Broun tapped to lead Carolina North advisory committee
University receives one of 27 $100,000 Ford Foundation grants
School of Journalism and Mass Communication selected for international program
Employee Forum News: Q&A with new Employee Forum Chair Ernie Patterson
Faculty Council News: Faculty continues diversity, tenure discussions
Citizen-Soldier program gets expansion funds
Rare piano boosts UNC’s arts profile
FYI Research: Author Kirsch uncovers little-known nuclear past
Get free income tax preparation help at select community sites
What ITS About: Making the most of the University’s mass e-mail system 
User training set for Journal Entry System

Broun tapped to lead Carolina North advisory committee

Chancellor James Moeser recently announced that Ken Broun, former Chapel Hill mayor and distinguished faculty member and former law school dean, will serve as chair of a leadership advisory committee that will seek community input on planning for Carolina North.

In a letter to local leaders, Moeser said UNC began to envision a collaborative process in which the University and local communities could engage productively to advance a vision for Carolina North. 

The chancellor noted that a potential process was sketched, and it immediately became clear that the leader of the process would have to be a member of this community.  Moeser said that Broun can help build consensus among stakeholder groups.

The process being considered would be guided by the leadership advisory committee, Moeser said. The committee would review major issues to develop a master plan for Carolina North, including principles reflecting the University’s committment to sustainability. 

The advisory committee would address issues such as fiscal equity, housing, transportation and zoning. The process would include broad representation from the University, the local communities and the state, and all meetings would be open to the public, Moeser said.

University receives one of 27
$100,000 Ford Foundation grants

National initiative promotes academic freedom and dialogue
The Ford Foundation recently selected Carolina as one of 27 higher education institutions to receive $100,000 grants for projects that promote academic freedom and constructive dialogue on campus.

The grants are part of the Difficult Dialogues Initiative, created in response to reports of growing intolerance and efforts to curb academic freedom on campuses. The goal is to help institutions address this challenge through academic and campus programs that enrich learning, encourage new scholarship and engage students and faculty in constructive dialogue about contentious political, religious, racial and cultural issues.

“We live in a time when religious beliefs and inquiry are very much on our minds,” Judith Wegner, co-principal investigators for the UNC proposal and Faculty Council chair, said. “The academic setting is one where people should feel free to talk about the issues openly. At Carolina, we are on the forefront of cutting-edge issues, and are viewed as a national leader in discussing issues like this. We want to use this grant to develop a model for ourselves and other universities in discussing difficult topics.”

Co-principal investigator for the UNC proposal is Senior Associate Dean for the Arts and Humanities Bill Andrews, a professor of English. Other members of the steering committee are: Julia Wood, associate director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities; Jay Smith, associate dean for undergraduate curricula and professor of history; Virginia Carson, director of the Campus Y; and Ed Neal, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning.

“Working with faculty members from different disciplines, peers from the Campus Y and students, presents exciting opportunities,” Wegner, a professor of law, said. “What we learn from these discussions will help us in many ways. We can develop best practices and good habits for faculty to use in the classroom and other venues.”

The overall goal of the process is to enhance the intellectual atmosphere and augment the institutional opportunities for difficult dialogues throughout campus.

“This grant will help us understand and discuss openly what employees and students think about faith, spirituality, faith-based ethics and other issues,” Andrews said. “We want to take the temperature of the intellectual and communication climate in a systematic way.”

Carolina’s Difficult Dialogues Initiative seeks:

Freedom of expression for a wide range of viewpoints;

Respectful attention to a wide range of viewpoints;

Intellectually serious analysis and defense of multiple viewpoints; and

A search for common ground, without ignoring genuine differences, among diverse viewpoints.

The process will seek common ground among differing viewpoints and, through appropriate forums and media, share findings throughout the campus community and with audiences in the wider academic and public spheres.

UNC’s proposal cited that the campus has learned from the controversies encountered in Carolina’s history that a university cannot be content simply to espouse principles of free inquiry, open discussion, and support of diversity.

As the nation’s oldest public institution, UNC has an obligation and opportunity to be proactive rather than reactive, the proposal stated.

Faculty and students should feel comfortable discussing any issue in an open manner, and this process will help us learn how to best promote that openness, Wegner said.

“We can help students and faculty know where each other is coming from in terms of religion and other issues that are important them.”

