The Truth Matters
Once again, some members of the UNC Board of Trustees aren’t shooting straight with the University community. This time, it’s about origins of the ideologically driven “School of Civic Life and Leadership” that the trustees rammed through – with the support of politicians in the state legislature – without informing and adequately consulting the University’s […]
Important Accreditation Webinar Recording
If you missed our webinar on accreditation you missed a really great discussion. The recording is now available and you can access it here: Coalition for Carolina Accreditation Webinar Recording The bill to force an accreditation change is now moving through the NC House. Please contact your NC House Representatives and let them know whether […]
Carolina First
In the 18 months since the Coalition for Carolina was formed, more than 22,000 people have joined our email and social media networks. We are alumni, friends, family, faculty, students, staff and supporters of the University. Many of us live in North Carolina, and others live in Utah, Maine, Florida, New York, other states, and […]
Roger Perry Responds to Trustee’s Attack
Marty Kotis of Greensboro, a current trustee of UNC-Chapel Hill, last week published an attack on me, the Coalition for Carolina and the University itself. You can read it here. https://nsjonline.com/article/2023/04/kotis-the-hypocrisy-of-the-coalition-for-carolina/ When I had the honor of serving on the Board of Trustees (2003-2011), trustees put party, politics and personalities aside. We put the University […]
Politicizing College Accreditation
The legislature, specifically the NC Senate, appears to be trying to make college and community college accreditation a political issue, which it never should be. Accreditation is a highly focused, disciplined process for all schools that receive certain federal contracts as well as those whose students receive certain scholarships, particularly Pell grants – federal needs-based […]
Putting UNC’s Accreditation at Risk
The NC Senate is working on a new bill that would force UNC System colleges and NC Community Colleges to change accreditors. Accreditation is the key determiner of a higher education institution’s credibility, value of degrees, and ability to secure federal funds for financial aid. Politicians trying to interfere in the accreditation process in any […]
March Madness In More Ways than One
Remember the infamous “bathroom bill” of 2016 and the impact it had on NC? Not only did NC lose NCAA games until it was repealed, but according to an analysis reported by CNBC, that partisan, political overreach cost North Carolina’s economy an estimated $3.7 billion! CNBC specifically reported this: “Over the past year, North Carolina […]
Threatening the Accreditor?
If the proposed new “School of Civic Life and Leadership” is not political, why did politicians write the accompanying letter to accreditor Belle Wheelan for simply doing her job? Before we tell you what happened, let’s review what a college accreditor is and, specifically, who SACSCOC is and what their relationship is to Carolina. A […]
The GOP Playbook for Intervening in Higher Education
Yes. There appears to be a national playbook for the egregious governance overreach happening at Carolina. The Chronicle of Higher Education obtained, through public-records requests and which have not been previously reported, emails which … “shine light on an increasingly popular mode of intervention into public higher ed. In establishing the Hamilton Center, Florida joined other states— […]
A Look at the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees’ Authority
(Spoiler Alert: It Doesn’t Include Creating New Academic Programs) Last week I read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal expressing consternation that the UNC-Chapel Hill’s accrediting agency plans to ask for more information about University plans—launched by its Board of Trustees–to create a new School of Civic Life and Leadership. According to the WSJ, […]