ak latlg ®ar Mpdl
THURSDAY, JULY 18,1996
University System
Loses Ground in
New Budget Talks
BY JOHN SWEENEY
UNIVERSITY EDITOR
After a week of work, the two houses of
the N.C. General Assembly unveiled then
new budget proposals, but the new num
bers are not too different from those that
caused a budget deadlock in June.
It is only the first step in what many
observers expect to be a long battle over
how to rework the state’s budget for the
1996-97 fiscal year, which began July 1.
Vice Chancellor for University Rela
tions Clifton Metcalf said he thought the
new budgets were actually hopeful. “There
has been some give on both sides and they
are closer,” Metcalf said. “It appears to me
there has been an effort to compromise by
both the House and the Senate.”
Hone and Senate Give and Take (and Take)
Since returning to Raleigh on July 8 to resolve their budget deadlock, the N.C. House
and Senate have unveiled new'compromise'proposals. Here's how the new
proposals would affect the UNC system and how they compare to the original
figures when the Senate and House went home on June 21.
Program NX. Hou MX. Senate
Total allocated budget money left unspent s2ll million $lO5 million
| Was $397 million Was $0
Academic enhancement for research campuses $0 $ 17.8 million
Would fund equipment purchases and salary raises Unchanged Unchanged
Adjustment of overhead receipts $201,780 $201,780
IB Would free funds from research contracts and grants Was $0 Unchanged
Health insurance for graduate assistants $0 $0
Would provide money for major medical insurance Unchenged Was $4.6 million
P " i "' -
Graduate student tuition remission $0 $1,684,532
■ Would increase awards by 10 percent Unchanged Unchanged
Distinguished professorships endowment funds $0 $500,000
Would tike matching funds for endowed professorships Unchanged Was $760,000
SOURCE: THE DIVISION OF UNIVERSITY RELATIONS DTH/BETH POWERS
BOG to Fight ‘Meddling’ BI
With Private, Not Public, Stance
BY JEANNE FUGATE
EDITOR
The Board of Governors on Friday argued not whether to take
action, but which course of action to take against a “meddling”
house bill that would add legislative appointees to the Boards of
Trustees for all 16 UNC-system schools.
Member emeritus Samuel Poole introduced the topic.
“It is incumbent upon us to express concern about the gover
nance of (the BOG),” he said.
“We don’t need this meddling,” he said. “That’s my term, not
theirs.”
House Bill 29, introduced July 9, would increase the size of the
13-person BOTs to 17 members. The president pro tempore of the
N.C. Senate and the speaker of the N.C. House would each
appoint two members per school.
Currently, trustees at each school are selected in one of three
ways: eight are appointed by the BOG; four are appointed by the
governor; and the last, the student body president of the individual
school, is elected by the students and becomes an ex officio
member of the BOT. With the exception of the student body
president, whose term is one year, all trustees serve four-year
terms.
Poole said legislator would not take the time to do thorough
interviews.
“Every time we appoint someone we do an extensive inter
view,” he said. “Anyone who’s appointed out of the legislature
would not have that kind of scrutiny.”
Newly elected Vice Chairman Benjamin Ruffin said the BOG
should take a public stance against the bill to show that the entire
board was against it.
“If we don’t have a position as a Board of Governors, then
some of the (legislators) might think we’re acting as solo mem
bers,” Ruffin said.
BOG Member Ellen Newbold agreed and said she thought the
board members should stand for what they believed in.
“If this is the way we feel, why are we afraid to say it?” Newbold
said.
But member William Brown disagreed with Newbold’s state
ment, suggesting the BOG needed to take a more subtle course of
action.
“It’s not a matter of being afraid to say it,” Brown said. “It’s a
matter of tactics.”
Others said they agreed that a public stance would be less
effective.
“I think that’d be counterproductive,” BOG member Wallace
Hyde said.
Hyde said working privately with the legislator would accom
plish more. A public stance might spur on those who disliked the
BOG, he said.
See BOG, Page 4
But the two groups appear to have
changed little in the area of higher educa
tion since they left Raleigh on June 21.
On the subject of academic enhance
ment funds, for instance, the two groups
are still far apart. While the Senate pro
posed allocating $17.8 million in funds to
the system’s two research universities,
UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State Univer
sity, the House recommended no money.
