Task force makes realistic
tuition proposal
The
Student Tuition Task Force had been at it since summer, airing
philosophies and establishing priorities for which campus needs
should be addressed with revenues generated from a campus-based
tuition increase.
The only thing left to be done at the last meeting, held Dec.
19, was to iron out the final numbers. But at that meeting the
committee instead decided that the time was not right to put
forward a tuition increase recommendation because of the current
economic climate.
The Carolina panel's move followed a UNC Board of Governors
committee's proposal, for the same reason, to freeze tuition
increases within the UNC system for fall of 2003. The full board
is expected to vote on that recommendation Jan. 10.
While recognizing that the timing wasn't right to increase tuition,
the Carolina task force decided to go ahead and make a recommendation
to be considered at an appropriate time, given that members
had put so much effort into developing one.
The co-chairs of the committee, Executive Vice Chancellor and
Provost Robert Shelton and Student Body President Jen Daum,
argued that the task force had worked too hard and thought too
carefully about the issue to end the process by doing nothing.
Daum said that the committee had put too much work into establishing
the needs that added tuition revenue could help meet not to
come forward with a recommendation. To worry about it when the
time comes would result in another group having to reconvene
at some point in the future and start the process all over again.
It would be better, she argued, to offer a recommendation based
on months of careful study.
In the end, the task force opted to recommend increasing tuition
by $350 for each of three years. When fully implemented, such
an increase would generate an estimated $23.9 million.
In light of the Board of Governors' anticipated freeze on tuition,
the recommendation will not be forwarded to the University's
Board of Trustees for action. Instead, the recommendation will
be forwarded to Chancellor James Moeser for his acceptance,
with the understanding that implementation would be delayed
until an appropriate time.
The task force, which was comprised of professors, administrators,
staff and students, had been working on its proposals for four
months.
Shelton said nothing about the process was easy. "We are not
tackling this issue because we want to raise the cost of education,"
he said. "We are doing it in order to preserve the quality of
education this University can offer - while protecting access."
In its final statement, the task force identified four factors
that were taken into account in reaching its decision.
First, the group looked at Carolina's "ability to remain accessible
to all qualified North Carolinians while providing an unparalleled
educational experience."
Second, it remained faithful to "our goal to remain in the lowest
quartile for resident tuition among our peer institutions."
Third, it looked at the need to "remain competitive with our
peer institutions in recruiting and retaining the highest quality
faculty, graduate and professional students, and undergraduate
students."
Finally, the group emphasized its belief that "campus-based
tuition increases cannot compensate for consistent, predictable
and adequate funding from the State."
The task force set aside 40 percent of additional revenues from
any tuition increase for need-based aid, in keeping with the
same commitment previous groups have made to ensure access.
To help close the faculty salary gap with peer institutions,
the task force recommended that 48 percent of additional revenues
(an estimated $11.5 million) go to improve faculty pay at Carolina.
Task force members also felt that Carolina's ability to attract
graduate students could be harmed by a lack of competitive stipends
for graduate teaching assistants and recommended using 8 percent
of revenues (an estimated $1.9 million over three years) to
make stipends more competitive.
Task force members also debated the question of whether any
part of tuition increases should be devoted to improving the
pay of staff members because they received no raises this year
and may not next year either.
While several students argued against the move, saying staff
should be valued but their pay should be a state responsibility,
the task force endorsed putting 4 percent of revenues toward
staff salaries. The cumulative total over three years would
be an estimated $900,000.
That recommendation would send two messages, members said.
First, it would signal that administrators and faculty members
appreciate staff members' work and recognize that the pay they
earn is not equal to the contributions they make. The second
message would be to remind legislators of the urgency of the
situation. Even if the Board of Governors and the legislature
reject the idea of using tuition to pay staff employees, they
will see that they need to do more.
Even with recent campus-based tuition increases, statistics
show that the cost of a Carolina education remains relatively
low. That point was emphasized in the October issue of "Kiplinger's",
which placed Carolina at the top of its rankings for best bargains
in 2002 as it had in 1998 and 2000.
