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BOG Members Critique Broad's Tuition Plan
By Cheri Melfi
Assistant State & National Editor
WILMINGTON - UNC-system
President Molly Broad faced tough ques
tions Friday, as the Board of Governors
got its first offi
tasteofher pro
posed tuition
plan.
Students and
BOG members
took issue with
Center Questions
UNC Spending
Policies
See Page 5
Broad calling the plan a “stop-gap” or
temporary solution, not permitting some
UNC-system schools to submit individ
ual tuition increase proposals and failing
to ensure that financial aid would cover
as
A 4
DTH/ MEREDITH LEE
The Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade winds its way down Franklin Street on Monday, ending at North
Roberson Street. A dove, carried by the organization Peace Action and other groups, flew above the marchers.
2000 Election Process Takes Shape
By Lauren Beal
Assistant University Editor
With student elections less than a month
away, hopeful candidates and their supporters
are hitting the campaign trail to win students’
votes.
But members of the 1999-2000 Elections
Board have been work
ing hard singe
November to ensure the
process runs smoothly.
Election procedures
follow a strict timeline
and require board mem
bers to organize early.
Throughout November
and December, mem
bers must contact poll
sites about reserving
tables, create a preliminary elections calendar
and order new ballots.
Although some students announced their
intentions to run for
office earlier in the
fall, petitions and
campaign packets
were available on the
last day of classes in
December.
Student Groups
Share Opinions
On Elections
See Page 4
In order to be eligible for the Feb. 8 elec
tion, student body president candidates have
until Jan. 25 to gather 500 signatures. Other
candidates have to gather fewer signatures but
must also meet the Jan. 25 deadline.
While candidates focus on recruiting sup
porters and publicizing their goals, Elections
If you're going to play the game properly, you'd better know every rule.
Barbara Jordan
the increase.
Broad’s plan would raise student costs
at UNC-Chapel Hill by $475 over three
years to fund capital improvements and
faculty salaries.
The BOG will meet Feb. 11 to vote
on Broad’s proposal, and if approved,
the plan will then be presented to the
N.C. General Assembly in May.
Broad outlined the need for funding
capital needs, faculty salaries and finan
cial aid, while presenting her plan as an
appropriate solution. She said the capi
tal fee would create a “stop-gap” solu
tion to funding difficulties.
But Jeff Nieman, UNC Association of
Student Governments president and
BOG member, said calling the capital
Board members are busy training volunteers
and organizing the elections process.
Throughoutjanuary, members must set up
absentee voting, arrange for Forum Week and
contact student organizations to solicit elec
tions volunteers. “We ordered new ballots, we
have anew system to tabulate them ... we’re
in the process of updating that,” said Elections
Board Chairwoman Catherine Yates.
During Forum Week, scheduled this year
from Jan. 31 through Feb. 4, student organi
zations host forums for candidates to debate
varying issues. In the past, the Black Student
Movement, Queer Network for Change,
Campus Y and the Dialectic and
Philanthropic Societies have hosted forums.
After candidates turn in their completed
petitions and attend the mandatory candidate
meeting, they must focus their attention on
their platforms.
The Daily Tar Heel runs candidate plat
forms during the week preceding the election.
DTH endorsements, decided by the newspa
per’s Editorial Board after interviews with all
candidates, run during the same week.
The final days before the election are filled
with campaigning and publicity.
But the candidates, and those working on
their campaigns, must adhere to strict rules
from the Department of University Housing
about where posters can be placed and when
door-to-door campaigning is allowed.
If a candidate violates guidelines, such as
campaigning door-to-door outside of the hours
of 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., he or she is subject to fines.
Candidates continue campaigning through
Election Day, when they usually line the
Tuesday, January 18, 2000
Volume 107, Issue 135
fee a “stop-gap” measure was misleading
because students would be forced to pay
it for the next 20 years. “This is the fee
my children are going to pay when they
come to college,” he said.
Despite the board’s objections, Broad
said the increases were needed to cover
the costs of projects already in progress.
She said $420 million of the total
$750 million needed would be used to
finish projects the state legislature had
already begun to fund. “This is a very
pragmatic approach to addressing a very
urgent problem,” Broad said.
BOG Chairman Ben Ruffin also said
the capital fee was necessary. “I’d prefer
that we did not have to raise tuition,"
Ruffin said. “But I went into labs and
Elections Timeline
Elections season officially kicks off Jan. 25,
when candidates begin campaigning.
Jan. 25
■ Petitions due
■ 7 p.m. mandatory candidates
meeting
■lO p.m. campaigning may begin
after meeting
Jan. 31-Feb. 4
■ Forum Week
■ Elections
■ Runoffs if necessary
quads and huddle outside of the polls, armed
with posters and brightly-colored leaflets.
But for Elections Board members, Feb. 8 will
mean a long day filled with work. Organizers
must set out poll-site logs for students to sign in,
stack ballots and tape up district maps.
After the poll sites close, witnesses watch
organizers seal the ballot boxes and return
them to a locked office until they are counted
and results announced later that night.
All candidates must remove their publicity
and posters within 72 hours of the election,
except those involved in a runoff.
The University Editor can be reached at
udesk@unc.edu.
saw foil on the tables, I saw university
buildings that are in desperate need of
maintenance. We must do whatever we
can to rectify this.”
Broad’s plan consists of a systemwide
SIOO capital fee for the next two years
followed by an additional $75 increase
for the third year. The $275 fee will be in
effect for 20 years.