Both figures are unchanged.
The legislators have been able to ham
mer out a compromise about graduate stu
dent health insurance. While the Senate
initially proposed a $4.5 million alloca
tion, they have since changed their tune,
echoing the House by offering no money.
See BUDGET, Page 2
BOG Elects
Cliff Cameron
Unanimously
STAFF REPORT
C. Clifford Cameron, aretired Char
lotte banker, was unanimously elected
to serve a two-year term as chairman
of the Board of Governors on Friday.
The Board also unanimously
elected Winston-Salem businessman
Benjamin Ruffin, the former secre
tary, as vice chairman and Asheville
businessman John F. A. V. Cedi as sec
retary.
Cameron has been a member of the
board’s Committee on Educational
Planning, Polides and Programs since
joining the BOG in 1991. He has also
chaired the University Award Com
mittee and has served on several spe
cial and ad hoc committees.
Cameron’s involvement in North
Carolina’s higher education is wide
ranging. A former chairman of the
UNC-Charlotte Board of Trustees, he
currently chairs the UNC-C Founda
tion Board and the board ofUniversity
Research Park Inc. A former chair
man of the Meredith College Board,
he is a life trustee of Wake Forest
University and served on the 100-mem
ber UNC board before the system’s
restructuring. Cameron earned a
bachelor’s degree in engineering from
Louisiana State University.
Vice Chairman Ruffin also joined
the BOG in 1991. He is serving his
second term as vice chairman of the
board’s Committee on Business and
Finance.
Ruffin, the vice president for corpo-
See CHAIRMAN, Page 7
The eagle may soar, hut the weasel never gets sucked into a jet engine.
from ‘Simon and Simon'
Shelling Out for
The Environment
Dr. Ola-Sope Ayelaran
discusses Shell Oil's abuses
in Nigeria. Page 4
9 ■ I I. *•*s&* bb i
Jm
Tackling Campus
Substance Abuse
The Chancellor's Task Force
on Substance Abuse met
Wednesday. Page 5
§
Shine Like the Sun
Sunflowers stand tall in the Lab Life Garden
at Franklin Porter Graham Elementary School.
Conflicting Opinions: Do
Married Administrators
Face Conflicts of Interest?
BY JEANNE FUGATE
EDITOR
If President Bill Clinton suggested hir
ing his wife as attorney general, there’d be
all sorts of hoopla. But University officials
said they were not concerned with a mar
ried couple coexisting as high-ranking ad
ministrators.
With Stuart Bondurant’s appointment
as interim dean of
the School of Medi
cine, questions have
been raised about
possible conflicts of
interest with his
wife, Senior Univer
sity Legal Counsel
Susan Ehringhaus.
Administrators
have established a
protocol they said
would prevent
Ehringhaus from
being involved with
issues arising from
her husband’s of
fice. Employee and
Interim Dean of the
School of Medicine
STUART
BONDURANTis
married to UNO's
senior legal counsel.
student concerns go to Associate Univer
sity Legal Counsels David Parker and Mary
Sechriest, respectively.
“These procedures were put into place
to reassure people that there is no commu
nication or anything that people would be
concerned about,” Ehringhaus said.
Service Fraternity in Danger of Losing Student Union Space
BY STEPHANIE M. SHAW
STAFF WRITER
UNC’s Alpha Phi Omega fraternity, a campus
coed service organization that provides great ser
vice to the community, might lose some of its
Student Union space due to possible telecommu
nication connections centered there.
Richard Kwok, president of Alpha Phi Omega,
198
DTH/KATHLEEN OEHLER
People concerned about the conflict can
also go through other channels, like the
attorney general’s office, she said.
These procedures were re-instituted
when Bondurant, who retired as dean two
years ago, resumed his post July 3 when
then-Dean Michael Simmons resigned for
“personal reasons.”
Bondurant said he and Ehringhaus had
checked with the Board ofTrustees and the
N.C. Bar Association after their marriage
inMay 1991. “I was prepared to take a job
somewhere else if that was viewed as an
insurmountableobjection,”hesaid. “Both
of those bodies concluded that it was not. ”
Chancellor Michael Hooker said he saw
no conflict of interest.
