UNC: Under Fire?

From state funding cuts to the closure of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, there’s a growing sense in Chapel Hill that UNC is under siege.

But is it true?

“We are one of the best-supported university systems in the country, (but) over the last few years there’s been a small but steady decline in the support,” said UNC Provost Jim Dean at Thursday’s WCHL Community Forum.

But he says it could be worse. “There’s not a university in the country that’s not feeling financial pressure, and many of them are in much greater difficulty than we are,” Dean said Thursday. “We’ve had historically high support from the (state) legislature – over the last few years that support has gone down a bit, but relative to other universities in the country, it’s still quite high.”

Still, it’s not just a question of funding. Controversy flared recently when the UNC Board of Governors voted to close the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill – a center run by outspoken law professor Gene Nichol, who’s angered conservatives with his statements against the General Assembly.

Was the Board’s decision to close the Center an attempt to punish Nichol for speaking out?

Mitch Kokai, communications director for the John Locke Foundation, says no. “It’s part of this whole idea of making sure that if you’re giving the University a lot of state money, (you should) make sure that the university system and the campus in Chapel Hill are focusing on high priorities,” he says.

Provost Dean points out that the closure of the center was never a question of money. “The poverty center was receiving no state support, so there was no savings there whatsoever,” he says.

But Kokai says there was more behind the decision than that.

“A lot of people…remember that the center started (by Nichol) for John Edwards to help launch his next presidential campaign,” he said Thursday. “So it was seen to be political…and if there had been a good solid record (of achievements) that he could have pointed to and said, look, you’re going to close down this center that’s doing all these great things, I think he would have had a case.

“But that just wasn’t forthcoming.”

Regardless, both Dean and Kokai agree that Nichol and his staff appear to have been able to continue the Center’s work, even without official status – so if the closure was an attempt to punish Gene Nichol, Kokai says it wasn’t particularly effective.

Click here to hear the full audio from Thursday’s Community Forum.

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