This year, the National Issues Forums Network will be contracted to conduct focus groups and gather baseline data on campus and in the larger community; frame the key issues; conduct workshops and other hands-on opportunities for faculty and instructors to refine their skills in leading difficult dialogues; develop moderator and discussion guides, and test and refine activities and materials as needed to meet program objectives.

Then, voluntary discussions and dialogues will be conducted throughout campus. Hopefully, these discussions can continue long after the grant expires, Andrews said.

“Our goal is to continue discussions and maintain open dialogue among diverse groups long after the grant expires,” he said. “We want this to be ongoing and part of campus life. To have meaningful dialogue, all sides need to feel that they can say what they think. An environment of open communication is important to this campus.”

For more information, visit: www.fordfound.org/news/more/dialogues/index.cfm.

School of Journalism and Mass Communication selected for international program

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently announced that Carolina is among six U.S. schools of journalism included in the Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program — a public-private partnership with the U.S. Department of State.

“Named after the renowned journalist and former director of the United States Information Agency, Edward R. Murrow, this program emphasizes many of the democratic principles that guided Mr. Murrow’s practice of his craft: integrity and ethics and courage and social responsibility,” Rice said. “We all know that the bedrock pillar of a free society is a free press and that it is crucial for the foundation of any democracy.”

The program will bring up to 100 upcoming leaders in the field of journalism from around the world to examine journalistic practices in the United States. Planned for April 2006, the program will link the state department, the Aspen Institute and UNC, along with journalism schools at the University of Oklahoma, University of Texas at Austin, University of Minnesota and University of Kentucky.

Bowers

“We are proud to be one of the six leading schools participating in this program,” said Tom Bowers, School of Journalism and Mass Communication interim dean. Bowers attended the program announcement ceremony last month in Washington, D.C.

“The program is extremely important to the school, and we will do all we can to make it a meaningful experience for the participants,” he said. “This gives us yet another opportunity to expand global activities that are so important to our students and faculty members, who will have opportunities to meet and talk with the Murrow participants.”

Working in conjunction with the journalism schools, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs will engage young media professionals in a specialized International Visitor Leadership Program with their U.S. counterparts to explore the American practice of journalism.

“The universities are going to conduct academic seminars on journalistic principles to be enhanced by opportunities for the international journalists to observe the U.S. press in action,” Rice said. “The Aspen Institute will organize an international symposium for journalists, highlighting curriculum and trends that challenge journalists here in this contemporary circumstance and that are facing media here in America and in the world.”

After initial programming in Washington, participants will be divided into groups to travel to the campuses of the six partner schools.

The journalism schools have designed specialized curriculum for their international counterparts highlighting journalistic standards in the U.S. On the university campuses, the program participants will take part in intensive seminars and field activities with faculty and students.

“We expect to have 10 to 12 Arab-speaking journalists in our school from April 5 to 13, 2006,” Bowers said. “They will have an interpreter with them. We will arrange special seminars about journalistic principles in a democratic society and activities that will give them a better sense of American culture. Participants will also visit area media companies. Upon leaving here, they will spend several days visiting other cities and towns before going back to Washington for a wrap-up session.”

Bowers said he will work with Jan Yopp, senior associate dean, and Louise Spieler, assistant dean for distance education and executive education, to plan the program, which will involve faculty members from the school.

State Department officials have given the schools complete freedom to choose topics and conduct seminars and other program events at our discretion, he said.

“We plan to have sessions about newsgathering practices, legal issues, access to information, media business models, to name but a few,” Bowers said. “Throughout these and other topics, our presenters will also incorporate ethics, accuracy, fairness, accountability, confidentiality, balance and responsibility. We will make the sessions as interactive as possible to respond to what the participants want to learn, and we hope to ask them for possible topics before they arrive.”

The journalists are expected to be in the United States for three weeks during the program.

Q&A with new Employee Forum Chair Ernie Patterson

Editor’s note: Ernie Patterson, a University employee for more than 30 years, was elected Employee Forum chair at the Dec. 7 meeting. He succeeded Tommy Griffin, who served as chair for the past four years. The forum honored Griffin’s record of service to UNC and installed new officers during the meeting. Following is a conversation with Patterson.  

