4
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2005
BOG continues tuition program
NCSSM students to keep waivers
BY HALLEY KUEFFER
STAFF WRITER
The UNC-system Board of
Governors decided last week to
continue the program that gives
free tuition at system schools to
graduates of the N.C. School of
Science and Math.
System officials think the pro
gram will improve the quality of
students who graduate from state
universities by keeping graduates
of the Durham magnet school,
which attracts some of the states
brightest students, in North
Carolina.
“The goal is to keep more bright
students here,” said Gretchen
Bataille, UNC-system senior Vice
president for academic affairs.
Bataille said the merit-based
tuition waivers also encourage
more competition among prospec
MUSIC
FROM PAGE 1
Theta.
“Before the band started, Doug
worked for a fraternity and heard
Willie Hargraves’ band play,” said
his brother John Clark, the band’s
saxophonist.
There, Doug Clark first heard
the song that would become his
band’s name and trademark.
“He heard the song ‘Hot Nuts,’”
John Clark said. “Everywhere we
go people ask for that song, and
they add verses.”
Fellow band member Prince
Taylor began singing for the group
in 1959 and continued on and off
for 28 years.
‘ The real song is called ‘Jada,’”
Taylor said of “Hot Nuts.” “We
made up some verses, just sugges
tive stuff, nothing rough.
“Then the students would add
verses, and the song got rougher.”
The band developed a repertoire
of popular R&B tunes and humor
ous musical sketches, which it
adapted according to its musical
venue.
“Wednesdays and Thursdays were
for the clubs, Fridays and Saturdays
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five NCSSM students.
Applications to NCSSM
increased by 43 percent from
2004 to 2005, an increase that
could stem from the tuition grant
program, according to a report
by the UNC-system Office of the
President.
In fall 2004,190 graduates from
NCSSM enrolled in UNC-system
schools. And 121 of these students
benefit from the NCSSM Tuition
Grant Program.
The reason for the discrepancy
is that the state’s 2004 Technical
Corrections Act limits the amount
of grant money students can get if
the funding they receive from other
sources exceeds the overall cost of
tuition.
The BOG said last week that it
would like to reform this aspect of
the waiver.
were for the college,” John Clark said.
“We did R&B at the clubs and more
comedy at the colleges.”
The band’s style and history
helped give it a unique place in the
community.
“I believe there weren’t any
other black bands around here that
I know of,” Taylor said.
Battle said he remembers the
band well. “Everyone knew them.”
Though the band’s rise to promi
nence coincided with the begin
ning of the integration movement,
John Clark recalls the band being
well-received locally and in other
colleges throughout the South.
“We probably played at 200
colleges and universities before
the movement even started,” John
Clark said. “We played colleges
in Mississippi, Alabama, all over.
Colleges were fine.
“Travel situations and places
to eat outside the colleges were a
problem.”
When segregation closed doors,
many fraternities were happy
to help the band out. Members
helped find black families to board
the band, or even hosted the band
in their fraternity houses.
“We didn’t consider it trouble
From Page Three
“Students with the greatest
financial need don’t benefit because
the grant is only for tuition,”
Bataille said.
“If they get a Pell Grant, they
cannot benefit from this grant.”
The policy also does not benefit
lower-income graduates, who can
not afford the costs of a college edu
cation, according to the report.
But the program is not without
opposition.
“The whole thing is a bad idea,”
said George Leef, executive director
of the John William Pope Center
for Higher Education Policy. “It
cannot be improved; it needs to
simply be dropped.”
Leef helped author a report from
the Pope Center on Jan. 26 that
called the grant program unfair.
He added that the program
offers no benefits to the econo
my or the labor market of North
Carolina.
But NCSSM officials say students
because it was all we knew,” Taylor
said. “Doug wouldn’t take a whole
lot of junk back then.”
Battle said he saw the band
perform at his alma mater, North
Carolina Agricultural & Technical
State University.
“I think they preferred playing
at the fraternities,” Battle said.
“The fraternities got more into the
dialogue and the lyrics.”
And these lyrics helped contrib
ute to the band’s reputation.
“‘Hot Nuts’ was very risque at
the time,” John Clark said. “What
we did was before its time.
“People who have seen the movie
‘Animal House’ say we should have
been in the movie ‘Animal House.’”
Taylor said the students’ energy
added to the tone of the shows.
“You know, it was the sorority
girls who added the dirtiest jokes
to ‘Hot Nuts,’” he said.
The band recorded nine albums,
but some radio stations and record
labels would not play their music.
Their albums, released on the
independent Gross Records label,
sold entirely by word of mouth.
“They never had any major top
10 records or anything,” Battle said.
“But we’d see a lot of them.
“It wasn’t like Ray Charles com
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leave their homes at a younger age
and enter a strenuous academic
environment making them valid
targets of a tuition waiver.
“Students make a lot of sacri
fices,” said Craig Rowe, director for
communications for NCSSM. “I see
these tuition programs as UNC
system talent identification.”
Proponents of the program also
argue that after graduating from a
UNC-system school, a majority of
Science and Math will remain in
North Carolina to pursue a job.
“Students meet connections in
state, and this helps you decide
where to get a job,” Rowe said.
