10 '/The Daily Tar Heel/Thursday, July 29,1993 Established in 1893 A century of editorial freedom Kelly Ryan, Associate Editor Leah Campbell, Arts and Features Editor John C. Manuel, Sports Editor Debbie Stengel, Photography Editor Tammy Grubb, Copy Desk Editor The UNC Board of Trustees took a giant step in the right direction Friday—but it tripped along the way. The board approved a free-standing Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center in the middle of cam pus. Although the site chosen for the center was not the one BCC advocates wanted, but one across the street from it, the BCC still will be located in a central location. Most importantly, it will be a free-standing center, named after a respected black professor, that will benefit the entire student body as an academic center for African and African-American studies. But regardless of the outcome of the meeting, the BOT should not have made such an important deci sion in the middle of summer while most students were away or done so after discussing the issue for two hours behind closed doors. By closing the meeting and making their discus sion private, the BOT showed lack of backbone and lack of consideration of BCC supporters and other members of the University community. The struggle for a free-standing BCC has been extremely controversial. For the BOT to hide their opinions behind closed doors only arouses suspicion of their motives and reasoning. UNC is a public university, and citizens have the right to know how the BOT came to pick the Coker UNC administrators fought hard this summer to keep the N.C. Senate-proposed S2OO tuition sur charge from becoming a reality for students. They were successful in convincing legislators not to tax students with what could have been as high as a 29- percent tuition increase for in-state residents. But on Friday, administrators forgot their own pledges to keep education costs as low as possible by recommending a 23-percent increase in student fees to the UNC Board ofTrustees. The result is a possible 10.7-percent overall increase for students. The trustees received the student-fee proposal only the night before their meeting at 8:30 a.m. and they had the chancellor’s barbecue on their agenda for that night as well. It was impossible for the trustees to have studied the almost-120-page proposal any great detail to make an educated decision on such an important issue. Instead, they merely rubber-stamped the administration’s recommendations, despite concerns expressed by Student Body President Jim Copland that the increases were too high. Making such drastic increases while most students are away for the summer is unfair and unwarranted. Administrators did not adequately justify the need for these increases and set a bad precedent by shifting the burden of cost to the students. The proposal includes many fees that should not even be paid by students. Just as administrators told legislators that students should not pay for faculty salaries, students should not be asked to fund projects such as improving classrooms. S7O of die proposed sllß increase would go to purchase and maintain equipment for computer labs and special classrooms. Although improvements are Letter an abrasive attack’ against white students To the editor: I find the July 22 guest column (“BCC not too much to ask in light of slavery”) by Loma Haughton an abrasive attack against every nonblack UNC student. By addressing us all as the descen dants of white slave owners, Haughton suggests that we still must answer for the mistakes made 200 years ago. Her solution is the foundation of a free standing black cultural center, as a re spite for deeds we never committed. I’m not a descendant of wealthy, white plantation owners but of hardworking Americans, who struggled to provide the best, including the best education, for their families. For every slave who lost sweat, blood and tears trying to survive here, a free person sought an education and couldn ’ t access it, likewise denied by poverty and social rank. All people who came to America, of whatever nationality, tried to make a life for themselves whether they came of their own free will or not. Individu ally, they built the country. For this reason alone, UNC truly belongs to every student here. UNC offers 36 classes for African and Afro-American studies. Although the University has not provided a BCC yet, it is aiding the BCC movement by educating others. Our school does not deserve the label of a “racist university” simply because the administration hasn’t answered every demand issued by mem bers of the BCC movement. Plans for a cultural center that would provide new educational opportunities are exciting. But the BCC should exist for the sake of learning, not for mistakes made last week, this decade or 200 years ago. Demanding a BCC in return for so cial injustice only alienates nonblack