The UNC Board of Governors approved a bonus of $451,200 for UNC System President Peter Hans Wednesday, which board members said reflects the “exceptional job” Hans continues to do for the UNC System. The one-time payment to Hans’s Senior Administrative Officer Retirement Account is in line with an incentive scheme under which he was hired in June of 2020.
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higher education
higher education
After six years on the UNC Board of Governors, Leo Daughtry is being moved to the North Carolina State Board of Transportation. It wasn’t a move he requested, Daughtry told Policy Watch last week. But the change, part of a political appointments bill passed at the end of the legislative session, was probably inevitable after Daughtry said aloud something a number of board members privately say they also believe: the plan to move the UNC System offices to downtown Raleigh is expensive, ill-considered and motivated primarily by politics.
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As LGBTQ Pride month came to a close this past week, queer people in North Carolina are more visible than they’ve been in generations -- holding parades and celebrations in the state’s largest cities and its smaller towns, embraced by major corporations, and celebrated in government proclamations. June was also a tumultuous month for LGBTQ North Carolinians, however.
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Some conservative students say they feel stifled, but generally not by faculty members When Policy Watch reported on conservative writer and podcaster Ben Shapiro’s visit to UNCG in April, it had all the hallmarks of the current debate over free speech on campuses. A highly partisan figure drawing huge crowds with divisive -- in this case, transphobic and homophobic -- language. Students protesting, holding a competing event and verbally sparring with the speaker.
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This month the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics released a new edition of Contemporary Precalculus Through Applications, the popular book that is the only text in the school’s precalculus courses. But this new edition is available digitally, for free, to not just students at the elite residential high school but high school and college students all over the state.
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While North Carolina's economy has fully returned to pre-pandemic employment levels, concerns remain over resignations and unfilled job openings. “Our significant success increasing jobs during the pandemic shows North Carolinians are resilient," Gov. Roy Cooper said last month. "We need to focus on training workers and educating children to continue to grow our workforce.”
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Last month PEN America, the non-partisan non-profit that just celebrated 100 years of protecting free expression, published its latest roundup of educational "gag order" legislation across the U.S. The organization is actively tracking a national wave of bills, many now becoming law, that make patriotism compulsory and restrict what can be said, read or taught about race and American history.
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Conservative SCOTUS majority likely jeopardizes race-conscious admissions policies at UNC and Harvard WASHINGTON — A U.S. Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices could fundamentally reshape the college admissions process later this year when it takes up two landmark cases challenging affirmative action in higher education. The court recently agreed to hear two cases that challenge race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, the nation's oldest private and public universities.
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More than nine months after a UNC Board of Governors committee refused to reappoint a widely respected UNC Law professor to the University of North Carolina Press Board of Governors, the UNC System has released hundreds of pages of email communications Policy Watch requested in connection with the conflict.
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NC A&T, NC Central, and Elizabeth City State targeted for significant hikes When the UNC System Board of Governors meets next month, its members will vote on whether to raise the cap on out-of-state admissions to three historically Black college and universities (HBCUs) in the system – North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University and Elizabeth City State University.
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The student body president at UNC-Chapel Hill is calling for the removal of a member of the university’s Board of Trustees, who he says interfered in an online debate between candidates for student body president earlier this month. Student Body President Lamar Richards sent a complaint to the UNC System president and chair of the UNC Board of Governors’ University Governance Committee...
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As Black History Month commences its final week, North Carolina’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities have endured a series of bomb threats leading to closures, disruptions and fear of the sort of hate-based terrorism that the FBI reports is at a 12-year high across America.
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Action comes as part of Biden administration's "borrower defense" initiative WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday that nearly 16,000 student borrowers would receive millions in loan repayments, after the department found that four private for-profit institutions made misleading claims about their job placement rates.
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Should scientists stand outside of politics or do they have an obligation to engage in political debates around science? Do evolving social rules and mores threaten the teaching of science? Does the politicization of science, particularly in a global pandemic, threaten the public’s trust in it? Those were some of the lofty topics tackled by a panel of experts at Tuesday’s night’s Abbey Speaker Series panel at UNC-Chapel Hill.
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