The Student Newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Volume XVI, Number 16
Charlotte, North Carolina
Thursday September 25, 1980
By 5 Percent
Enrollment at UNCC grew by five
percent this fall to 9,383, the largest
number of students ever and the big
gest percentage increase since 1977.
Chancellor E.K. Fretwell Jr. said he
was delighted with the enrollment re
port and attributed the growth to the
quality and variety of UNCC
academic programs and to highly
qualified faculty with growing
reputations.
He also cited UNCC’s “good for
tune in helping students translate
classroom education into working
world careers.”
“We strongly emphasize the liberal
arts here, in fact we have just restruc
tured the University to strengthen
those programs with the new College
of Arts and Sciences,” Fretwell said.
“However, we are pragmatic enough
to realize that students need to earn a
living with liberal arts degrees.
Therefore, in programs such as
English and a number of others, we
are providing internships and cooper
ative education programs to help
them market themselves to employ
ers later on.”
Fretwell added that UNCC is “for
tunate to have a large number of pro
grams that provide career oppor
tunities to today’s graduates—ac
counting, engineering and engineer
ing technology, architecture, nursing,
business administration, criminal
justice, computer science, and teacher
education.”
He said UNCC‘s performance and
quality are becoming more widely
known—especially on programs that
are measured with statewide exam
inations, such as the CPA, nursing
and teacher education programs.
“We must try harder to increase
our minority enrollment,” Fretwell
said, “But we are pleased that the
minority enrollment grew at a higher
percentage rate (8 percent) than total
enrollment (5 percent).” Black
students now comprise 8.4 percent of
the UNCC student body, an increase
from 8.1 percent last year.
Chancellor Fretwell predicted con
tinued steady growth at UNCC be
cause of the approval of new master’s
degrees in Criminal Justice and
Special Education and the completion
and continued construction of res
idence halls to house students, par
ticularly those from Mecklenburg
County who have been second in pri
ority to out-of-the area students but
who would like to live on campus.
“We can build residence halls
without burdening the taxpayers,”
Fretwell said, “because they are built
with borrowed funds and paid off
from student rentals.”
He added that the growth dyna
mics of the Metrolina area enhance
the probability of continued growth
in enrollment. “The University’s
presence helps attract high-tech
nology firms to the area, and these
firms bring prospective students and
expertise and financial support to the
University,” he said.
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New Cheerleaders Pk °‘° B > DM ’“ M ‘ u ”
Shelly Weddle and Mike Harris display their cheerleading talents in Monday’s tryouts in the
gymnasium. They and 10 others made the squad. For a full list of this seasons cheerleaders, see
box on page 10.
Yom Kippur
Awards Scheduling Conflicts With Holiday
By Frank Cox
Carolina Journal Staff Writer
At the NCNB Teaching Excellence
Awards Ceremony last Friday night
there was a conspicuous absence of
most of the Jewish faculty members.
The reason for this was that the
awards ceremony was scheduled for
the night that was the eve of Yom
Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement.
The holiday is observed by atten
ding services and praying at the tem
ple on both the day of Yom Kippur
and the evening before. It is also a
time for fasting which begins at
sunset on the eve of Yom Kippur. In
order to take part in these religious
activities Jewish faculty members
were unable to attend the awards
ceremony.
Dr. Harold Josephson, history, ex
plained that this was not the first
time the awards ceremony had been
scheduled on a Jewish holiday. In fact
he pointed out that last year it was
also scheduled on the eve of Yom Kip-
pur. He added that UNCC has bet
ween 25 and 30 Jewish faculty mem
bers and that this was a rather large
number of people to leave out of the
awards ceremony.
Josephson sent a letter signed by
more than 20 faculty members ex
plaining the situation to Chancellor
Fretwell. He received a written reply
from the Chancellor assuring him
that this would not happen again.
Josephson said he took the Chan
cellor at his word and that as far as he
was concerned the controversy was
over. Joesphson also stressed the fact
that he was sure the scheduling was
unintentional to begin with, but that
the parties involved were just
unaware of the pending holiday.
Ann Newman, English, who served
as co-chairperson of the awards selec
tion committee, along with Boyd
Davis, English, said that she was
very distressed over the mistake in
the scheduling of the awards cere
mony. She stated that she was un
aware that this had happened before,
and that by the time they became
aware of the problem this year it was
simply too late to reschedule the
event.
Newman emphasized that her
greatest distress was that this hap
pened with very close collegues and
friends. She said, “Nothing can be
done this time, but the awareness is
here now so it shouldn’t happen
again.”
Dr. Steve Fishman, Philosophy,
who is a past recipient of the award,
felt that the only problem was a lack
of awareness. He pointed out that
most calendars do not list the Jewish
holidays and that since the Jewish
calendar is set up quite differently the
holidays don’t fall on the same date
each year.
Fishman pointed out that it is the
combined responsibility of both
Jewish and non-Jewish faculty mem
bers to educate each other and the ad
ministration on matters such as con
flicts in the scheduling of events.