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' Sa% (Bar Mrri Summer schools lose funds BY KRISTIN PRATT STAFF WRITER N.C. lawmakers took a step, toward realizing Alice Cooper’s vision of a school-free summer. Or, at least, a subsidy-free sum mer. A provision in the state budget eliminated subsidies for certain sys tem activities that are funded by a combination of university and state revenue namely summer school. That leaves some UNC-system summer-school programs search ing for funding. And school offi cials say the costs most likely will be passed along to students. Because system schools received different levels of funding for the program, some campuses will feel the loss more sharply than others. “Funds by the state have been insufficient for a long time,” said Jeff Davies, vice president for finance for the UNC system. LOTTERY FROM PAGE 1 said after the vote. “When you see what’s going on in the country and what’s going on in the Southeast, we needed to get this behind us.” North Carolina is the last state on the East Coast without a lottery, and supporters have long com plained of the ticket revenue lost to neighboring states. The N.C. House narrowly passed a lottery bill in April, and Democratic Gov. Mike Easley has been a strident supporter of a state lottery to fund public education. But Senate opposition had kept the bill from clearing the General Assembly, and lawmakers adjourned last week with no expec tation of coming back to work. Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, however, had other plans. The Dare County Democrat, a strong lottery supporter, said Friday that the Senate would reconvene to consider unfinished business. “I gave adequate time for any and everybody to be here,” Basnight said after the vote. “One thing I wanted to be certain, that if we’re going to vote the lottery, everybody had the chance and the opportunity to come and place their vote.” Republicans left fuming Lottery opponents were quick to assign a more sinister motive to Basnight’s decision to reconvene. “We were told last week that we were going to adjourn and we were not coming back,” said Sen. Fred Smith, R-Johnston, speaking Tuesday on the Senate floor. “In reliance upon that, one member in our caucus went on his honeymoon. Whether he knows that we’re doing this today, I don’t know. Another member of our cau cus lies sick at home.” Smith alleged that the Senate leadership was purposefully taking advantage of the situation. “I ask my colleagues on the other CONGRATULATIONS! The following Carolina students have received awards from the Fulbright US.Student Program for the 2005-2006 academic year: Joel Alexander, Law School, Eritrea Julia Bagg, Journalism/Mass Communication, Spain Rebecca Ferguson, Public Health, Netherlands April Henry, Germanic Languages, Germany Jennifer Hsieh, Environmental Sciences, Taiwan Heide Iravani, International Studies, Jordan Virginia Lamothe, Music, Italy Tina Mangieri, Geography, Kenya David McCarty, Environmental Sciences, Columbia Jenne Powers, Slavic Studies, Russia Johanna Rankin, International Studies, Benin Douglas Stewart, Anthropology, Korea Interested in the Fulbright Program? Attend an information session! Today! Wednesday, August 31 at 11:00 am or 3:00 pm UCIS Conference Room 223 East Franklin Street Coates Building http://www.ucis.unc.edu http://international.unc.edu tor unc if*** UNIVERSITY CENTERSFOR | INTERNATIONAL STl|f>IES i He said legislators should be supporting summer school rather than cutting funding. “This kind of reduction took the university system in the wrong direction.” Officials at UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Wilmington and Winston- Salem State University said they likely won’t have to significantly burden students, because they received a relatively small subsidy anyway. But UNC-Greensboro and Appalachian State University will see a definite drop in their summer school budgets, and need more stu dent receipts to offset the loss. Robert Brown, dean of the division of continual learning at UNC-G, said the summer school program will lose about 18 percent of its funding. “It will require that we either increase tuition for students, side of the aisle, does the end jus tify the means?” While all five Democratic oppo nents of the lottery including Orange County Sen. Ellie Kinnaird held to their positions and voted against the bill Ttiesday, none chose to speak out against it on the floor. But some Republicans were vocally livid. Several called for protest votes against the tactics of the chamber’s leadership, but they fell well short of the two-thirds majority necessary to sustain a challenge to the rules. They also questioned whether Basnight had made a good-faith effort to contact all of his Senate colleagues about the vote. “I don’t know where the notice was sent, I don’t know what calls were made,” said Sen. Hugh Webster, R-Alamance. “I will tell you, tell everybody, that this senator did not receive a call about this.” Opponents also took the oppor tunity to rehash many of their arguments against the lottery, call ing it an immoral and unfair way to boost state coffers. “We’ve got it: gambling fever. That’s what this is,” said Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham. “There is no more money for education with a lottery. There’s more money for government.” 'Business as usual' Despite the protests, Basnight and Rand insisted that the vote had been fair. By sending out a notice on Friday, Basnight said he had provided plenty of notice about Tuesday’s session. “We had 48 people show up, and that’s a pretty good count of people,” he said. While Easley already has announced that he will sign the bill as early as today, there is no time table on when the lottery will be up and running. Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu. News increase class size, limit section numbers offered or cut back on aca demic support systems,” he said. Gail Hauser, ASU’s associ ate summer school director, said administrators are not exactly sure how the university will be affected. The school will lose roughly $420,000 in subsidies, which is about 10 percent of the overall budget, she said. She added that an increase of as much as 10 percent in summer tuition is likely. UNC-CH will be not be as severe ly affected, because state appropri ations only comprise about 2 to 3 percent of funding. The University will lose about SIBO,OOO in appro priations for summer school in 2006, said Jim Murphy, dean of the summer school. He said that the program has not relied on the subsidy for the past 10 BUDGET CUTS FROM PAGE 1 decreased recently partly because all other sources of revenue tuition as well as private and government grants have increased. Between 1993 and 2004, gov ernment contracts and grants awarded to the University have increased from about $2lO million to almost SSOO million, according to a University finance report. Campus-based tuition increases are becoming a more important source of revenue as well. JEOPARDY FROM PAGE 1 even after joining the group of 18. “I guess it’s less of a long shot now,” she said. “I was really just doing this for fun, but it’s working out well.” The 18 finalists participated in a mock Jeopardy! game to help evaluate other aspects of perform ing on the game show. Patrick Peterson, a UNC senior, said he was confident in his chanc es in the final round. “All along it felt like a pipe dream, but it was a lot of fun and I ended up performing quite well,” he said. He credits some of his success to his high school quiz bowl days. Producers will handpick the best freakin' Savins ! foliAjjoyyoo-D years, but that having lesser funds will make planning and budgeting more difficult. “We’ve essentially lost our buf fer,” Murphy said. Although tuition at UNC-CH will not see major increases, they’ll only offer classes if demand is high, he said. “We’ll offer classes if stu dents will pay to take them.” Patricia Deanes, resource man ager for UNC-Ws summer school, said the university voluntarily cut back its program in 2003, so the state cuts will have no major impact. The school received less than $20,000 in funds this sum mer from the state. Deanes said that class offerings will not be cut, but that the subsidy loss could lead to a slight increase in fees for out-of-state students. Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu. Last year’s campus-based tuition increases will net the University $4.68 million in revenue. Shelton said although he’s glad to finally have budget numbers, allocating dollars will be difficult. “This has been a very complicat ed budget to figure out this year, I think, because the cut has come on top of five years of budget reduc tion,” he said. “People are down to the bone, but we’ve got to deliver the curriculum.” Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu. performers to enter the tourna ment within the next two weeks. The show will be taped Oct. 1 and Oct. 2 at the RBC Center in Raleigh. Erbstein said UNC students should not be bitter that N.C. State will serve as host to the event. “We actually worked really hard with the administration to get the show (at UNC),” she said, “But it came down to logistics.” No student representative from UNC is guaranteed a final spot, but all 900 participants were offered tickets to the taping of the tourna ment. The championship will air on ABC 11 from Nov. 7 to Nov. 18. Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2005 DTH/WHITNEY SHEFTE Junior Christan Trainor shops at Student Stores on Tuesday afternoon. Like many students, Trainor was shocked by the high prices of textbooks. TEXTBOOKS FROM PAGE 1 in Virginia pushed through the Textbook Market Fairness Act, which bars publishers from offering professors kickbacks for assigning a specific textbook. The act also man dates that professors make book lists available before the start of classes. Zach Wynne, president of the UNC Association of Student Governments, said he hopes the UNC system will find a way to ensure N.C. professors turn in book lists prior to ordering deadlines. “If they get them in on time, it gives the bookstore an idea of how much they need to order, and (they) buy more books back.” Inflation nation Soaring tuition and high-priced textbooks nationwide have coupled to create higher education costs that border on unmanageable. Anew study from the U.S. Government Accountability Office shows that during the last two decades, textbook prices increased at twice the rate of inflation, following closely behind the pace of tuition. John Jones, director of UNC-CH Student Stores, said that while direct competition stems from used book stores in the area, online sites such as Half.com and Amazon.com have recently nabbed more business. And CALPIRG’s report found that an average textbook in the United States costs about 20 percent more than one in another country. Purchasing Power In North Carolina, student outcry has drawn the attention of the UNC system Board of Governors, which 1 created a subcommittee to study the cost of textbooks. The committee met for the first time in July. “We’d like to provide some relief to students if at all possible,” said committee chairman Peter Hans. Hans said one avenue to explore is leveraging the purchasing power of the entire UNC system to bring down prices. “There’s a difference between what a textbook may cost at UNC-Chapel Hill compared to Elizabeth City State (University).” With the skyrocketing price of textbooks, some schools have held strong to century-old rental pro grams. About 20 colleges and universi ties run textbook rental services with annual fees ranging from $l3O to $240, according to CALPIRG. The UNC system has three such schools: Appalachian State, Elizabeth City State and Western Carolina universities. At ASU, a $76 per semester fee covers one textbook per course, and students must purchase any additional course materials. Wynne, an ASU graduate student, said an informal survey found that all but 4 percent of ASU students approved of the rental program. But Wynne said he knows not everyone is on board. Professors are locked into a spe cific textbook for three years, and departments must agree on the same book for every course section. Fayetteville State’s faculty senate has done away with rentals, claim ing that purchasing textbooks is in students’ best interest, said Jeffrey Womble, director of public relations for Fayetteville State. “They just felt that students needed to start their own academic libraries.” Contact the State & National EditwzjiLatntdesk@unc.edu. 5
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