Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Sept. 15, 2008, edition 1 / Page 9
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Slit Jar Hrel PRIORITIES FROM PAGE 1 is looking into ways to communicate with students who live off campus. Thorp acknowledged that plans for. his highest priority are in their infancy. He said solutions will be complex and will require coopera tion from those on and off campus. “There’s no magic bullet,” Thorp said. “Right now we’re trying to fig ure out what other things we can do.” School of Law In early2oo6, Erwin Chemerinsky, a prominent legal scholar at Duke University, turned down an offer to be the new UNC-CH law school dean, publicly declaring that the school did not have the resources to be a top-notch institution. The school was indeed financial ly troubled, and it struggled to keep up with its peers in faculty com pensation, among other things. “Our funding stream got out of whack; we had gotten out of line on our student-to-faculty ratio,” said state Sen. Tony Rand, a law school alumnus and its most pas sionate supporter in the legislature. "We were skating kind of close to the edge.” But since Jack Boger took over as dean in June 2006, the legis lature has committed $2 million a year for the law school, in addi tion to millions more for planning the school’s new building at the Carolina North campus. The University administration also has allocated an extra $2 million in recurring funds to the school. Nevertheless, the law school dropped in the U.S. News & World Report rankings for two years in a row, from 27th in 2006 to 38th in 2008. And last fall the school’s Van Hecke-Wettach Hall suffered a par tial collapse, forcing some classes to relocate for most of the semester. Thorp said the drop in rankings and the building collapse have sowed concern among the law alumni, spur ring him to put the school among his priorities for the year. “Their academic reputation is not as strong as they would like,” he said. “We need to change that.” CODE FROM PAGE 1 ment the changes. “It’s the responsibility of the stu dent body secretary to process the changed bill,” Weynand said. “He : adjusts the Student Code.” The copy held by the student body secretary is the official version of the Code, whether it is updated or not Daub said he received the offi cial Code frbm last year’s secretary this week. He added that updating the Code onliije requires software that he is learning. TVro different versions of the Code can be found on student government and Congress’ Web sites. Both Web sites are being updated. Daub said he is working with Mac Mollison, last year’s student body secretary, to make the transition. The executive branch’s online | lb,try o/Hi I’awotfulaj . jn/in. ■.'</< In audn’na qiifytiohs h i/fi Billy Collins Monday, September 15, 8 p.m. ill M (uik >rial I iall l iji i■ < 1 Stales Poet 1 aureate. PHI) I Audio! <1 nine |>oeii \ < o!te< lions, inelinline BMusfh \ • All tickets are reserved seating. t ree tickets available Memorial Hall Box Office. $ • Memorial Hall Box Ottice. M-f iOnm-bpm, 1919) Sta-rAM A,. . ■ , . Boger blames the rankings slide on U.S. News’ flawed methodology and said his school is on track to make great improvements during the next couple of years. He plans to raise more money for faculty salaries and will be hiring nine faculty this year, an unusually large increase for the school, which now has 64 faculty members. All told, Boger said he hopes to increase the school’s budget to $24 million by 2010, a 50-percent increase from the sl6 million bud get when Boger started as dean. “We’re really quite confident that if that money is received and spent wisely, we will remedy our deficien cies,” he said. “I really expect us to flower.” Boger said he thinks those rosy predictions have put alumni con cerns to rest. He said that in con versations with alumni this sum mer, he did not hear the complaints Thorp cited. Thorp and Provost Bernadette Gray-Little agreed about the over all high quality of the law school and said they hope putting it on the priority list will help Boger dismiss public perceptions to the contrary. “We don’t want the law school to lose some ground,” Gray-Little said. School of Education The new dean of the School of Education, Bill McDiarmid, will step into his post in January, at a time when outside demands on UNC-system schools of education are high. General Administration has told its system universities to increase their collective teacher output by 64 percent in five years. The N.C. Department of Public Instruction is imploring the universities to help its schools retain teachers. And admin istrators said they feel accountable to the N.C. legislature’s calls for improved public education. Before the school can effec tively address those needs, it must overcome what Board of Trustees Chairman Roger Perry referred to as “an identity crisis” by more clear ly defining its role in the state. McDiarmid acknowledged the heft of the challenges and said he expects Thorp’s support to help. “It has been a fairly bumpy game of making the transition. Honestly, some of the bills have just fallen through the cracks.” ANDREW DAUB, stubentbodysecretary ' { mm. iffP# version of the Code was last updat ed April 12. Congress’ version was last updated Sept. 4,2007. Board of Elections Chairman Ryan Morgan said he has been checking Congress’ version of the Code and comparing the bill’s changes. Morgan said he is looking to revise portions of Title VI during his tenure, including Section 402 —a section that was revised in Congress’ bill. Historically, there has been a lag time between when bills are passed and when those changes are made to the Code online. “In the past, Congress couldn’t News “We are in a precarious position with regard to our yield of high-performing N.C. undergraduates.” CHANCELLOR HOLDEN THORP, IN AN E-MAIL TO UNC-SYSTEM PRESIDENT BOWLES “There’s not a lot of chancellors around the country at research-in tensive, flagship universities who make the School of Education one of their top priorities,” he said. “It’s terrific.” In return for his support which includes advocacy and a promise to help find new fund ing Thorp is asking the school to clarify its mission, especially its contribution to the state’s K-12. Only 40 percent of the school’s faculty resources is devoted to producing teachers. The rest goes toward research and service at the local, state and even federal levels. “Other institutions don’t have those other responsibilities,” said Jill Fitzgerald, the school’s interim dean. In 2006-07, for example, UNC CH graduated 