Patterson

What are key areas of focus?
Two of the most important issues are the cost of health care and the lack of fair and equitable salary increases from the legislature for all state employees. We all know that health insurance costs went up again last year. With the higher cost, more employees than ever before have

found themselves unable to afford health care for their families. This has happened not only because health insurance costs went up, but also because state employees’ real income has gone down. During the five years from July 2000 to July 2005, the average UNC staff employee lost almost 1 percent per year of real income because the salary adjustments approved by the legislature failed to keep up with the rate of inflation.  

What are your expectations for 2006?
The Employee Forum will work with the University in 2006 on these and many other issues. To do this, we need your help and active support. First, we need to work hard to educate our state government leaders and our fellow citizens in North Carolina about what good jobs state employees are doing. Then we need to insist that fair and equitable pay raises and benefits packages for state employees be considered by the legislature at the beginning of the state budget process, not at the end when all we get is whatever is left over.  

What can employees do to be involved?
I encourage each employee on this campus to get involved in two ways.

First, take an active role in the educational mission of the forum as we talk to our leaders this year. Keep your eyes on both the University Gazette and the forum’s InTouch newsletter for info about ways you can get involved.

Second, take some time to talk to forum members and give them ideas on what else the forum can do to make UNC a better place for everyone to work. You can find a list of forum members and their contact info by going to www.unc.edu/forum and click on delegates.  

Do you have any words for the employees?
We on the forum look forward to working for you — and with you — in the coming year. On behalf of the UNC-Chapel Hill Employee Forum, I would like to thank all staff employees for their hard work and dedication to making UNC a better place for everyone to work, study, and even play.

During the coming year, all of us will need to face difficult and complex issues that affect us as individuals and our families.

Faculty continues diversity, tenure discussions

Chancellor James Moeser has said that Carolina has reason to celebrate its record over the past half century of opening campus to minorities and women that for much of its history had been an exclusive preserve for white men.

But when Moeser appointed a task force on diversity a year ago, he challenged members of the campus community to take a hard look at the climate at Carolina and how comfortable it is for a range of people whose differences might be measured any number of ways.

Members of the Faculty Council — first in the October meeting and again at its last meeting of the year on Dec. 9 — have proven themselves eager to engage in the kind of critical examination Moeser suggested.

But as might be expected, faculty members saw the challenge from a myriad of perspectives.

Frank Wilson, professor of orthopedics in the School of Medicine for the past 40 years, said he recalled a time when the overarching emphasis on campus was unity of purpose in support of a University mission to which everyone was tied.

Wilson cited sessions he had attended on the need for “cultural competency” for doctors to serve a diverse array of patients. At the end of 100,000 words, Wilson said, the gist of it seemed to be “we should be better doctors.”

Wilson suggested that greater sensitivity to differences among people is a good thing but could be counterproductive if allowed to detract focus from the broader mission.

Jay Smith, associate dean for undergraduate curricula, said he was troubled by the two ways by which diversity was approached during work on the new general education curriculum for undergraduates.

One view addressed diversity through the prism of variety by which a student would be required to take courses about different subcultures or ethnic group.

The second view, which Smith supported, looked at diversity through the prism of U.S. history and the specific inequalities inflicted on such groups as African-Americans and lesbians and gays.

Several faculty members cited survey data included in the diversity task force’s final report that showed African-American and Hispanic professors on campus are not as comfortable or welcome on campus as their white counterparts believe them to be.

Charles Daye, a law professor who served on the task force, stood up to frame the issue from a deeper, historical perspective. Daye referred to comments made by retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor about how the country may have moved beyond the need for redressing racial inequities in the next 25 years.

Daye, who in 1972 became the first African-American to hold a tenure-track faculty position in the University’s law school, said, “I hope she’s right.”

In the meantime, Daye said, work remains to be done.

The task force completed its work last April. On Sept. 15, Moeser announced that Archie Ervin, the associate provost for diversity and multicultural affairs who chaired the task force, would lead the development of a diversity plan for Carolina.

The work that began with the task force a year ago will continue and it will allow people of good will to participate, and at times, disagree, he said. But Daye cautioned against allowing a quest for perfection to become “the enemy of something good that we can do.”

“We are not there yet, but we are working on it,” Daye said. “For the first time, we’ve begun a process to work at this in a systematic way.”

Tenure notice proposal
In other business, the council defeated in a split vote a proposal first presented for consideration in November that would have amended tenure regulations. The action followed a failed attempt to revise the wording in the proposed amendment.