This year, in-state undergraduate students pay a little more
than $3,800 in tuition and fees.
Funds sought to honor Wellstone
A
Carolina professor and a dean are seeking a memorial on campus
to the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, a two-time Carolina alumnus
who died in a plane crash Oct. 25.
Joel Schwartz, an adjunct professor of public policy and professor
emeritus of political science, and Gene Nichol, law school dean,
hope to raise $25,000 for a group of benches. A potential site
for the benches is beside the recently renovated Murphey Hall,
which houses the classics department on Polk Place.
Wellstone, a former student of Schwartz's and good friend of
both professors, received his bachelor's and doctoral degrees
in political science from Carolina. After graduating, Wellstone
accepted a position at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.,
where he was a professor of political science from 1969 to 1990.
In 1990, he was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Wellstone credited Schwartz with inspiring him to become a political
science professor. He also had strong ties to Nichol and had
campaigned in support of Nichol's unsuccessful campaign for
a U.S. Senate seat from Colorado.
The tragic crash last October also took the lives of Wellstone's
wife, Sheila, and daughter, Marcia, three campaign staffers
and two pilots.
"The
massive and spontaneous outpouring of grief that the senator's
death and the deaths of the others with him evoked is a testament
to the influence one person can have," Schwartz said. "It would
be appropriate to establish a memorial to honor Senator Wellstone
on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Paul was always proud that he
was a graduate of this university."
Schwartz and Nichol said they see the benches as a fitting memorial
for Wellstone, who believed that "we need to replace isolationism
with fellowship. [That] we need to talk about community, about
justice, about the goodness of America."
Similar groups of benches have been installed at Carolina recently
in response to a recommendation from a task force the late Chancellor
Michael Hooker formed to study the intellectual climate on campus.
The task force wanted to recreate the environment that existed
on campus in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when benches were scattered
around the campus, providing inviting sites for discussion.
"The
Senator Paul D. Wellstone Memorial would be a place where we
can sit and talk, a place of fellowship and conversation where
ideas and opinions can be exchanged," Schwartz said. "It would
be here for us to visit for generations."
Said Nichol, "Paul Wellstone taught us, more effectively than
anyone, that politics is `about improving people's lives,' and
he thought Carolina had a similar mission."
For more information, refer to www.unc.edu/depts/polisci/news_items/2002/
wellstone.html. For more information on benches at Carolina,
see intlife.unc.edu/benches/.
How
to contribute
To contribute to the Paul Wellstone memorial,
please make checks payable to UNC-Chapel Hill with "Wellstone
Benches" in the memo line. Mail them to Andi Sobbe, Development
Office, CB# 6100.
Donations also may be made by credit card online at www.webslingerz.com/uncdev/cc_gift.html.
In the "Designate Your Gift" section, select "other." Under
"other instructions," type "Wellstone Benches." Call 962-2546
for more information.
Employees
must change
Onyen passwords
In
a move to keep campus computers secure, Information Technology
Services (ITS) is requiring Carolina faculty, staff and students
periodically to change their "Onyen" (Only name you'll ever
need) passwords. The Onyen is used to access many campus technology
services.
Those who allow their passwords to expire will be unable to
use services that require Onyen authentication, including the
campus e-mail system, Blackboard, DHCP campus network registration
and Faculty/Staff Central.
Employees and students will need to get into the habit of changing
their passwords every 90 days. According to Jeanne Smythe, director
of computing policy in ITS, leaving Onyen passwords unchanged
exposes the user's account to various misuses.
"Every
day," Smythe said, "we see brute-force attempts at password
guessing, and every semester we have account abuse problems
due to knowledgeable insiders guessing or discovering Onyen
passwords.
"Periodically
changing passwords mitigates the risk of identity theft and
other similar problems."
For more information or assistance in changing your Onyen password,
contact your departmental technical support staff. You can also
call 962-HELP for assistance or submit a help request via the
web by going to help.unc.edu
and selecting "Submit/Update a Help Request" on the top right
of the page.