175 teachers com pared to East Carolina University’s 737 and UNC-Charlotte’s 595. The school will seek to produce more teachers namely by recruit ing undergraduates, by making it easier for undergraduates to pursue dual degrees and by searching for more external support for scholar ships and fellowships. But McDiarmid said UNC-CH should play more to its strong suits of research and support. “When you’re trying to figure out where you want to go, you have to keep in mind what your distinct responsibility is,” he said. For UNC-CH, that means put ting its research and service arms to use in communities, schools, central offices and policy-making arenas to improve the public edu cation system. UNC-system officials are work ing to set teacher production tar gets for all 15 of the system’s schools of education. UNC-CH has raised its targeted teacher output, but school officials said it will do more to forward the system’s research and support-oriented goals, such as teacher retention. tell if we were updating sections that had already been updated or not,” said Tim Nichols, speaker of Student Congress. Congress traditionally waits to see an updated version from the executive branch before it updates its version, he said. James Allred, who served as stu dent body secretary from 2004-05 and student body president from 2006-07, said the official Code kept by the secretary must be updated every two weeks. Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu. McDiarmid will work with facul ty to craft a clearer mission. He said he expects the final version both to address state officials’ teacher short age concerns and to convince the public that their flagship university is serving the state. “That’s a big order,” McDiarmid acknowledged. “It’s also an exciting order.” Thorp's holistic vision Thorp and other administrators hope to see his third priority fall in line with his long-term vision. They hope the recruitment of top in-state students will kick off a benevolent cycle, since future students and faculty will be drawn to study with' the best and brightest. The immediate hurdle is compet ing with private universities with large endowments and high tuition that allow them to outmatch UNC CH’s financial aid offerings. “Research that we will share with you when it’s complete shows that we are in a precarious position with regard to our yield of high-perform ing N.C. undergraduates,” Thorp stated in an Aug. 7 e-mail to UNC system President Erskine Bowles. In the short term, that means a lot of grunt work for Thorp. He’ll be personally recruiting students, working with the admis sions office to craft other forms of recruitment and pushing hard for new merit-based scholarships. Thorp said he hopes to see the University devote as much of its energy to recruiting N.C. high school graduates as it does to luring faculty, graduate students and athletes. To recruit those students, administrators know they have to address the big-picture challenges that aren’t specifically included in Thorp’s priorities fof this year. That means a permanent focus on faculty, high-quality academ ics and research, and sustainable enrollment growth. “If the best-qualified and rep resentative group of students are coming here both at the under graduate and graduate level, that means we’re doing everything else right,” Thorp said. Contact the Projects Editors jgf dStprojects@gmail.cdm. DAVID YU RM AIN i 9 0 : ' A. ' ifll I ■ JEWELERS CaryTowne Center 919.463.0817 Triangle Town Center 919.792.2171 The Streets at Southpoint 919.281.8407 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2008 ‘Unity’ event draws only 12 participants Still a success, organizers say BY ASHLEY BENNETT STAFF WRITER All it takes to unify 12 people are a few inflatables, a tug-of-war rope and $1,200. That’s what Masala learned Saturday when it hosted the 11th annual Unity Games, an inter club event that was supposed to bring together members of the campus’ various cultural organi zations. Masala is an umbrella organiza tion that oversees cultural groups on campus and promotes cultural diversity. Of its 17 partner organizations, only members of two showed up for the event. Despite a small turnout, Masala organizers and event attendees still said they considered the event a success. “This is just a good way for them to meet each other and unite our partner organizations,” said Masala member Nil Ghosh. “Our hope is these groups can work together to put on different programs on campus.” Nitin Krishnan, special events co-chairman for Masala, said ide ally each organization forms a team of five to 10 members to compete in events such as crab soccer, an inflatable obstacle course, basket ball on an inflatable court and tug of war. He added that Masala was expecting about five teams to participate in this year’s compe tition. Only 12 students attended this year’s event, compared to previous years where there were at least 30 participants, said Masala Co-Vice President Anish Thakkar. He said that Saturday’s high temperatures and the event’s timing might have caused the low turrrbtft bttt that it was mostly due “Our biggest problem has been getting all the groups to coordinate with Masala.” ANISH THAKKAR, CO-VICE PRESIDENT to a lack of communication and publicity with Masala’s partner organizations. He said that will be one of Masala’s goals for the next Unity Games. “It’s hard because if you’re the president of (the Carolina Hispanic Association), for example, your focus is on Chispa events,” Thakkar said. “Our biggest problem has been getting all the groups to coordinate with Masala.” But the number of participants did not keep the games from con tinuing. Various members from Masala, Bhangra Elite, Japan Club and even two passers-by formed their own teams in order to compete for a SSO gift certificate to Chipotle Mexican Grill. The teams played a round robin style tournament, where each win ning team was granted one point for winning their first game and half a point for winning any sub sequent games. The team Quadrapound, which consisted of Thakkar, Bhangra Elite and Japan Club members, beat out teams Game Plan and Mach Three with a total of 6 points. Sophomore Brian Mayer, a member of team Mach Three, said he enjoyed the event so much he is considering becoming a member of Masala. “These games have been pretty fun, so I’m all for coming to events if they’re all like this,” he said. Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu. 9
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Sept. 15, 2008, edition 1
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