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Volume 33 Issue 11
The University Of North Carolina At Asheville
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UNCA Salaries Below Average
Some Instructors Receive High Student Evaulations, Low^ Pay
WALTER FYLER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
A UNCA instructor demonstrates a lesson to his students. Teachers at UNCA make the third lowest
in pay out of 15 other comparable schools.
Thad Eckard
News Reporter
UNCA pays its professors the
fifth lowest salary and assistant
professors less than any other
school in the state’s university sys
tem. Associate professor pay falls
second to last, according to UNC-
system’s survey data.
The low amount of pay could be
why some potential educators
choose not to teach at UNCA,
according to some instructors.
“We have made two offers over
the last year to folks who have
turned down the position due to
the low salary,” said Claudel
McKenzie, chair and associate pro
fessor of management and accoun
tancy.
“We offered the same position
to six different people over the last
year and a half, and five of them
turned us down because of
money,” said Mark West, chair
and associate professor of mass
communication.
Average UNCA faculty salaries
are lower than those at most com
parable institutions.
When compared to 15 other
comparable schools across the
nation, assistant UNCA profes
sor salaries fall second to last place
with $38,800.
Associate professor salaries fall
fourth to last place. The average
salary for UNCA professors is
$65,200, which is third to last
among 15 other similar institu
tions, according to the survey.
“In the last three or four years,
we have had a couple ofvery good
people leaving,” said Sophie Mills,
chair and assistant professor of
classics. “Although I know pay is
not the only factor, I think it was
a part of the decisions.”
“We tend to teach an awful lot of
overloads to get in all the courses
that our students really need,” said
Mills. “We really do it on a shoe
string, and ofi:en wind up teach
ing more than the course load that
is standard here.”
The foreign languages depart
ment recently offered a position
to a candidate, who instead chose
a job for the same amount of
money for half the hours, accord
ing to Cathy Pons, chair of for
eign languages.
Another candidate turned down
a health-and-fitness position ear
lier this month because of low
salary, according to Elise
Henshaw, program assistant of
health and fitness.
“The instructors here could
probably leave for another insti
tution that pays better,” said Kim
Garfield, an undeclared sopho
more. “Maybe they want the sense
of community UNCA offers in
stead of more money from a larger
school.”
The cost of living in Asheville
only adds to potential financial
problems for faculty. Statistics
from the U.S. Census Bureau
shows that the cost of living in
Asheville is highest among N.C.
cities with public universities.
While instructor salary falls short,
student evaluations of instruction
remains high. UNC-student sur
veys show that students place
UNCA instruction within the top
three of all 16 public universities
in the state.
The spring 2000 survey indi
cates that 93.9 percent of sopho
more students thought the instruc
tion they received was good or
excellent. Of seniors, 95.8 per
cent rated faculty as either good or
excellent.
See SALARIES Page 10
Web Site Offers Tools for Research
Claire O’Brien
News Reporter
nose
iryan
at
Questia.com, an online research
ool, said it helps students to “write
letter papers, easier and faster,
ac \lthough the Web site could make
writing research papers easier,
UNCA’s Ramsey Library has many
af the same features.
It’s like all dot-coms. In library
and we’re taking these dot-coms
"’ith a grain of salt because they re
-diving all around us, said
n Sinclair, reference librarian
Ramsey Library.
“Questia is marketing itself for
indergraduates and basic research,
Sinclair. Questia.com may not
l)every useful for serious research,
Kcording to Sinclair.
'A lot of what’s in Questia the
'rary already has,” said Sinclair,
^e have in our Western North
Carolina library network two mil-
n volumes, and of those, about
.000 are electronic books that
can get to from home.
Questia.com features 35,000 texts
"nline, allowing students to access
from their home. It also com-
apait
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piles a bibliography and index based
on the texts students choose to use
for their paper.
The librarians used “both tradi
tional library collection develop
ment techniques and innovative
methods to ensure proper repre
sentation of all major humanities
and social-science disciplines for
undergraduates,” said the
Questia.com Web site.
Ramsey library is not opposed to
Questia.com byany means, accord
ing to Sinclair.
“I don’t know if it actually does a
decent job,” said Sinclair. “I’m a
librarian and teacher here, and any
Web site that allows you to write
better papers easier and faster, we’re
for.”
The WNC network does have a
large number of electronic books
on file, but “we don’t have a service
where it’ll compile a bibliography,
so that is a nifty feature of Questia,”
said Sinclair.
Questia.com does feature some
other services for the student, ac
cording to the site. It allows users to
highlight, cut and paste quotes, store
the user’s paper online and check
words in a dictionary.
The WNC collection has some of
the same features. While the user
can’t store their paper, or highlight
the text, they can cut and paste and
check word definitions and spell
ings in a dictionary, according to
Sinclair.