Learfield
to continue producing videos
Carolina
has agreed to a nine-year contractual extension granting the
athletic department's multimedia rights to Learfield Communications
Inc. of Jefferson City, Mo. Learfield has produced radio, television,
game program and Internet packages for Carolina athletics since
it purchased the contract from Vilcom in 1998.
A component of the agreement is that Learfield will pay for
the purchase and installation of a video highlights board and
public address/sound system in Kenan Stadium. Learfield's costs
for the video board, scheduled to be installed prior to commencement
in May, are $600,000 for the board and $1.4 million for initial
installation.
Learfield also will pay the athletic department an annual rights
fee of $2.5 million per year, beginning this year. That is an
increase of $500,000 per year from the previous contract and
will total an extra $4.5 million over the nine years.
The additional $500,000 per year will go to the athletic department
budget to help deal with issues such as adherence to Title IX
and operating budgets.
"The
board is just one aspect of an overall excellent financial package,"
said Director of Athletics Dick Baddour. "It is corporately
financed by Learfield; no money is coming from state or academic
interests nor is this a matter of a reallocation of those resources.
This is new money generated from the sale of video spots. It
is important for us to identify new revenue sources in these
challenging economic conditions."
The nine-year extension took effect in December. Carolina and
Learfield had been in the final year of a five-year agreement.
The stipulations of the new agreement go into effect for the
remainder of this fiscal year and then for eight more years.
The agreement concludes on June 30, 2011.
Besides the $2.5 million annual rights fee, Learfield agreed
to pay an additional fee at a rate of 50 percent of the gross
receipts in excess of $5.5 million. The previous contract called
for Carolina to receive 15 percent of gross receipts beyond
a pre-established threshold.
"We
are pleased to extend our association with Clyde Lear and his
staff at Learfield for another eight-plus years," Baddour said.
"Learfield is a national leader in sports communications. We
are proud to be associated with them and proud they are excited
about continuing a relationship with the Tar Heels.
"The
multimedia contract is vital to the growth and stability of
the athletic department. It provides us with quality programming,
outstanding marketing opportunities and a critical revenue stream.
It is only one piece of the revenue puzzle, but an important
one."
The video board in Kenan Stadium and the ones now being used
in the Dean E. Smith Center will feature University-related
content, including features on faculty, student achievement,
academic departments and public service to the state. Any sponsorships
will be limited to a sponsor's logo -- company slogans or other
advertising will be prohibited. Learfield also may sell sponsorship
of game action replays, although only the sponsor's logo can
be displayed.
"We
can show highlight replays from current and previous games and
profiles on student-athletes, as well as the University's teaching,
research and public service programs," said Norwood Teague,
associate director of athletics for marketing. "The video board
gives us an opportunity to showcase the physics department,
the libraries or any other academic topic to an audience of
60,000 of our constituents. We can highlight some of the University's
most talented students and faculty who may otherwise not be
as well known to our fans."
The video board was to have been installed prior to the 2002
football season, but was postponed by Baddour and Chancellor
James Moeser.
Leloudis:
'Hold fast to your dreams'
Editor's
note: Following are the prepared remarks for the Dec. 20 mid-year
commencement address by Carolina's James Leloudis, associate
professor of history, associate dean for honors and director
of the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence.
Chancellor Moeser, distinguished members of the platform party,
parents and guests: Good afternoon. And to the Class of 2002:
Congratulations!
You worked hard to get into Carolina, and we have worked you
even harder to get out. This is your day. Celebrate and enjoy!
Protocol requires that I, like every commencement speaker, begin
by acknowledging what an honor it is to have been invited to
deliver this address. But I want to reach beyond protocol, because
this is, indeed, a very special day for me. Twenty-five years
ago, I sat in your seat -- like you, stylin' in one of those
Carolina blue gowns. Who would have thought that I would be
standing here today? Certainly not me. And if truth be told,
some of my professors might also be counted among the doubters
-- especially the one, who to this day, reminds me of the not-so-distinguished
grade that I earned in his class.