Broad said the capital fee would gen
erate $37.5 million, half of what was nec
essary to finance capital bonds to fund
the system’s most urgent capital projects.
The plan calls for the legislature to
match student contribution with $37.5
million for the next fiscal year.
Along with the capital fee, UNC-
Chapel Hill and N.C. State University
MLK Rally Targets
Racism ; Education
By Kathryn McLamb
Staff Writer
Carrying banners demanding an end
to institutional racism, marchers took to
Franklin Street on Monday shouting,
“Education is a right not just for the rich
and white.”
In celebration of Martin Luther King
Jr. Day, the
Chapel Hill-
Carrboro
Martin Luther
King Jr.
Coalition orga
nized a rally
For Complete
Coverage of MLK
Day Festivities
See Page 7
and march to raise awareness of the edu
cational inequity for minority students
in the area.
A worship service honoring King al
the First Baptist Church on North
Roberson Street concluded Monday’s
celebration.
“I think we have a long way to go in
this community in achieving justice and
equality for people of color,” Carrboro
Alderman Mark Dorosin said.
5 Students Join Race
For SBP, 4 to Fight
For CAA Leadership
By Katie Abet
University Editor
Although the official filing date is still a week away,
five students have put their names in the running for
student body president, sparking the potential for a
hotly contested race.
With election day just three weeks away, candidates
are already tweaking their platforms and have begun
soliciting support from students across campus.
Two students announced their candidacy before
Winter Break. Brad Matthews, former senior adviser to
current Student Body President Nic Heinke, announced
his intent tocun for the post Nov. 30, resigning from his
position.
If elected, Matthews said he would like to expand
P2P Xpress Shuttle services, reform C-TOPS and sim
plify perspectives in graduation requirements.
Junior Michael Harris also joined the race in late
December. Harris resigned from his posts as an
Elections Board member and counsel on the student
attorney general’s stall to pursue his campaign.
Harris said public service, increased campus diversity
and more student financial aid were core to his platform.
Since the start of semester, three other candidates have
also publicly declared their intent to run for the post.
Junior Josh Ray, a North Campus Residence Hall
Association governor, said he sought the post to
enhance greater student involvement at UNC.
Ray said that if elected, he w ould work for less expen-
See RACE, Page 4
students would pay an additional S2OO
in tuition to fund faculty salaries.
This plank of Broad’s plan follows
Boards ol Trustees’ proposals at five
UNC-system schools to raise tuition.
The plan would not raise tuition at
UNC-Wilmington, UNC-Charlotte and
Eastern Carolina University, although
all submitted such proposals.
Some members of the board’s budget
and finance committee, which will vote
on the proposal before it reaches the full
board in February, expressed concern
about this facet of Broad’s plan.
Budget and Finance Secretary
Addison Bell and Robert Warwick, vice
See BOG, Page 4
“1 don’t think there is anywhere
where that is more glaring than in our
schools.”
The diverse crowd of an estimated
600 people braved Monday’s freezing
temperatures to applaud and cheer the
issues speakers addressed, including
problems minorities face in community
schools front kindergarten to the uni
versity level.
Speaker Erica Smiley, a member of
Student Congress, encouraged those
gathered to become involved in minor
ity educational issues.
“We’ve got to get off our heels and
pay attention,” she said. “We have to get
off the defense and get on the offense:
We all suffer from a lack of educational
access.”
Other speakers addressed the nega
tive'trends-faring-minorities in such
areas as academic performance and
achievement.
“Why is it that dropout rates are high
er for (blacks and Latinos) than for
See MARCH, Page 4
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Chapel Hiil, North Carolina
6 2000 DTH Publishing Corp.
All rights reserved.
Students
Say Fight
Not Over
Student leaders blamed the
lack of protesters at Friday's
BOG meeting on scheduling
problems, not apathy.
By Kathleen Hunter
Assistant State & National Editor
After months of massive student
opposition to proposed tuition increas
es, a sparse number of students attend
ed Friday’s Board of Governors tuition
workshop at UNC-Wilmington.
But student leaders who have spoken
out against raising tuition deny that stu
dent opposition has deteriorated.
“Everyone knows that next month’s
meeting is where the decision is going
to be made,” said UNC Association of
Student Governments President Jeff
Nieman, referring to the BOG’s upcom
ing meeting in Chapel Hill.
“There will be a very healthy student
presence at that meeting.”
Matthew Smith, a graduate philoso
phy student and a member of the
Coalition for Educational Access, said
his group made a decision not to attend
the meeting.
He said the fact that it was in
Wilmington during the first week of
classes made it difficult for many stu
dents to attend.
On Friday, BOG members partici
pated in a workshop where UNC-sys
tem President Molly Broad formally
presented her much-anticipated tuition
recommendations for the first time.
Broad's plan would increase student
costs by $275 over three years in an
effort to finance capital improvements.
The proposal would also raise tuition
S2OO at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C.
State University to fund faculty salaries.
Nieman, who also sits as a nonvoting
member on the BOG, said he had some
genuine practical and ideological con
cerns about both the capital fee and the
tuition aspect of the plan.
Before the Feb. 11 meeting when the
BOG wall vote on the proposal, Nieman
said he would be working to gauge
BOG members’ positions on Broad’s
plan and constructing a viable alterna
tive.
“I hold true to the belief that you
See STUDENTS, Page 4
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