Questia.com charges a fee of any
where between $14.95 for 48-hour
access to $149.95 for an annual
membership. A team of 10 profes
sional librarians built the
Questia.com collection, according
to the site.
The WNC network requires that
students also set up an account, but
the account is free, according to
Sinclair.
Questia.com hopes to expand the
service to include about 250,000
titles by 2003, according to the site.
Users can search the collection for
free, but the fee applies when the
user wants to access and read the
full text of one of the books, or use
the research tools.
“I think Questia and a lot of these
services just want your credit card
number,” said Sinclair.
“Reference librarians are im
mensely helpful,” said Peggy Parris,
a volunteer at UNCA’s writing cen
ter. Questia.com could be useful
for distance learners, provided the
texts were of scholarly quality, ac
cording to Parris.
Joe Wilde-Ramsing, a senior po
litical science major said he agrees
that Questia.com could be useful
for non-students or commuters.
But, in some ways, it “destroys the
learning atmosphere,” said Wilde-
Ramsing.
Questia.com “eliminates many of
the unproductive and frustrating
aspects currently associated with
the paper writing process,” accord
ing to the site.
The site allows more than one
student to access the same text,
which is convenient, because it
eliminates the problem of needing
a book that is already checked out,
according to the site.
Questia.com works differently
than it’s musical counterpart,
Napster. It compensates the pub
lisher of each text online every time
a page is viewed, according to the
site.
“After the initial sale, books are
checked out and photocopied by
library patrons thousands of times
each year with no additional rev
enue to the publisher,” said the site.
“All titles, including older, out-of-
print titles, which currently gener
ate no revenue, benefit from in
creased visibility and usage through
Questia’s model.”
“Writing a
Sitcom,”
By Shaun
Cashman
See Page 8
April 19, 2001
Judy Shepard
Educates on
Hate Crimes
Keith Cromwell
Investigative Reporter
Lena Burns
News Editor
Judy Shepard said her status as
a private person ended two years
ago with the murder of her son,
Matthew. She held a talk at
UNCA April 18.
As she took the stage, Shepard
described herself as reserved and
shy, soft-spoken to a fault.
“I’m not a professional speaker,
I rely on the power of the room,”
said Shepard.
As she read excerpts of a state
ment she made to a jury in 1998
about the murder of her son, the
atmosphere became more emo
tional. She told listeners in
Lipinsky Auditorium that hate,
like the anti-gay sentiment that
led to the killing of her son, is
established on the prejudice and
ignorance of others.
“Actually, I wish I wasn’t here.
I wish I was at home with my
husband, and both of my sons
were in college, not just one,”
Shepard said.
Shepard said she travels to col
leges to make students aware of
hate crimes. However, she would
rather appeal to students in a
younger age group, such as kin
dergarten, in order to form an
impression on them at an earlier
age.
“We aren’t born hating, and
aren’t born knowing how to love,”
said Shepard. “These types of
qualities must be learned.”
Shepard spoke candidly about
how her son’s death has changed
families everywhere.
She talked about the'shock she
felt when she and her husband
received a late-night phone call
telling them about their son’s
beating.
They were living in Saudi Arabia
at the time, and the nearly 48
hour-long return trip to the
United States felt like an eternity,
according to Shepard.
She also spoke of the pain the
family endured after Matthew’s
murder.
“Some days, I felt like giving
up,” said Shepard, “I know that
Matthew would be disappointed
See TALK Page 10
LENA BURNS/NEWS EDITOR
Judy Shepard speaks on her concerns about hate and social
injustice.
The Story of Shepard
Keith Cromwell
Investigative Reporter
It was a murder that shocked
millions around the country. In
1998, gay University of Wyo
ming student Matthew Shepard
left a Laramie bar with two men
out for a night of bar-hopping.
“Matt is no longer with us to
day because the men who killed
him learned to hate,’ said Judy
Shepard, mother of Matthew.
“Somehow, and somewhere, they
received the message that the lives
of gay people are not as worthy of
respect, dignity and honor as the
lives of other people.”
According to police reports,
Russell Henderson and Aaron
McKinney posed as homosexu
als, lured Shepard from a bar and
then kidnapped and pistol-
whipped him before leaving him
tied to a fence in almost freezing
weather.
Detective Rob DeBree, the lead
investigator for the Albany
County Sheriff s Department in
Wyoming, said the attack began
after Matthew had placed his
hand on McKinney’s leg as they
drove through Laramie.
“Guess what, we’re not gay,”
the detective quoted McKinney
as saying he had told Shepard.
‘ You’re going to get jacked. It’s
Gay Awareness Week.”
When McKinney learned that
Matthew was gay, he "flipped
out, ” and beat the college stu
dent with a gun, two letters at
tributed to the murder suspect
See SHEPARD Page 10
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