I also want you to know how effectively you've turned the table
on one of your teachers. You have given me one of the most daunting
assignments I could ever imagine. Think for a moment about the
situation. Here I stand in front of my faculty colleagues, a
number of whom were also my undergraduate teachers. Here I stand
before you, many of whom are former students. And what is my
assignment? To convey wisdom that will guide you through life,
to share insights that will stay with you beyond tomorrow's
morning news. And all of that in the span of 15 minutes! I've
taken a few wicked final exams in my day -- I'm told that I've
even given a few -- but this is in a category all its own. You
can't imagine what I'd give right now for a blue book or bubble
sheet!
But here I am. The task is at hand. And so, let me be about
it.
A
world divided
What
wisdom can I offer that has not been offered more eloquently
by many others before me? Probably none. So let me speak from
the heart and invite you to reflect on some concerns that preoccupy
my thoughts these days.
First, the times in which we live. You are headed into the world
at a particularly challenging, exhilarating and difficult moment.
Yes, the economy is in a downturn and jobs are scarce -- you
hardly need for me to deliver that news bulletin -- but the
challenges I have in mind are on a larger scale. Our world is
shrinking, we are being brought ever closer together by new
global instruments of communication and trade, yet, in many
respects, we live more divergent lives than ever.
Jimmy Carter noted last week in his Nobel Peace Prize address
that "citizens of the 10 wealthiest countries are now 75 times
richer than those who live in the 10 poorest ones, and the separation
is increasing every year." The human reality of that divide
was revealed in a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research
Center for the People and the Press. In Africa, Latin American
and Russia, overwhelming majorities of respondents to the survey
said that there have been times in the past year when they could
not afford to feed their families or to pay for clothing and
health care. Only in industrialized nations like ours were reports
of doing without the basics of life limited to a distinct minority
of the population.
This disparity is at the root of many of the world's most vexing
problems, including starvation, illiteracy, environmental degradation,
violent conflict and the unnecessary illnesses that each year
take the lives of six million children. The Pew survey revealed
that here in the United States, we worry most about the proliferation
of nuclear weapons, and more generally, terrorism, as the leading
threats to the world. But in Africa, where in some nations the
AIDS epidemic has taken hold of nearly a third of the population,
fully 98 percent of respondents report that their number one
concern is the spread of disease -- something far down the list
for most Americans. We inhabit the same shrinking planet, but
we are living exceedingly different lives. And too often, we
understand very little of one another's experiences.
Much the same might also be said right here, in our own back
yard. The recent report of the Rural Prosperity Task Force makes
clear that we are increasingly two North Carolinas. One North
Carolina centered here in the Piedmont, urban, riding the wave
of the new economy, relatively rich with opportunity and resources
for its schools and communities. The other North Carolina predominantly
rural, wrestling with the decline of traditional industries,
often finding prosperity just beyond arm's reach.
The
demand of dreams
Such
challenges can easily overwhelm us. Our first impulse is often
to pull inward, to avert our eyes, to grow mistrustful and protective
of our own, to compromise our ideals, to settle rather than
to strive. We do so not only in our national life but in our
personal lives and careers as well.
Yet these times, more than any other, demand that we hold fast
to our dreams -- that you pursue your aspirations, that you
energize and revitalize this world, that you take responsibility
not only for your own future but for the future that belongs
to us all. At the end of the 18th century, a generation of young
revolutionaries founded the American republic and established
this University, each as part of a grand experiment designed,
in the words of Thomas Paine, "to begin the world anew." In
the mid 19th century, another generation of young men and women
led the battle to abolish slavery and to heal the union after
a fratricidal war. Young people of your grandparents' generation
defeated fascism. And in your parents' time, the young made
the Civil Rights Movement and proffered the radical notion that
men and women come into this world with equal ability and should
therefore make their way through it with equal opportunity.
