by Jessica Hines
Associate Editor
Approximately 200 students from across the state appeared before
the General Administration Building in Chapel Hill Friday morning
to put faces to the stories presented in “The Personal Stories
Project: Faces, Not Numbers.”
The 500-page book compiled stories from nearly 800 students, parents,
staff and faculty from the University of North Carolina system describing
the effects of cost increases and budget cuts.
The book was distributed to members of the UNC Board of Governors,
North Carolina legislature and university Boards of Trustees, as
well as university chancellors, UNC-system Association of Student
Governments Vice President for Public Affairs Jeremy P. Engbretson
said Friday.
“I think what’s been great about this year is that students
have been more involved in the whole process than they ever were
in the past with the personal stories book, through writing e-mails
and things to that effect,” ASG President Johnathan L. Ducote
said Friday. “I really think this isn’t the last time
or the first time the Board of Governors have heard from students.”
BOG member Charles H. Mercer Jr., of Raleigh cited another book,
titled “The Future of the Public University in America: Beyond
the Crossroads,” to “help place this [tuition increase]
in a perspective so you [students] will understand what we’re
trying to do is make a decision that we believe will place this
in a perspective.
“… What we’re trying to do is to make a decision
that we believe will give quality educational opportunities to each
and every one of you,” Mercer said.
According to the James J. Duderstadt book, the costs of a college
education have replaced concerns of access and opportunity. As society
gains confidence in the private market over government programs,
higher education will be dependent more upon private dollars.
“I believe taking a market-based tuition perspective is detrimental
to the state and 200 years of good public policy,” BOG ex-officio
member Ducote said in response to Mercer. “What this [personal
stories] book demonstrates, and not so much what yours [Mercer’s]
does, is that the middle class is where we’re beginning to
have problems with affording higher education. The way financial
aid equations are written, many middle class families can’t
qualify for that financial aid.”
Ducote said although the BOG recommendation for campus-based tuition
increases was approved, he believes the book had an impact.
“At the end of the budget and finance meeting, [BOG member]
Jim Phillips said that book and the way the students carried themselves
over the past few weeks truly impacted the process, impacted the
bottom-line dollar figure and I think it helped influence the debate,”
Ducote said.
A second edition of the personal stories book may be on the way
depending on the priorities of next year’s ASG administration,
Ducote said. ASG has collected approximately 100 additional stories
since the publication of the first book.
“I think the increase today will only do more to help a second
edition come out because more and more people are going to have
problems and they’ll need an avenue to talk about it,”
Ducote said.
“I think the students are going to look forward to partnering
with the board when the board takes leadership and goes downtown
to the legislature and meets with both speakers and the senate pro
tem and the governor when budget time comes,” Ducote said.
The North Carolina General Assembly reconvenes in May when it will
decide the 2004-05 budget, including the budgets and tuition increases
for the UNC system.
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