But Leef said students won’t
turn away jobs from outside the
state because they graduated from
a system school.
“The top students are unlikely to
want to stay in North Carolina.”
Contact the State & National
Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.
ing to town, but they were very
popular.”
The Hot Nuts’ popularity con
tinues to span generations.
They still appear at the occasional
fraternity party, but more recently,
their main gigs have been weddings
and reunions, John Clark said.
“We play for people who
remembered us from years past,”
Clark said. “Now when we play for
kids, they tell us their mom and
dad loved us, and they’ll call them
during the party.”
The band also has a scholarship
named in its honor.
After Doug Clark’s passing
in 2002, University alumnus
Mike Haley gave $25,000 to the
University to create the Doug Clark
“Thanks for the Memories” scholar
ship fund to honor Clark’s legend
ary place in campus history.
Haley noted Doug Clark’s leg
end in a spring 2003 edition of
Carolina Connections, a news
letter of the Office of University
Development.
“Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts
are as much a part of Chapel Hill as
Frank McGuire and Dean Smith.”
Contact the City Editor
at citydesk@unc.edu.
GPSF
FROM PAGE 1
the past few years but that there
still is room for improvement.
“I think we’ve made great
strides over the last two years,” he
said. “We’re positioned to improve
next year.”
Bushman’s initiatives for
sparking the growth of the GPSF
included paying attention to park
ing on campus, tuition and teach
ing assistant stipends, along with
sending newsletters and fostering
GRADES
FROM PAGE 1
gested creating a mean grade point
average of 2.7 for all departments.
As enforcement, those that failed
to maintain this average would
receive budget sanctions.
Gordon said the committee never
gave the suggestion serious consid
eration, and is now focusing on in
depth methods of evaluation.
“This year, we are focusing not
on whether grades are getting
higher they have been increas
ing slowly but not dramatically over
the years —but on some disparities
in grading practices,” he said.
Gordon said differences in grad
ing practices are obvious. The issue,
he said, is determining whether
these disparities breed inequality.
Judith Wegner, chairwoman of
the faculty, said she recognizes the
difficulty of creating a University
wide solution.
“There are different faculty, dif
ferent courses, different studies
HEALTH CARE
FROM PAGE 1
state but does not include deduct
ibles and other out-of-pocket
costs.
If employees want coverage for
their spouses and/or families, they
pay about $428 a month.
Nothing is finalized, Landry
said, but task force members are
looking at several options. Among
them are plans for employees to
continue to pay no premium and
be covered by the state. But they
also could have the option of pay
ing from S3O to SSO a month
for greater coverage, with a zero
deductible.
Another option could be fam
ily plans, which Landry said could
potentially be in the range of $350
per month.
Perhaps the biggest differences
would come with one plan that
would offer coverage for single
parent families, and another that
would cover only employees and
their spouses. Neither plan is now
offered by the state.
In addition, the task force is
looking at basing payments on a
sliding scale based on salary.
The idea is to take the money
spent by the state on university
employees and redirect it to the
new plan. Landry said a consul
tant to the task force estimated
that pulling out of the system
could save an estimated S3O mil
lion, which could be reinvested to
improve health care.
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conversation in online forums.
“The GPSF is here to help,” she
said. “We’ve started something
that can only get bigger.”
Parker Wiseman, GPSF vice
president for internal affairs,
praised the group, calling his time
with the organization “an absolute
joy”
“I was so pleased ... to find this
great community of students,” he
said.
Contact the University Editor
at udesk@unc.edu.
and different scenarios, so it’s hard
to create uniformity,” she said.
Wegner said the Faculty Council
continues to discuss other means of
measuring academic progress and
accomplishment by evaluating stu
dents on what they have learned and
what skills they have mastered.
The policy committee suggested
a grade-ranking system to aug
ment the current grading system.
Similar to the Ratings Percentage
Index used in college sports, this
system would rank student perfor
mance against classmates to get a
better performance assessment.
Gordon said students should not
be penalized for taking classes with
teachers who grade more harshly.
“If you want to extend the met
aphor, students should be judged
not just by wins and losses, but also
by the strength of their schedule,”
he said. “We’re just trying to find
ways of evening the playing field.”
Contact the University Editor
at udesk@unc.edu.
Laurie Charest, associate vice
chancellor for human resources
at UNC-Chapel Hill, added that
problems such as high deductibles,
out-of-pocket costs and a lack of
choices are hurting faculty and
staff recruitment and retainment.
She cited examples of prospec
tive employees turning down
jobs because of the health plans
offered.
“We’re very concerned about the
coverage that our employees have
for health insurance,” she said.
Some have expressed concern as
to how the logistics of the new plan
would be worked out.
Dr. Jack Walker, executive
administrator for the State Health
Plan, said he isn’t sure if the uni
versity plan would be able to keep
administrative costs as low as the
state, which runs things at 3 cents
on the dollar.
He also said he is concerned
about where employees will go
after they retire and whether they
will have to return to the state
plan.
Landry said system officials
have not reached an answer for
that.
But he said that their consul
tants had been talking with legisla
tors and that they seem supportive
of the idea.
“They’ve been receptive. I
believe the (General Assembly)
will get behind this idea.”
Contact the State & National
Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.