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Original Commentary Progressive Voices Top Story

Commentary: UNC Chapel Hill trustees misfire with rushed and ill-conceived plan to launch conservative school

Two weeks ago, the UNC Board of Trustees arrived in Chapel Hill hellbent on launching yet another salvo in the campus Culture Wars. They surprised everyone with a resolution calling for the creation of a new “School of Civic Life and Leadership.” Comprised “of a minimum of 20 dedicated faculty,” this proposed school would help develop student “skills in public discourse” in the service of “promoting democracy and serving to benefit society.”

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News Top Story

‘Queerolina’ exhibit explores LGBTQ history at UNC-Chapel Hill

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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Higher Ed Policy Watch Investigates Top Story

PW exclusive: A conversation with former UNC journalism school dean Susan King

Despite the frustrations of her stormy final year in office, King remains optimistic about the future of the 'J School' and the profession it supports Last week Susan King was inducted into the NC Media & Journalism Hall of Fame, a career curtain call after completing a decade as dean of the UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

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Higher Ed News Top Story

PW special report: UNC alumni magazine’s decision to cancel story examining university controversies raises questions, concerns

Carolina Alumni Review publisher denies political motives were behind decision to abandon planned investigative report The decision of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's alumni magazine not to publish a story about controversies involving matters of race, tenure and free speech, has prompted many people within and outside the university to wonder whether university pressure played a part in the story’s demise.

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Higher Ed Top Story

UNC-Chapel Hill trustee’s involvement in debate between candidates for student body president sparks controversy

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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Higher Ed Top Story

Year in review: In higher ed, higher stakes as the UNC system becomes more politicized

It was another tumultuous year for one of the largest public institutions in North Carolina — the UNC System. While the COVID-19 pandemic made 2020 dangerous and unpredictable, 2021 was defined by a much more familiar threat — political influence. A series of highly political controversies revealed the ways in which the direction of the UNC System is, from major policy decisions to single hires, determined by conservative political appointees and wealthy private donors.

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Higher Ed News Policy Watch Investigates Top Story

Search for new UNC journalism school dean commences in aftermath of Hannah-Jones/Hussman controversy

The search committee charged with finding the next dean of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media set out its goals and a rough timeline this week. The search comes in the wake of this summer’s fight over the school’s failed attempt to hire Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones in a tenured position...

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Education Higher Ed Top Story

New fee hike spurs UNC-Chapel Hill students to seek more and better mental health, public safety services

Student leaders at UNC-Chapel Hill are asking that money from a recently increased security fee go toward student priorities, including additional mental health services on campus, hiring gender violence service coordinators and improving safe nighttime transit on campus.

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COVID-19 Higher Ed News Top Story

UNC System faculty push for more flexibility as pandemic semester unfolds

Two weeks into in-person instruction at UNC System campuses, faculty members at universities small and large are pushing for more flexibility to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including, in some cases, a temporary shift back to online classes. On Tuesday, Duke University announced new protocols as its campus deals with a spike in infections, largely among vaccinated students. These include giving professors the ability to shift to online-only classes for the next two weeks.

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Higher Ed News Top Story

How can a higher education scandal last for years? Money, power, and politics.

As a student reporter and editor at the Daily Tar Heel, Andy Thomason was at ground zero for the UNC-Chapel Hill “paper classes” athletics scandal that broke in 2010. He helped direct coverage at the independent student paper during the rest of his college career and followed it for the Chronicle of Higher Education after landing a reporting job there in 2014.

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Higher Ed News Policy Watch Investigates Top Story

PW exclusive: UNC pandemic specialist says school is repeating mistakes from 2020

Veteran epidemiologist and ethicist is fearful university leaders have not learned vital lessons from last year As students return for the fall semester at UNC-Chapel Hill Wednesday, Dr. Jim Thomas is having an uneasy sense of déjà vu. “I’m very uneasy about what I’m seeing,” said Thomas, a professor emeritus in the Epidemiology department at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. “Or what I’m seeing again.”

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Education Higher Ed News Top Story

New members join UNC Board of Trustees, shifting demographics but likely not ideologies 

Six new members are set to join the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, changing the board’s demographic makeup but likely not its conservative bent. The new trustees will have to contend with the fallout from the Nikole Hannah-Jones case, which has prompted an exodus of Black faculty and raised questions about the effectiveness of the university’s shared governance structure.

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Top Story

Chapel Hill student body president: It’s past time for a genuine reckoning at UNC

In open letter to the UNC community, Lamar Richards says university is ill-prepared for needed change, urges marginalized community members to protect themselves from being tokenized Dear Carolina Community, When I arrived at the meeting venue on the morning of my swearing-in as a member of the UNC Board of Trustees...

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Higher Ed News Top Story

Toll from political push at UNC continues to mount

In an exclusive interview, a distinguished Lumbee historian explains her decision to leave UNC-Chapel Hill When renowned historian Malinda Maynor Lowery heard acclaimed journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones couldn’t get a vote on tenure from the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, she felt sad and angry. But she was no longer surprised.

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Higher Ed News Top Story

A ‘potential resolution’ to Hannah Jones tenure controversy may not heal damage done at UNC

"Ninety percent of Black and non-white faculty right now, they are probably looking at their other options. That may be a conservative estimate.” Attorneys for UNC-Chapel Hill will meet with the legal team of Nikole Hannah Jones Thursday to find “a potential resolution” to the tenure stand-off that has generated international headlines.

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Higher Ed News Top Story

UNC hire of acclaimed journalist sparks conservative ire

Groups with close ties to two Board of Governors members issue blistering attacks on Nikole Hannah-Jones When UNC-Chapel Hill announced the hiring of Nikole Hannah-Jones last month, it was cause for celebration among students, faculty and administration at the school.

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