Members of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee had sought to change when the 12-month required notice of non-reappointment begins. Under the policy that remains in effect, the 12-month notice begins on the date a negative decision is made.

Under the proposed amendment, the 12-month clock would not start until any on-campus review or appeal that results in a final decision unfavorable to the faculty member.

The aim of the amendment was to create a more humane and fair process to tenure-track professors during a period of high stress and was in response to a situation faced by a single faculty member — the only such case in the past five years.

The council’s rejection of the amendment followed the recommendation from 10 of the 12 members of the Appointment, Promotion and Tenure Committee that met to review the proposed amendment before the Dec. 9 Faculty Council meeting.

The committee concluded that there would be two possible ways to implement the amendment.

Under the first scenario, those who are denied reappointment and who file appeals would have their employment extended if their appeals extend into the final 12 months of their terms.

Under the second scenario, the review process for all faculty in probationary terms would begin six months earlier that it occurs now.

The committee concluded the second scenario would end up happening because it was unlikely that the chancellor would recommend the first option.

Citizen-Soldier program gets expansion funds

The 2006 U.S. Department of Defense Appropriations bill approved
Dec. 22 includes $3 million for the Citizen-Soldier Support Program (CSSP) to strengthen its outreach to the families and loved ones of the Army and Air National Guard and the Reserve Components of all of the armed services.

CSSP, a collaborative program led by the University, began operating as a national demonstration program in March 2005. Since receiving its initial Congressional funding, the program has worked to mobilize statewide support for military families from a wide variety of community organizations.

Citizen soldiers account for more than one-third of the troops deployed in Iraq, leaving behind loved ones and families when they are mobilized. North Carolina alone has more than 25,000 members of the National Guard and military Reserves.

While active duty military personnel often live on military bases, citizen soldiers maintain civilian jobs until mobilized and can live hours away from the nearest base or formal, military support system. CSSP aims to create a network of community support for citizen soldiers and their families before, during and after mobilization.

“We are grateful for the strong, collaborative support North Carolina’s entire Congressional delegation has demonstrated on behalf of the Citizen-Soldier Program,” said Chancellor James Moeser. “Delegation members recognized the importance of the program for North Carolina’s military families and made it a top funding priority. Our hope is that this program may one day serve as a model for other states, and this new funding will go a long way toward accomplishing this goal.”

Still in its early stages, the program has conducted training for school psychologists and health-care professionals, mobilized many religious groups, and partnered with parks and recreation departments, libraries and cooperative extension agencies to create services benefiting citizen soldiers and their families.

CSSP also is working with local government officials to encourage endorsement of the program and build morale for military personnel and their families.

“We still have more work to do in North Carolina to connect the services we are mobilizing to the families that need them,” said Dennis Orthner, program director and professor in the School of Social Work. “This will be a priority in the coming year.”

With this funding, UNC plans to develop a national technical training and assistance center that will build on CSSP accomplishments in North Carolina and assist other states in their efforts to mobilize local support of military families.

Rare piano boosts UNC’s arts profile

From left, Chancellor James Moeser; Richard M. Krasno, executive director for the Kenan Trust of Chapel Hill; and Emil Kang, executive director for the arts; listen as Mayron Tsong, assistant professor of music, performs on the new Hamburg Steinway D at Memorial Hall.

The William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust recently donated a concert grand piano to the University, better positioning UNC to attract more of the world’s top artists to perform in Memorial Hall.

Like most U.S. venues, Memorial already had a New York Steinway D concert grand. Now, with the gift of a Hamburg Steinway D, UNC becomes one of the few institutions nationwide with both models.

UNC unveiled the Hamburg Dec. 8 in Memorial Hall. Following the ceremony, Chancellor James Moeser played the Carolina Alma Mater to christen the instrument.

“We are thrilled with the Kenan Trust’s generous and visionary gift of this remarkable and invaluable Steinway Hamburg concert grand piano,” said Emil Kang, executive director for the arts. “Few universities, let alone performing arts centers, have access to such an instrument. Now, paired with our New York Steinway, we will be able to attract the world’s greatest pianists, some of whom prefer to perform on Hamburg Steinways.”

Mayron Tsong, assistant professor of music and a pianist who has performed throughout the United States and abroad, played Rachmaninov’s “Etude Tableaux” in C Major, Op.33 No. 2, during the ceremony. She said the piece captured well the qualities of the Hamburg and how it differs from the New York.