Now, it is your turn. The writer Norman Cousins once observed
that there are two types of people in this world. There are
those who look at great challenges and answer, no, it isn't
possible. And there are those who look at the same challenges,
see in them hope and possibility, and answer that none of us
knows enough to be pessimistic. Count yourself among the latter.
Hold fast to your dreams, strive for excellence in all that
you do, and ask yourself daily where, with this one life, do
you wish to leave your mark. Start your businesses; write your
books; turn your ideas into new inventions, new and better ways
of doing whatever work you choose. Fill the world with art and
music; involve yourself in the life of your community; raise
families that reflect who you are and the ideals that you hold
closest to your heart. The going will not always be easy. Even
so, I urge you to persist -- remembering all the while that
failure is often the handmaiden to success, and that the future
is your responsibility.
Remember
your roots
As
you make your way in the world, let me also ask that you remember
where you came from and that you reflect on what it means to have
been educated at a public university. Let me say that again, so
that it's clear where I place the emphasis: I ask that you reflect
on what it means to have been educated at a public university.
You and your families have worked hard for a Carolina education.
You sacrificed, you worked summer jobs and sometimes year-round,
and you took on debt that you will be repaying for years to
come. All so that you could afford tuition, books and a Carolina
meal plan.
Many others whom you have never met sacrificed as well. Look
around this gathering. These people, too, invested in your education.
As did millions of other North Carolinians -- rich and poor,
from both North Carolinas -- whose taxes support the work that
you and I do here. The vast majority of them have never been
to Chapel Hill, and in many cases their children will not come
here either. Even so, they pay their share -- because they love
their University, and because they believe in you. You are indebted
to those men and women, who ask not that you pay them back,
but that you pay forward by living a purposeful and engaged
life.
This is indeed the people's University. Its charge to you was
first articulated two hundred years ago at its founding. In
1789, this place was a backwater, a tiny wooded encampment on
the margins of the Atlantic world. Even so, its founders held
to the values of an enlightened and revolutionary age. They
dreamed of a republic -- a new social order governed by its
citizens rather than a monarch and an hereditary aristocracy.
And they recognized that this radical experiment in political
and social life required a new form of education -- a public
university -- and an equally new conception of education's value.
The founders expressed their ideals eloquently in the University's
charter. This institution was established, in the words of that
document, to "consult the happiness of a rising generation,
and . . . to fit them for an honorable discharge of the social
duties of life, by paying strictest attention to their education."
Those simple words offer a profound insight into the human condition.
Our happiness is not merely a private emotion. It derives instead
from engagement with others. Happiness is found in the social
rituals of our lives: ceremonies such as this commencement,
a marriage, the birth of a child, even a funeral's celebration
of life. Happiness is found in the simple, intimate gestures
that bind us to one another: the touch of a partner's hand,
a child's smile, the love of learning that joins student and
teacher.
The
social good
So,
too, with education. Education is surely the key to individual
opportunity -- indeed, we often think of it in those terms and
those terms alone -- but it is also more than that. This public
university was founded on the notion that education is just as
much a social good -- that the betterment of one life can make
better the lives of us all. This is the people's University, and
you are the beneficiaries of its founding vision. You have been
afforded here a privilege available to only a tiny fraction of
a percentage of the world's population. What will you make of
that gift?
Edward Kidder Graham posed that same question nearly a century
ago in a remarkable speech that he entitled "The College and
Human Need." Edward Kidder Graham -- not to be confused with
his more famous cousin Frank Porter Graham -- was Carolina's
8th president. He served from 1914 to 1919, when he was struck
down by the great Spanish Influenza epidemic that followed World
War I. In the autumn of 1915, he looked out on an audience of
first-year students and asked why they had come to Chapel Hill.
