VOLUME 112, ISSUE 24
Student
affairs
search
narrows
Vice chancellor
pool down to If.
BY JOE SAUNDERS
STAFF WRITER
After 14 months, two searches
and a flood of applicants, the list of
candidates for anew vice chancel
lor for student affairs is down to
four finalists.
The finalists each will be
brought to campus in April for an
extensive two-day interview
process, during which they will
meet with UNC-Chapel Hill offi
cials and members of the campus
community.
The four final candidates are:
• George Harpster, vice presi
dent for student affairs at
Shippensburg (Penn.) University.
• Margaret Jablonski, dean for
campus life at Brown University.
• Edward Spencer, assistant vice
president for student affairs at the
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University.
• Craig Ullom, associate vice
president for campus life at the
University of Central Florida.
Search Committee Chairman
Steve Matson said he hoped to
organize a dinner event during
each of the finalists’ visits, at which
the candidate will sit down and
meet with a select group of stu
dents chosen by the student mem
bers of the search committee.
The candidates will then partic
ipate in two different public
forums: one open to all members
of the UNC-CH community and
the other open only to students.
The position of vice chancellor
for student affairs has not been
permanently filled since Sue
Kitchen stepped down in spring
2002 and Dean Bresciani was
immediately appointed as the
interim vice chancellor.
A search committee was formed
in February 2003 to look for a per
manent replacement. But after a
seven-month search, Chancellor
J?*mes Moeser and Provost Robert
Shelton decided to restart the
search, citing a lack of fully quali
fied and experienced candidates.
The second search committee
was formed last November and
employed a private search firm to
attract a larger pool of qualified
candidates. More than 90 candi
dates applied for the position.
SEE VCSA, PAGE 2
Town to dispense
open-space bonds
BY KATHRYN GRIM
SENIOR WRITER
Town residents could see a slight increase
in the tax rate after the Chapel Hill Town
Council revealed plans to sell this year’s first
$4 million of the bonds approved in
November’s municipal election.
Town staff reported Tuesday that follow
ing the proposed schedule for the $29.36
million in bond projects could push the tax
rate up three-tenths of a cent during the
2004 fiscal year and another 5.4 cents dur
ing the 2005 fiscal year.
The projections are uncertain because
they were all calculated with a 5 percent
interest rate though interest rates vary from
year to year.
If the council formally approves the bond
schedule proposed by town staff Tuesday,
this year’s issuance will be the smallest
through the 2009 fiscal year. According to
the proposed schedule, the town will issue
$7.8 million in bonds in 2006, SB.B million
in 2008 and SB.B million in 2009-
Mayor Kevin Foy said the council wants
to go ahead and issue the bonds because
residents will be anxious to see the result of
their November vote.
“The bonds were supported overwhelm
ingly by the voters. They do expect you to
start taking some action and start planning.”
Foy said the proposed schedule was based
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Junior Chase Foster looks over English instructor Eiyse Crystall's statement before reading it Wednesday during a press conference. The statement
is the first public defense Crystall has made since she came under scrutiny for criticizing a student's comments in opposition to homosexuality.
LECTURER SPEAKS
OUT ON DISPUTE
Elyse CrystalVs Ist response in e-mail controversy defends I teacher’s right 9
BY BRIAN HUDSON
ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR
After a month of being under intense scruti
ny, UNC English instructor Elyse Crystall
made her first public response Wednesday
about chastising a student who made com
ments opposing homosexuality in her class.
“I believed then and continue to believe
that it is a teacher’s right and responsibility to
guide, support and, when necessary for the
greater good of the classroom community,
limit student comments,” read her statement,
which was released at a press conference.
Junior Chase Foster read the statement
because “the hate mail (Crystall) has received
so far makes her afraid that if her picture
appears in the paper, she will become the tar
get of physical violence.”
In Crystall’s English 22 class, titled
“Literature and Multicultural Diversity,” a stu
dent, identified at the conference as Tim
Mertes, said he believed homosexuality to be
disgusting and morally impure during a Feb.
5 discussion about heterosexual privilege.
In an e-mail, Crystall expressed her desire
to maintain a classroom free of hate speech,
and she characterized the student as a “white,
heterosexual, Christian male” and “a perfect
example of privilege.”
“Open space is a rare
commodity, ... and we
want to purchase it
while it’s available.”
KEVIN FOY, CHAPEL HILL MAYOR
on the amount of debt the staff thinks the
town can incur responsibly. About 60 per
cent of the total bond amount, $17.6 million,
is scheduled to be issued in the 2008 and
2009 fiscal years when a significant portion
of the town’s prior debt will be paid.
The largest portion of bond money this
year will go toward preserving open space.
“Open space is a rare commodity in Chapel
Hill, and we want to purchase it while it’s
available,” Foy said.
The town spent $700,000 it doesn’t have
on hand on open space already this year,
mostly around Morgan Creek and Dry
Creek. The money for this space will come
from an allotment of about 30 percent, or
$1.2 million, of the money raised from
bonds in 2004. The remaining money has
not been spent.
The last SBOO,OOO in open-space bonds
SEE BONDS, PAGE 2
DIVERSIONS
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See what it takes to put together
a show at Cat's Cradle PAGE 5
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STUDENTS SPEAK OUT
J|
The incident came under attack by U.S.
Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., who encouraged
the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S.
Department of Education to investigate pos
sible free speech violations.