students from the movement. How many more students would support the BCC Slip Daily aar Yi-Hsin Chang, Editor JENNIFER Talhelm, Associate Editor KIM COSTELLO, Arts and Features Editor JOHN CasERTA, Graphics Editor Justin Williams, Photography Editor Erin Lyon, Layout Editor ‘lf you build it site over the Wilson-Dey site. The N.C. open meet ings law is meant to allow for closed meetings to discuss some business transactions and personnel matters, not an controversial issue concerning the site of a building on land already owned by the University. Because of the BOT’s secrecy, students will return in the fall and question why the Coker site was chosen. But despite the board’s stumbles, BCC advocates now should focus their anger and energies on raising money for the center. The sooner funding can be obtained, the sooner the University can open the free-standing Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center. Supporters also should try to better educate mem bers of the University community and the citizens of North Carolina on the purpose of the BCC. Realizing what the BCC can be will make students and others cross the street to participate in programs that will better their understanding of African-American his tory and culture. The BOT will not likely change its decision on where to build the BCC. It’s time to accept the decision and work to make the center the best in the nation. Unreasonable fees necessary so that the University can keep up with other universities in the rapidly changing realm of computer technology, the money should come from the state, not from students. Similarly, the SIOO fee for classroom training for education majors and the SSOO quality fee for mas ters in business administration and masters in ac counting students should come from the University ’ s state-funded budget. Administrators claim that students support these high increases, but most students are not in town and could not have known that these exorbitant fees would be proposed during the summer—all at once along with recently approved tuition increases. The $lO athletic-fee increase also has not been fully justified. If the athletic department needs extra money for its women’s programs to meet gender equity requirements or to maintain athletic fields and facilities, the department should tighten its belt by looking to see how it squandered $600,000 at the Peach Bowl in Adanta. The N.C. Constitution mandates that public higher education remain as close to free as practicable. Administrators seemed to understand and agree with that principle while they were lobbying legislators to keep tuition down. But they seemed to forget that student fees are part of the cost of higher education and should not be increased so drastically when tuition already is rising for students. The UNC Board of Governors now must approve these fees before they can go into effect. BOG members should take a magnifying glass when ex amining the proposal and read between the lines. Maybe they will remember to think of the students first. READERS' FORUM if they were not constantly asked to answer for conditions they did not cre ate? BCC supporters, stop attacking this university. Start reconsidering your strategy to encourage support for the BCC. Don’t exclude whites by assign ing blame. Instead, invite them to share the rich and singular culture of black America. As an American and a UNC student, the black experience belongs as much to me as to you. And the BCC will belong to all of us. Invite us in because “your” people are our people, too. KRISTINE JOHNSON Sophomore Chemistry Faculty salaries include administrative stipends To the editor: I am disappointed you chose to use data that you knew to be grossly mis leading in your table on professors’ salaries in the July 22 Daily Tar Heel (“Professors’ salaries vary greatly”). As you knew from your discussion with Chris Canfield, director of media relations for the Kenan-Flagler Busi ness School, our school made a change to accounting procedures for 1992 that, for the first time, included in the figures for faculty salaries stipends associated with administrative appointments, such as area chairmen and associate deans. The inclusion of these stipends made some professors appear to have received disproportionate raises. In my own case, my 1992 salary includes the new stipend I receive as interim dean. When I leave the position in January 1994,1 will appear to have received a cut in salary because my stipend will be lowered. Similar reason ing applies to others you randomly chose to feature in your table. Another professor was shown as hav ing received no raise during 1992 even though he did not join the faculty until the end of the year. Clearly, you could have shown better judgment in the way you presented your data. Perhaps more damaging than the false impression left by your use of data is the