His listeners must have thought that a most curious question,
but he pressed on. Had they come to prepare for a career in
business, medicine or law? Had they come to win fame as a sports
hero? Had they come to excel in the classroom and to claim a
Phi Beta Kappa key? If the answer to either of those questions
was `yes' and nothing more, then they all, Graham suggested,
might consider packing their bags and returning home. Those
were all admirable goals, but they were, in Graham's judgment,
overly modest and incomplete. The higher purpose of a university
education, Graham told his audience, was to develop what he
called an "intellectual way of life" -- one that was restless,
always questioning, open to seeing the world in new ways. It
was that habit of mind, Graham argued, that would ultimately
guarantee individual success and would at the same time make
students -- make you -- into leaders capable of leaving their
world better than they found it.
I can say it no better. To me, this idea defines the very core
of the University's mission. I ask that you hold it close in
mind, and that now and then, perhaps during a quiet moment at
the end of a busy day, you stop to reflect on its meaning for
your own life's work.
Now, permit me one final request. As you leave this place and
make your way in the world, don't become a stranger. Thomas
Wolfe may have been, as he was often quick to remind his classmates,
a genius -- one of Carolina's great gifts to the literary world.
But he was wrong about one thing: you can come home again. Your
parents may disagree -- they already have plans for your room
-- but I ask not only that you come home, but that you come
home often.
I tell my students that being a university professor is surely
one of the most rewarding jobs anyone could have. We spend our
days with you, pursuing ideas, admiring your potential, watching
you grow and mature -- then you leave. And most often, we never
know what became of those encounters we remember so fondly,
those heated discussions, those flashes of brilliance. Come
home, share with us your triumphs -- and your failures. Teach
us from your experiences and nurture this institution, so that
we might better prepare the way for the generations who follow.
You will always be welcome in this place, you will always find
family here.
Go and prosper. You are our inspiration and our hope. I wish
you peace, love and the happiness of an engaged and fruitful
life. Once again, I congratulate you -- and I thank you from
a very special place in my heart. Hark the sound.
Expert on Russia finds people friendly, history
complex in former Soviet Union
One
of the genuine pleasures of Donald Raleigh's professional life
is introducing students and others to a Russia far different
than what they expected.
"I
had an undergraduate in my office the other day who visited
there this year, and he said he was not prepared for how much
Russians liked Americans and how much he liked them," said Raleigh,
professor of history. "He found them much more compatible and
like Americans than people in several West European countries.
"When
I've taken students and adult groups to Russia, which I've done
since 1979, I'm always impressed that people come back and say
`Wow! They really like us!' which they didn't expect."
Even if he didn't admit it directly, it would still be obvious
from his passport that Raleigh thinks fondly of the Russian
people himself.
After all, the historian, who is one of the non-native world
experts on their nation, has visited the Soviet Union and now
Russia 28 times.
For the past 12 years, he traveled there every summer to work
on an unprecedented book. That work, "Experiencing Russia's
Civil War," relies on a massive amount of untapped archives
from Saratov, a city on the Volga River off-limits to Westerners
for decades, and surrounding towns. It offers the first in-depth
look at the Civil War's effects outside Moscow.
Princeton University Press just published the book, which Raleigh
believes is the first "total history" of the Russian conflict
from a local perspective, one that covers not only politics
and society, but also broader cultural codes that determine
people's behavior.
"For
instance, I give a lot of attention to language and how the
Bolsheviks used language publicly and privately," he said.
Like the violent repression they employed, that sophisticated
use of language -- white-washed for public consumption and straight
for police and other agencies -- at first served them well enough
to help maintain their power, the historian said. Ultimately,
however, it betrayed them by undermining Russians' faith in
the "system" and fostering a kind of passive resistance that
guaranteed inefficiency and eventual failure.
Underscoring the importance of the Civil War for later Soviet
history, Raleigh argues that many of the features associated
with the Stalinist 1930s were not only practiced during the
Civil War, but also were embedded. That is, he sees few alternatives
for a non-Stalinist outcome to the course that Soviet history
ultimately took. Bolshevik ideology strongly influenced the
Soviet Union's history after the Russian Civil War, he said,
but other key factors that shaped the emerging one-party state
included Russian political culture, chance and the wrenching
effects of World War I.
"The
Civil War was not only a formative experience, but also the
defining one for the Soviet political system," Raleigh said.