Crystall’s statement expressed her concern
over the welfare of her students during the
federal investigation by the office.
“I have been told that my students’ e-mails
to each other that they posted on our pass
word-protected, registered-student-only dis
cussion board will be handed over to the
federal government,” Foster read. “I wish that
I could protect them from this intervention,
and I regret enormously that I cannot.”
She also said in her statement that she fears
the legal precedent that the investigation
Campus stores to drop cigarettes
Professor's letter ; call
spur recent decision
BY IRIS PADGETT
STAFF WRITER
UNC Student Stores has decided to
phase out cigarette sales at all its campus
locations in response to a complaint by a
University professor and a UNC
Hospitals smoking cessation program.
John Jones, director of Student
Stores, said he reviews the issue of sell
ing cigarettes in the Circus Room and
the Campus Y, which are divisions of
Student Stores, almost every year.
He said there are complaints about
cigarette sales every couple of years, but
the combination of the professor’s com
plaint, the hospital program and what he
said is the public’s growing consensus
about the detrimental physical effects of
cigarettes led him to ban the sales.
Marc Lange, the philosophy professor
who suggested that Student Stores stop
selling cigarettes, said he called Jones
because he thought it was polite to give
him a warning about a letter to the editor
he had written. Lange’s letter was pub
lished in The Daily Tar Heel on March 17.
Lange said in both his letter and dur
ing the phone call that he thought it was
wrong that the stores would sell ciga
rettes while the hospital tried to help stu
dents stop smoking.
Jones said he agreed and decided the
could establish.
“If it is found that referring to a student as
having racial and gender privilege constitutes a
violation of laws designed to protect the his
torically disenfranchised populations of women
and people of color, then these taws will be ren
dered as meaningless,” Foster read from
Crystall’s statement. “This would constitute a
setback of civil rights of historic proportion.”
A group of students from Crystall’s class
read a letter, addressed to Chancellor James
Moeser and Provost Robert Shelton, defend
ing Crystall’s actions and attacked the investi
gation on the grounds that it erodes civil rights.
“For U.S. Representative Walter Jones to
begin an investigation based on racial and sex
ual harassment grounds is completely pre
tentious, especially since civil rights policies
were put in place to protect the rights of
underrepresented groups, not the dominant
majority,” stated the letter, signed by several of
Crystall’s students.
“The efforts of racial and religious minorities
and women in the United States will become
null and void if a professor can be accused of
discrimination for stating the race and sex of a
student who identifies with the privileged
SEE RESPONSE, PAGE 2
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Sophomore C.J. Cox, an employee at the Circus Room, stands by the store's inventory
of cigarettes. Circus Room is among the campus stores that will stop tobacco sales.
same day to discontinue the sale of ciga
rettes.
Lange said that although cigarettes
are legal products and students have a
right to buy them, he still thinks the ban
is a good move. “I’m delighted, delighted
and very surprised,” he said.
Officials from South Campus Mini
Mart could not be reached for comment
on whether that store also will end its
cigarette sales. The store is not run by
Student Stores but by Aramark, the food
service provider for Chase Hall.
SPORTS
SENIOR MOMENT
Nick Monroe and the Tar Heels trounce
Wake in their final home match PAGE 11
TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2004
BOTto
discuss
dorm
options
Trustees rethink
Morrison plans
BY RAND ROBINS
STAFF WRITER
For some members of the
University’s governing board,
dynamite is the preferable means
for dealing with the high-rise res
idence halls on South Campus.
University planners have been
working for more than a year to
revamp Morrison Residence Hall,
a renovation process that is sched
uled to take the building offline
between 2005 and 2007, and the
UNC Board of Trustees was
expected to approve changes at its
May meeting.
But at their meeting last week,
trustees asked planners to elabo
rate on the benefits of renovation
versus demolishing the building.
“We are spending hundreds of
millions of dollars to upgrade
South Campus,” Thistee Rusty
Carter said Wednesday. “Shouldn’t
we consider removing these some
what dysfunctional buildings?”
To ensure a sound direction for
South Campus, trustees asked for
a serious re-evaluation of its
options for residence hall develop
ment, said Bruce Runberg, associ
ate vice chancellor for planning
and construction.
“The housing market has
changed in town, and they wanted
to make sure all the projects were
financially sound,” Runberg said.
“New board members want to make
sure that we’re on the right track.”
Renovation is the most cost
effective solution, but some board
members are concerned that the
$25 million to S3O million it
would take to fund the renovation
will go to waste, said Christopher
Payne, director of housing and res
idential education.
The architects drafting the
changes for Morrison even con
ceded that the high-rise buildings
are not ideal for student housing,
Carter said.
The renovation planning is now
in its advanced stage, but several
trustees said they do not want this
to deter them from examining
other options that might serve the
University best in the long run. “We
SEE MORRISON, PAGE 2
Although essentially one person
sparked the end of cigarette sales in the
majority of campus locations, Lange said,
he didn’t think it was unfair to students
who didn’t have a say in the process.
“It is no more undemocratic than
starting to sell cigarettes,” he said.
“They’re paid to decide what to sell and
what not to sell.”
Circus Room sales manager Ron
Wood said the news has been received
SEE CIGARETTES, PAGE 2
WEATHER
TODAY Few showers, H 57, L 40
FRIDAY Showers, H 56, L 40
SATURDAY Partly cloudy, H 64, L 38