“The interests are mutually supportive,
not in conflict,” Hooker said. “Stuart’s
interests are to do the best job possible for
the University. Susan’s interests are to do
the best job possible for the University.”
Hooker said conflicts of interests should
be managed, rather than avoided. “Ifthere
was some issue where there was some
appearance ofconflict of interest, she would
recuse herself,” Hooker said.
Attorney Alan McSurely said com
plaints would not make it far enough to
require Ehringhaus’ stepping out.
“Our office has seen this Bondurant-
Ehringhaus relationship not only inhibit or
chill employee grievances, but freeze them
See BONDURANT, Page 4
said the organization faces having their current
space in the basement of the Union taken away.
“I understand that they need space, but die
APO does great service,” said Kwok.
He said the Union proposed to remove two
shelves from another room, where Alpha Phi
Omega has their lost and found storage, to give the
organization room to move in their table and files.
Moreover, Kwok said things are definitely un
Tar Heels
Vs. the World
Past and present UNC
athletes prepare for the
Olympic Games. Page 7
Discrimination
Investigation Set
To Begin in Town
BYAMYCAPPIELLO
CITY EDITOR
Chapel Hill Town Manager Cal Horton and the Black Public
Works Association are preparing for a discrimination investiga
tion set to begin in a few short weeks.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will head
the investigation into whether the town of Chapel Hill employed
racially discriminatory hiring practices in the town’s Public Works
Department.
Alan McSurely, a representative of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People legal defense committee
and the legal counsel for the BPWA, said the investigation
stemmed from a grievance charge of discrimination filed with the
EEOC last winter.
McSurely said the grievance was filed after Chapel Hill’s Fiscal
Year 1995-1996 Budget proceedings led some black Public Works
Department members to believe the department had discrimina
tion problems.
“There are about 75 or 76 African-American employees in a
department of about 110. There were none in positions of manage
ment at that point,” McSurely said. “They asked the NAACP to
help with the grievance to eliminate discriminatory patterns in the
way promotions, salary adjustments and training decisions were
made, and we filed a grievance on behalf of 38 employees.”
Horton said he did not believe discrimination existed in the
Public Works Department or any other town department.
“The allegation is that there is a pattern of discrimination based
on race in the town Public Works Department,” Horton said.
“We don’t believe that is so. We don’t see any evidence of it.
“Quite to the contrary, the town has been careful to make sure
that employment practices come out fairly. We believe it’s the
right thing to do.”
McSurely said the EEOC had assigned an investigator, Eliza
beth Spencer, to the BPWA’s case.
“We understand that it’s been assigned to an investigator who
will interview people and look at the statistics and documentation
to see if the EEOC agrees with the charges or not,” he said.
McSurely said if the EEOC did find evidence of discrimina
tion, the ensuing process would be a speedy one.
“The EEOC, if it finds discrimination, will ask the town to sit
down with us and resolve the matter right then,” McSurely said.
“If the town still believes it hasn’t discriminated and doesn’t want
to work to resolve at that time, the EEOC can send it to the
Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. who will help the
BPWA sue the town.”
See DISCRIMINATION SUIT, Page 7
After Dr. Stuart Bondurant's recent promotion to interim
dean of the School of Medicine, the medical school’s
grievance process was changed to avoid potential conflicts
of interest with Bondurant's wife. Senior University Legal
Counsel Susan Ehringhaus. Ehringhaus will continue to
handle complaints from other departments.
CMKJUSTS ROM SCHOOL OF MEMCWE I
can be handled by anyone
student mpoyMoompmm
CONPUUKTS ROM SCHOOL OF MUCH I
(cannot be handled by Ehringhaus)
Mnwme
derway for the organization to move this summer
to an even smaller space.
“There is a generator located in the room which
will serve as the fiber optic connection, so we will
definitely be moving soon," Kwok said.
However, the fraternity has not been notified as
to when they should vacate the room.
SeeAPo,Page2
103 years of editorial freedom
Serving the students and the Univeisity
community sinoe 1993
News/Feaanes/Am/Sfonr 962-0245
Busme/Adem*g 1 / 962-1163
Volume 49
ChapetHtll, North Carolina