The author also demonstrates extensive mass opposition to Bolshevik
rule by the Civil War's end. The reason the conflict did not
continue, he argues, is that the Bolsheviks introduced concessions.
Yet another reason, too often ignored by historians, is the
role famine played in keeping the Bolsheviks in power.
"If
you're truly starving, you don't have a lot of energy to consider
any political opposition. Raleigh is deeply involved in his
next book project, an oral history of Soviet baby boomers, which
will tap his extensive in-country experience."
"I
have seen some extraordinary changes in Russia over the years
that have amazed me," Raleigh said. "Even under the Soviet system
the country was beginning to open up in teaspoon-size doses
because it had no choice.
"One
of the points I will make in my new book is that the system's
own success at modernizing, at sending the whole country to
school and making it a literate, urban society in and of itself
destroyed those conditions which made the communist system possible
to begin with."
By the time Gorbachev came to power, a one-party state largely
closed to the outside world was no longer tenable, he said.
"As
the country has opened up over the past decade, the changes
have been absolutely phenomenal," Raleigh said. "I take issue
with Western media coverage of what's going on in Russia. The
media have exaggerated all the negatives and have been reluctant
to consider that a whole new open society is emerging as well.
We don't give Russians credit for realizing they have problems
or credit for having the talent to solve them."
Obviously, Russia is still Russia and differs from the United
States in various ways, he said, but U.S. reporters and others
fail to judge it on its own terms and to see the amazing changes,
including for the first time a new democratic order and sounder
economics. If a person has money, he or she can buy anything
there that can be bought in the United States.
The professor said that with the exception of Chechnya, he has
become very optimistic about Russia, its economy and its future.
It has evolved into a radically different, freer society, and
it's in the United States and all other countries' interest
to promote stability there.
"Saratov,
which was a closed city, is now open, and many of my colleagues
at the University there are traveling abroad, and foreigners
are visiting now all the time," he said. "They have won all
sorts of national and international grants, and they're all
on e-mail."
Like his previous books, Raleigh said "Experiencing Russia's
Civil War," subtitled "Politics, Society and Revolutionary Culture
in Saratov, 1917-1922," will soon be translated into Russian.
Susan
Graham Memorial Fountain
Editor's
note: ArtiFACTS, an occasional Gazette feature, looks
at campus objects classified as historic property -- what they
are, how they got here and why they're significant to the University.
The piece is written by Anne Douglas, historic property officer.
In
1916 the home of UNC President Edward Kidder Graham and his
wife Susan was the hub of campus social life. Susan Williams
Moses Graham, the daughter of an educator, earned A.B. and A.M.
degrees from Cornell University.
Before her marriage she had taught at Newcomb College in Louisiana
and Sweet Briar in Virginia, two highly respected schools for
women.
As Mrs. Graham, she encouraged her husband to expand educational
opportunities for women in North Carolina. She helped found
the Community Club and took particular interest in the wives
of farmers who came to town for marketing. One of her 
projects
was to establish a women's lounge above a store on Franklin
Street.
When
Graham died at 34, leaving behind her husband and young son
just three days before Christmas, her friends wanted to create
a memorial that echoed her spirit of community service.
For
many years a public well and an oak trough near the Methodist
church on Franklin Street had provided drinking water for pedestrians
and animals. The well was filled in around the turn of the century,
and Graham's friends decided to erect a memorial fountain in
its place.
Sculptor
R. N. Burnam created a double-sided granite fountain that again
accommodated both animals and people. The street side, inscribed
"To Keep Fresh the Memory of Susan Williams Graham," featured
a bas-relief figure of a classically draped woman pouring water
from an urn. The campus side was plain, inscribed only with
the words "The Waters of Truth Flow Freely, Drink When and Where
You May."
Eventually
automobiles replaced mules and wagons; Franklin Street was paved;
and water to the fountain was turned off. In 1956 the fountain
was moved to a corner of Coker Arboretum, near the Episcopal
church Susan Graham attended.
