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Sening the students ami the University
community since 1893
As Vote Nears, Leaders Seek Input on Tuition
Bv Matthew Smith
Staff Writer
Forty-eight hours.
That is the amount of time student
leaders had to
gauge student
opinion on a
proposal that
would raise
tuition for all
students next
fall.
Student Opinion
Divided on
Tuition Increase
See Page 4
Another v __„
Older
UNC Celebrates 206th Birthday
Bv John O'Hale
Staff Writer
Freed from the responsibility of teaching morn
ing classes, professors donned brightly colored aca
demic regalia to celebrate the University’s 206th
birthday on Tuesday.
Along with students
and administrators, they
assembled in front of the
Old Well to participate in
University Day cere
monies.
“It is one of our most important days in the cam-
mu RACHEL LEONARD
Interim Chancellor Bill McCoy recognizes
Sen. Howard Lee, D-N.C., with a
Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Officials Dedicate Center
Bv Kim Mimgh
Staff Writer
It will be the new town square of
UNC: the living room, the corner
market and the gossip fence.
Provost Dick Richardson laid out
his aspirations for the newjames M.
Johnston Center for Undergraduate
Excellence to a crowd of 300 stu
dents and faculty members during
Tuesday’s University Day festivities.
Richardson was one of six speak
ers who hailed the new center’s com
mitment to UNC’s tradition of dis
tinguished undergraduate education.
The building, which will open in
January, will house the Honors
Murder Suspect Captured After Suicide Attempt
Bv Jacob McConnico
City Editor
A man suspected of murdering a co
worker at a Mebane manufacturing
plant was found lying in a pool of his
own blood in a Savannah, Ga., motel
room Tuesday.
Billy Jerome Elliot, 34, had eluded
Orange County Sheriff’s deputies for
four days before a cleaning woman
walked in on his limp, unconscious
body on her way to clean the bathroom.
Mike Wilkins, an investigator with
the Savannah police, said Elliot had
Student Body President Nic Heinke
and Graduate and Professional Student
Federation President Lee Conner, both
of whom sit on the Chancellor’s
Committee on Faculty Salaries and
Benefits, said Tuesday that they were not
going to rest easy during Fall Break.
The committee presented a proposal
Monday that would combine tuition
increases with legislative funding to
solve faculty salary woes.
The committee was formed after
UNC dropped in national rankings
pus calendar,” said interim Chancellor Bill McCoy.
University Day, a college holiday since 1877,
marks the anniversary of the groundbreaking of
Old East Residence Hall. “Like the tenacious Davie
Poplar, the physical roots of higher education were
sunk deep into the rich North Carolina soil,” Board
of Trustees chairwoman Anne Cates said.
Opposite South Building, the assemblage lined
up in pain for the processional to Memorial Hall.
Swathed in light blue ribbon, student marshals
formed the head and tail of the parade.
After parading to Memorial Hall, guests were
welcomed by McCoy, UNC-system President
Molly Broad and other administrators.
“This is an event that gives the University com
munity the chance to come together and reflect on
our unique history,” Broad said. “It is a time for
looking back and looking forward.”
Presentation of distinguished alumna and alum
nus awards followed the opening remarks. The
University bestowed the annual award upon five
alumni, a tradition dating back to 1906. Sen.
Howard Lee, D-Orange, was one award recipient.
“There is nothing more special than to be hon
ored by one’s alma mater,” Broad said.
The program featured a keynote speech and
musical performances by the UNC Chamber
Singers and the Crown Chamber Bass.
Tuesday’s theme was one of finding UNC’s role
in the millennium. “This is a time in which Chapel
See UNIVERSITY DAY, Page 11
More Coverage
of This Year’s
University Day
See Pages 10 and 11
Program, the Office of
Undergraduate Research and
Carolina Leadership Development,
as well as many first-year seminars.
“A new’ generation of students will
now enter the building,” interim
Chancellor Bill McCoy said. “(It) will
strengthen the intellectual communi
ty of Carolina and enhance the
undergraduate environment.
Whether or not you are entering the
Johnston Center for the first time,
you will see that it is a very special
place.”
College of Arts and Sciences Dean
Risa Palm said the center embodied
the UNC vision.
“It gives Carolina the resource to
checked into the motel at 12:55 a.m.
Tuesday and had cut his wrists sometime
during the midmoming hours.
“When we got to the motel he was
lying on the bed in a pool of his own
blood,” Wilkins said. “He was respon
sive but unable to answer our ques
tions.”
Witnesses had stated that they saw
Elliot walk into Hancor Inc., a drainage
pipe plant located on U.S. 70 West in
Orange County, with a sawed-off shot
gun at 11:42 p.m. He pointed it at
Darren Jerome Brantley and pul two
slugs into the 37-year-old man’s side.
Wednesday, October 13, 1999
Volume 107, Issue 94
from third to fifth and lost top professors
due to comparatively low faculty
salaries. The group is slated to vote on
the tuition increase Monday.
Conner said the short time he had
before casting his vote on the proposal
might severely limit his ability to voice
the concerns of all students.
To counter this, he and Heinke
scrambled during the past two days to
put together emergency polling efforts,
Conner said. “We are under an extreme
time crunch.”
not only be good, but to be excellent
in undergraduate education,” Palm
said “That is Carolina’s goal.”
James Leloudis, associate dean of
the Honors Program, alluded to the
late Chancellor Michael Hooker’s
call for a “renaissance in undergrad
uate education.”
“It embodies a tradition of excel
lence in education that is as old as the
University itself,” he said.