polarization of salaries you contribute within the University. The quotes you used from Chris show my viewpoint. Every department within the Univer sity is fighting the same battle: to main tain the national pre-eminence that has made UNC such a distinctive univer sity. Departments and schools fight that battle best by supporting each other in competition with peers at other univer sities, not by competing against each other from within UNC. According to a recent professional association survey, our faculty salaries are at or below the average for peer business schools. Yet our faculty con sistently ranks at the top for teaching quality. Thus, our faculty deserves to be above average in pay. It has nothing to do with what profes sors in UNC’s medical school or En glish department make. It has every thing to do with keeping cur business school a nationally ranked school, bring ing a wealth of benefits to the rest of the University and state. CARL ZEITHAML Interim dean Business Faculty salaries article best reporting on issue To the editor: I think that your July 22 article on UNC faculty salaries (“Professors’ sala ries vary greatly”) was the single best piece of reporting on this issue that I have seen. There has not been better work in any of the area newspapers. Thank you. CRAIG CALHOUN Director Office of International Programs [QPJTHE END.C4IV WE READV PhEASEAXYONE a)j ‘Asphalt Gestapo’ should add parking spaces Today’s Sermon on the Mount re volves around another bit of my pompous fuming. So get away from that golden calf, pull up a rock and listen. I know you normally only read until the doctor’s ready to see you or the bus has come to your stop, but please bear with me ‘cause I’ve got a little more newsprint therapy to vent upon you, the unsuspecting reader. This is a little thing I’ve carried with me for too long. I need to babble about it before it’s too late, and I’m spending all my free time comparison shopping for fiber substitutes to keep me regular without that grainy taste. This column will be about as pretty as Willard Scott. I hope you will main tain bladder control throughout the piece, but, hey, no promises. Warning: Please remove all children from the immediate vicinity of the pa per because the Parking Police Column is here. Everyone has a pet name for these folks—the Asphalt Gestapo, the Ticket nazis, whatever. I’m sure they’re all normal, decent Americans who floss regularly, eat their Bran Flakes and spend their Sundays on their knees pray ing that if there’s some great parking meter in the sky with their name on it, it isn’t less than a nickel away from read ing “EXPIRED.” Their jobs are tougher now that the collective behemoth of our alumni have claimed yet another sacrificial lamb, the afternoon hours of the Ram’s Head parking lot. God forbid they have to wait ‘til sundown to start the precious ritual of tailgating or whatever it is 45-year-old ex-sorority chicks do as they try to regain their late adolescence. So now that the “Educational Foun dation” (wink-wink) has taken this South Campus Sudetenland in their unquench able quest for asphalt, there’s even less land on which I can rest my car. Nothing gets my blood boiling like driving around campus hoping to stumble across an open spot this side of Guam. Bountiful though they are, the 25- odd metered spaces normally are occu pied sometime around dawn. This means Barstool philosopher bids thanks, farewell The summer and my contribution to The Daily Tar Heel ever so quickly are coming to an end, and in a few weeks, the DTH will be back in its daily form. I don’t know who will grace the back page of the DTH with jibber-jabber about the rights of God knows what and issues concerning God knows who. Where will I be? Probably telling whoever will listen about the good old days when men were men and my face loomed weekly on the editorial page of the DTH like a mugshot on a wanted poster. So how do I conclude these crazy 11 weeks of standing on my soap box? Well, I would like to say: “Boy, time flies when you’re having fun. Thanks for the memories. You’ve been a lot of laughs.” But this breakfast of cliches won ’ t be complete without saying, “When it’s all said and done —and it will be whether you read this article or spill coffee on it —and when the dust clears, I hope you will respect me in the morning.” I perhaps pretentiously, or obnox iously, kicked things off this summer by try ing to determine a working defini tion of “normal.” I was rather disap pointed with the response. Much to my dismay, I received only The Daily Tar Heel JSSSWKnSffIiX Display advmtblng: Jeff Kilman and Tiffany Krueger, account executives. Advertising production: Bill Leslie, manager/system administrator. Stall writers: Zachaiy Albert, Sharon Baldwin, Bill Blocker, Corey Brown, Vicki Cheng, Britton Core, Lisa Dowdy, Kathleen Flynn TJHemlinoer Rorhell* tonkin Kn