Author Kirsch uncovers little-known nuclear past

Need to move some ground to build a canal or harbor? How about using an atomic bomb? How about 764 atomic bombs? This was seriously researched and planned by United States government scientists from 1957 to 1974.

Scott Kirsch, an assistant professor of geography, details this Cold War corollary in a new book, “Proving Grounds: Project Plowshare and the Unrealized Dream of Nuclear Earthmoving.”

While researching the rise and fall of Project Plowshare, Kirsch found that government scientists estimated that a new canal built in Panama or Colombia would require a nuclear explosion 20,000 times greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. Scientists created a map to show affected areas. They assumed that 30,000 people would need to be relocated upwind from the explosions. This particular five-year $17.5-million study was authorized by Congress, as was the whole of Project Plowshare for some $750 million over 17 years, according to Kirsch.

Most people know that nuclear devices were exploded under the Nevada desert creating massive craters; the largest and most well-known is called Sedan. Many of these Nevada tests were part of Project Plowshare.

Kirsch said that famed physicist and anticommunist Edward Teller backed the project because he believed that nuclear earthmoving was an important part of geographical engineering.

“We will change the earth’s surface to suit us,” Teller proclaimed.

Kirsch said that radioactivity hazards and the difficult task of evaluating them challenged Teller’s optimism from the start. Still, Kirsch said that it’s easy in hindsight to see the inappropriateness of Project Plowshare. But the program lasted so long for a reason. In his book, Kirsch examines the “intermingling of scientific, technical, political, security and cultural discourses and logics” of the era.

He said the idea of nuclear earthmoving and turning atomic explosions into something positive fascinated weapons scientists. He found that 54 projects in 25 countries were considered for potential nuclear excavation sites. Ultimately, the project was shelved because atomic fallout could not be predicted and was more harmful than thought.

“This is a book about the hubris of a Cold War nuclear weapons laboratory looking to diversify into civil engineering and regional development,” Kirsch said. “But I also wanted to tell the story of the opposition that these experiments galvanized, especially among environmental scientists.”

In 1959, for example, Project Plowshare moved to Alaska for Project Chariot, the creation of a harbor near Point Hope on Alaska’s northwest shore. Newspaper editorialists and an Alaska Senator were initially swayed by Teller’s argument. Biologists and other faculty at the University of Alaska were not. This was the beginning of an opposition that eventually stretched to the local Eskimo population in Point Hope.

“This opposition was critical both to the eventual defeat of Plowshare and to the development of the environmental movement in this country,” Kirsch said. “From Plowshare, we can learn about the role of science in environmental politics, as well as the politics of science itself.”  

Provided by the Division of Research
and Economic Development
Editor: Neil Caudle
Writer: Mark Derewicz

Get free income tax preparation help
at select community sites

The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program provides free income tax preparation help to the University and Chapel Hill community.

This assistance is provided by trained students from the Master of Accounting Program, the law school and the Student Poverty Reduction Outreach Club.

These volunteers are trained to assist those with household incomes of $50,000 or less, who do not itemize deductions and are not self-employed. Volunteers are not trained to assist those holding international visas.

For an appointment, call 1-800-807-6349, beginning Jan 17. Appointments are strongly encouraged to avoid waiting.  

Locations, with times help is available are:

Giles F. Horney Building | 103 Airport Dr.  

Tues., Feb. 9

Mon., Feb. 13

Wed., Feb. 15

Mon., Feb. 20

Tues., Feb. 21

Wed., Feb. 22  

Mon., Mar. 6

Wed., Mar. 8

Tues., Mar. 21

Wed., Mar. 22

Tues., Mar. 23      

Mon., Mar. 27

Wed., Mar. 29                                                            

Mon., April 3

Tues., April 4

Wed., April 5

Mon., April 10

Wed., April 12

Thurs., April 13  

(All times 6-8 p.m.)

Cheek-Clark Building | 505 W. Cameron Ave.  

Sat., Feb. 4, 1-4pm

Mon., Feb. 13, 6-8 p.m.   Sat., Feb. 18, 1-4 p.m.

Mon., Feb. 27, 6-8 p.m.   Sat., Mar. 4, 1-4 p.m.

Mon., Mar. 27, 6-8 p.m.

Sat., April 1, 1-4 p.m.

Mon., April 10, 6-8 p.m. 

