Spangler asks to review tuition increases before they go to trustees
Hendersonville attorney Sam Neill was elected chairman of the UNC system Board of Governors during a meeting in which the board formally adopted the $1.3 billion 1995-96 budget for the 16-campus system.
A board member since 1985, Neill was chosen to serve the remainder of the unexpired term of Travis Porter. The vacancy was created when Porter wasn't re-elected to the board by the General Assembly.
Neill said during the Aug. 11 meeting he would work to build consensus among the board, which chose him over retired First Union Corp. CEO Clifford Cameron on an 18-13 vote.
"We have many challenges facing us as a board," he said. "The active participation of the entire board is paramount to achieving success in addressing the future changes of the university and its family."
Neill said it was important for the board to demonstrate it was a good steward of the state dollars it receives, which he reminded his audience amounts to 14 percent of the state's budget.
Budget thanks
The board also adopted a 1995-96 spending plan that had been hammered out for the most part by the General Assembly.
In his address to the board, Spangler praised the university community and its supporters for turning around the budget debate in the legislature. He said it was proper for legislators to closely examine spending.
"While we were being asked tough questions about our operations, columnists and newspapers carried stories about legislators criticizing the job we were doing: `We were focusing too much on research, not enough on teaching. We were elitist. Our president was arrogant,'" Spangler said.
"When you are receiving $1.3 billion annually in a state that has many other calls on its resources, you take criticism like this very seriously," he said. "Those people are our bankers."
Spangler praised the legislature for taking steps to restore funding for the system's libraries and for building repairs and renovations.
He said system administrators would continue to explain the need for more support for improved salaries, library acquisitions and technology, graduate student support, retention by universities of all of their federal grant awards and more funding for capital projects, particularly the need for land acquisition funds.
Tuition talk
Spangler told the board he had asked chancellors to conduct studies of possible additional tuition increases before presenting recommendations to their boards of trustees.
The legislature authorized the boards of trustees at Carolina and N.C. State to raise tuition $400 per student, with the proceeds remaining on the campuses. The money would be used for faculty salaries, financial aid and libraries.
The legislature also gave trustees at universities with MBA programs and medical, dental, law, pharmacy and veterinarian schools the authority to raise tuition for students of those schools, with the proceeds used for the schools.
Under the legislation, tuition for those professional students could rise as much as $400 for in-state students and up to $3,000 for out-of-state students. The combination of those students' special tuition increase cannot total more than $400 or $3,000, Spangler said, clearing up one question administrators had concerning the tuition proposals after they were approved by the legislature.
In a memo to the chancellors, Spangler said he wanted to respond to the chancellors' reports before any recommendations went to the boards of trustees.
Ken Grogan, associate vice president for finance for the UNC system, said in an interview the reviews would be conducted quickly.
Projects approved
Besides projects included in the legislature's construction budget, the board approved two additional Chapel Hill projects: a system of video screens in the Dean Smith Center and an addition to the Giles F. Horney Building.
The $1.9 million Smith Center project will add four 12-foot by 16-foot video screens in the corners of the ceiling and smaller monitors for the back rows of the lower level. The project will require no state funds, board member Marshall Rauch said in presenting the project to the board.
The Horney Building addition will cost $1.1 million and add 7,500 square feet of space that will allow consolidation of all telecommunications functions. The project will be funded by the University's telecommunications trust fund, Rauch said.
In other matters:
* Spangler told the board he had asked the system's chancellors to examine ways campuses could be used during the summer to take advantage of their facilities. He cited as an example the Appalachian Summer program at Appalachian State that offers a variety of entertainment and enrichment programs.
* The board elected Ben Ruffin of Lewisville as its secretary to fill the term vacated by Neill's election as chair.
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