Studies and so that’s the major structural change. It (structural change) makes our pro grams much more manage able. That is to say, your academic programs be come much more manage able when you organize into schools and colleges and as you grow and expand you’ve gotmean- ingful administrative units for the management of your programs that can give you the service you want without all the fragmentation you would get with trying to do it in smaller units. Voice; What action has been taken in reference to infoi"mation reported in The Fayetteville Times and The Fayetteville Observer pertaining to the audit. Lyons: I’ve discussed the matter with the Business Affairs committee of the Board of Trustees. I’ve discussed the matter with the State Auditor(Refrow). We’ve talked back and forth on what we are doing down here and frankly there’s no big problem with the audit. The state auditor said to me that he was very surprised after his conversation with the newspaper reporter that they haven’t written anything on it because there’s nothing major in the audit of any negative nature that warrants any big newspaper article. So, I don’t know why it was printed and I won’t comment on it. Voice: I was just curious because as the article was written it suggested some improprieties on behalf of the management of Fayetteville State Uni versity. Lyons: There is no impropriety where the management of this institution is concerned. As I read it, they used the term “a mishandling of funds” the auditor has not said there was a mishandling of funds. We know that there is no mishandling of funds and there are no impro prieties in the management of Business affairs or anything else here at this University. Voice: Would you go into detail about the $500,000 Endowment Fund? Lyons; Endowment is designed to assist an institution to raise a portion of the monies that generate income for the institution over and beyond those monies which you get from your usual sources. For the state institution, we expect and get state appropriations to do certain things. There are a number of purposes we have at a university for which we don’t get any state appropriations. We want to be creative about some things and do research in areas which we may not have monies granted to us. With Endowment income we can do that. We receive student financial aid from federal sources but we need scholarship money. We need more unrestrictive, private dollars that we can utilize to compete on a scholarship basis for students we want to attract here to this institution. Endowment income will help us do that. We are in the process of raising $500,000 to match $500,000 that the U.S. Department of Education has reserved for FSU. We’ll get $500,000 when we raise our own $500,000. Now, we think that’s a good deal—somebody’s going to give you a half million dollars if you match it dollar for dollar fine, great we’ll do that. We already have about $200,000 of that in hand, we’ve got to raise another $300,000 but you see when we get the other $300,000 we’ll have a million dollars that we can invest in securities and that million dollars will generate on an annual basis income that we can use to support students and do other things. Let us say, just on an out-of-the air figure you were able to invest a million dollars at 10 percent. If you invest a million dollars a year at 10 percent, you would get $100,000. The rules of The Department of Education will allow you to spend 50 percent of the aggregate earnings annually for any legitimate purpose at your institution. So, that means using our 10 percent we could spend $50,000. That $50,000 could go into student scholarships depending upon the decision made here. The other $50,000 is re-invested and that’s how you build your endowment and you do that over a period of 20 years. Over a period of 20 years you’ve got your million dollars still there and you’ve got accumu lation of your re-invested money you may end with five million dollars in endowment at the end of that 20 year period. And then, if got five million dollars at the end of 20 years, you just keep it there in endowment and it keeps earning you money every year. And if you never touch the principal, it means that over the years you build-up a pretty strong and heavy endow ment. And that’s what we are trying to do. It shows you how your money can multiply if you invest it wisely. Voice: The new library is expected to be completed in what year? Lyons: It’s scheduled to be completed in December 1986. We hope it’s on schedule. Voice: What do you consider to be the greatest stumbling block hindering progress within the University Community? Lyons: Well, I don’t know if there’s any one stumbling block. I guess there are a number of barriers to progress. I think one of the barriers to progress is apathy. Voice; Apathy on whose part? Lyons: On the part of a whole lot of folk: students, faculty, staff and com munity. People become quite satisfied with things as they are. They assume everything’s all right. People become self- satisfied easily about the status quo. I think that’s one of the greater stumbling blocks to progress whether it’s in the University Community or whether it’s in the society at large. Voice: What are the chances of cable being placed in the dormitories? Lyons: Well, first you’ve got to get it on the campus. I don’t know now far away cable is from the campus. We’ve discussed that some two or three years ago and at that time it was not close enough to the campus to have it connected. Now, that may have changed. I haven’t really raised that question with anybody and now you’ve picked my interest and I’ll raise that question and see if I can find out, but I think it would be good thing to have on the campus. I would say that students whether we have cable or not must be very careful about bud geting of their time over things that are not important. You can get wrap-up over cable TV and HBO and all that kind of stuff, and you forget the reason for your being here. I certainly would not want that to happen. Voice: As a political scientist do you forsee Fayetteville State Uni versity changing its name to UNC-Fayetteville? Lyons; Well, there are people who have discussed this and there are people I’m certain who are interested in the change of name. It’s possible that that could happen. I don’t think you’ll find any great interest among the alumni for that kind of name change. The alumni feel pretty comfortable with the name as it is. And, I think that’s natural. For the alumni it identifies them with an institution and name of their era as students here. I guess other institutions have faced those kinds of things too. I don’t know, there is no great ground-swell of interest among any of the constituents that I deal with for a change in the name of Fayetteville State University. I do perceive some interest in some quarters in a change of name. I think more for psychological reasons than for any other reason. There are some people who have some great difficulty identifying with and bring a part of something that has a black history and a black tradition and whose name identifies it as something that has a black history and a black tradition. I think that’s where you may find most of the interest, at least which I’ve experienced, in changing the name to the University of North Carolina at Fayetteville. X
Fayetteville State University Student Newspaper
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Nov. 6, 1985, edition 1
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