Hargrave Center | 216 N. Roberson St.  

(All Wednesdays (6-9 p.m.) and Saturdays (1-5 p.m.) from Feb. 1 to April 12.
(Closed Mar. 11, 15, 18)  

All eligible employees are encouraged to take advantage of this program.

Making the most of the University’s mass e-mail system

Have you ever needed to send information quickly to a large segment of campus? Or wondered where those “informational,” “formal notice” and “urgent” e-mails come from?

The answer is campus mass e-mail, a tool for electronically requesting and distributing messages to the campus community.

These messages must go through a formal approval process before distribution. Here are some things to keep in mind to use the system to its fullest potential.  

Creating a mass e-mail
Perhaps it’s your job to recruit subjects for a research study, distribute a general-interest newsletter or remind people of an approaching deadline.

You may use the mass e-mail system to communicate with the UNC community. The mass e-mail system includes a step-by-step guide to help you submit your information for review and approval.

Here are important ideas to remember when preparing your e-mail text:

The system is available for the sending of messages that relate to University work or typical University information.

Any campus unit (department, office, center, etc.) or recognized University organization may request that a message be sent, but no e-mails are sent without approval.

Include Institutional Review Board approval information in the body of study recruiting messages.

  Don’t use the system to promote events (with a few official exceptions, such as candidate forums). Any message specifying a time and place is generally considered as promoting an event.

Allow up to three business days between submission and posting of your message. Messages are usually sent late at night, so if you need for people to know something on Friday, specify it to send on Thursday.

Ready? Go to www.unc.edu/massmail for general directions and a link to the mass mail policy. Then click on Create Message. Sign in with your Onyen and password to see the first of several pages that will walk you through the process. Consider carefully whether the default options are effective for your situation. If you’re recruiting subjects who haven’t completed an undergraduate degree, for example, you won’t send your message to faculty or to graduate or professional students.

When you enter the message, if you cut and paste from a word processing program, use straight instead of smart quotation marks, and avoid special characters (like many bullet points and symbols).

These don’t reproduce accurately on many e-mail programs. Check line breaks, and don’t try to use tabs or tables for alignment. Finally, proofread your message for spelling and grammar.  

Approving mass e-mails
When you’ve completed the process, click “Finish.” The system will automatically notify the approver(s) that a new message has been submitted. Approvers do not judge the content of the message other than to ensure that it complies with the mass e-mail policy (www.unc.edu/policy/massemail.html) and that there are no glaring typos. Messages that violate the policy will be returned with suggestions for revisions, but it is your decision whether to make the changes, appeal to the provost for an exemption or not send the message at all.

The mass mail program can seem complicated at first, but the step-by-step process makes it easy to submit your information for mass distribution.

If at any time you need help with creating a message, click on “Mass Email Support” at the bottom of the screen. We’ll research the problem and respond as quickly as we can.

Receiving mass e-mails
What if you don’t want to get these messages at all?

You may opt out of receiving e-mails labeled “informational,” which represent the largest number of messages sent through the system.

To do this, go to the online campus directory (dir.unc.edu) and choose Update Entry from the links on the left.

Sign in with your Onyen and password to see your own entry in the directory.

In the first grouping of information is a flag for “UNC info. mass email.”

Change your status by clicking on the appropriate button and saving the change, which will be processed within the next 24 hours.

User training set for Journal Entry System

With the launch of phase two on Jan. 10, the Online Journal Entry System is available for all correcting entries affecting state and non-state funds. Business managers and other finance personnel can now make corrections to existing transactions posted in the Financial Record System (FRS), excluding those posted in the current month.

The system allows users to retrieve original entries, make “real time” account adjustments, verify the status of correcting entries pending approval, and minimize submission of paper account adjustments (AJ1s). Employees are encouraged to use the system.

University departments must establish approval routing with the Flexible Routing of Electronic Documents (FRED) System for online account adjustment submissions to be accepted. Employees should check with their director or department head to see if their department is set up with FRED. 

Training for the Online Journal Entry System is available. To register, go to the Finance Division Training page at www.unc.edu/finance/fs/training_sch.htm, select Online Journal Entry System under the Classroom Training column and enroll in the class you would like to attend.

The system can be accessed at www.unc.edu/financecentral. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Stephanie Lloyd at 843-3069 or Stephanie_Lloyd@unc.edu.