Richardson emphasized the social
life that would thrive in the center.
“The Graham Memorial (Building)
features the latest in hi-tech teaching
and learning, and at the same time
See DEDICATION, Page 11
Brantley was rushed to UNC
Hospitals but was pronounced dead on
arrival. Elliot fled the scene and before
leaving the slate, stopped and spent
most of Friday at the home of Tanya
Patrice Highsmith at 122 S. sth St. in
Springlake.
Wilkens said the first thing officers
did when they begin an investigation
was run names through the National
Crime Investigations Computer. A sys
tem search found that Elliot was wanted
for first-degree murder in Orange
County.
It would have been easy for the case
Traveling is a fool's paradise.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
As their first push to gauge student
reaction, Heinke and Conner hosted a
meeting of student leaders Monday
night to offer details on the plan.
At the meeting, Heinke and Conner
gave out their e-mail addresses to stu
dents to solicit individual responses.
They have also e-mailed the full text of
the proposal to many students.
Heinke said they hoped information
would spread by word-of-mouth.
Conner said he felt his efforts might not
be enough and were certainly not as
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DTH/RACHEL LEONARD
UNC faculty members march through the doors of Memorial Hall
for the 1999 University Day awards and address.
- ~ *•< JR - ' I
DTH/RACHEL LEONARD
UNC alumni Rhonda Wynn (left) and William Hooks look over part of
the new James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence.
to be dismissed as just another suicide
attempt, but the department always
looks for a reason why someone tried to
kill themselves, he said. “We run every
one through the computer - suspects,
witnesses, victims - everybody gets run
through the system," he said.
Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy
Greg Strowd said Elliot served time in
prison for a murder he committed in
Norwalk, Conn., in 1990.
Elliot w’as in prison from May 1990 to
May 1998 for murder and assault
charges, Strowd said.
Accor-ding to an Orange County
much as he would have liked. “I feel
frustrated,” he said. “(As a leader), I feel
very frustrated to have a real, strong
desire to hear peoples’ thoughts and
desires and not have the time.”
However, Conner said students
would not lack representation in
Monday’s committee meeting. “Nic and
I will still be veiy strong in our efforts.”
Conner said the proposal hit him
with a double whammy of a time crunch
See PLANS, Page 11
Sheriff’s Department press release,
copies of the murder warrants were
faxed to the Savannah Police
Department.
Wilkins said Elliot would have an
extradition hearing as soon as he was
well enough to go to jail.
“If he waives extradition he could be
back in Orange County in five to 10
days,” he said.
“If he fights it, it could take up to two
months.”
The City Editor can be reached
at citydesk@unc.edu
N'ews/Features/Arts/Sports 962-0245
Business/Advertising 962-1163
Chapel Hill. North Carolina
© 1999 DTH Publishing Corp.
All rights reserved.
Peer Schools'
Faculty-Pay
Plans Vary
UC-Berkeley and UCLA pay
their professors more than
UNC-CH but have managed
to keep tuition rates stable.
Bv Lam Harac
Staff Writer
.Although UNC-Chapel Hill officials
approved a plan to raise tuition in hopes
of making faculty salaries more com
petitive, other universities have been
able to offer high salaries without affect
ing students’ savings.
Two University of California schools
against which UNC-CH measures itself,
UC-Berkeley and UC-Los Angeles, pay
full professors $103,600 and $101,400,
respectively, significandy more than
UNC-CH’s $88,700.
Yet the UC system has avoided
tuition increases for the last five years
by relying on state funding. In addition,
undergraduates received a 5 percent
tuition reduction in each of the last two
years and graduates received the same
amount in the last year, said UC-system
spokesman Brad Hayward.
The UC system has increased faculty
salaries by 4.5 percent to 5 percent in
the last four years because the schools
“need to keep pace with our compari
son institutions,” Hayward said. Future
salary increases - holding at about 4.5
percent - will be aimed at maintaining
their standing.
The increases also prevent recruit
ment and retention problems such as
those plaguing UNC-CH.
UNC-CH has historically increased
salaries by about 3 percent per year.
But a recent drop in a U.S. News &
World Report ranking from third to
fifth, as well as salary competition from
other schools, has prompted University
officials to request an annual 5 percent
increase in faculty salaries for at least
the next five years.
To fund the salary boosts, in state
undergraduate tuition would be raised
by about SSOO over two years, and out
of-state students’ cost would increase
$1,350 over three years. Graduate stu
dents would pay $1,500 and $2,550
more over three years for in-state and
out-of-state tuition, respectively.
Another peer institution, the
University of Virginia, has also felt the
strain of salary competitiveness.
The school has had an average 6.5
percent salary increase in recent years,
said Louise Dudley, director of univer
sity relations.
A salary increase is necessary “if we
have trouble attracting the kind of fac
ulty we want here because we can’t
match offers h orn other places,” Dudley
said. UVa. also pays its professors more
than UNC-CH, offering $96,500.
“The state goal is to bring faculty
See INSTITUTIONS, Page 11
INSIDE,
Surprise Guest
Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C , appeared
at the UNC Young Democrats'
meeting to offer congratulations for its
60th anniversary. See Page 9.
A Legend Dies
Basketball great Wilt “The Stilt"
Chamberlain, was found dead of a
heart attack Tuesday at age 63. The
former Laker once scored 100 points
in a game. See Page 7.
Closing Shop
The Daily Tar Heel will not publish
during Fall Break. We will be back or
the stands Monday. Oct. 18. Have ;
great vacation!
Today’s Weather
Rain;
High 60s.
Thursday: Sunny;
Low 80s.
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