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Tag: UNC Board of Governors

  • NC State Pride Center official no longer employed after new undercover video

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    A screenshot of the undercover video recorded by Accuracy in Media at NC State.

    A screenshot of the undercover video recorded by Accuracy in Media at NC State.


    Jane Winik Sartwell

    jane.sartwell@newsobserver.com

    Another unsuspecting subject of an activist group’s undercover videos at UNC System schools is now out of a job. This time, the group targeted NC State University’s LGBTQ Pride Center.

    The group Accuracy in Media has posted videos shot at universities across North Carolina and in other states that it says shows evidence of diversity, equity and inclusion programs on campuses where such programming is restricted. The group describes itself as using “investigative journalism and citizen-led activism to expose government corruption, public policy failures, and radical activists.”

    The group shared a video Thursday of the center’s assistant director explaining how the school continues to support LGBTQ+ students despite changes in policy at the system level. By Friday morning, he was no longer employed by NC State, according to the university.

    “We’re still able to do the things that we want to do, have these events and programs. We have to be a little more careful,” the video shows the assistant director, Jae Edwards, saying in the undated video. “As a marginalized group, we’re used to these things, and we’re used to going around them and finding ways around.”

    In 2024, the UNC Board of Governors repealed its commitment to initiatives that focus on DEI, instead committing to “institutional neutrality and nondiscrimination.” Accuracy in Media is focused in part on revealing that despite the official policy change, the tenets of DEI are still honored among individual North Carolina employees. First came videos out of UNC Charlotte, then UNC Asheville, Western Carolina University, UNC Wilmington, and North Carolina A&T.

    Now, the conservative organization has made its way to the Triangle.

    Edwards is the fourth UNC System employee to lose their job as a result of Accuracy in Media’s work. NC State referred to the new anti-DEI policy in explaining the situation.

    “We were made aware of the video on Thursday, Feb. 5,” a spokesperson for the university told The News & Observer. “The individual seen in the video had no role in policy or compliance decisions and was not authorized to speak on behalf of the university. The staff member no longer works at the university. NC State complies with both the spirit and letter of all applicable federal and state laws and UNC System policies, and any violation is taken very seriously.”

    “The date of separation is today, Feb. 6,” the spokesperson said, but declined to answer whether the separation came as a result of the video.

    Efforts to reach Edwards weren’t immediately successful on Friday.

    Edwards said in the video the Pride Center has increased its focus on supporting student organizations, since anti-DEI policy doesn’t extend to student-led groups.

    According to the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics, journalists should avoid undercover methods “unless traditional, open methods will not yield information vital to the public.”

    Accuracy in Media isn’t solely focused on universities. It has also recorded and posted undercover videos of staff at Rockingham County Schools, Lexington City Schools and Winston-Salem and Raleigh city governments.

    The group’s president, Adam Guillette, told The N&O that NC State was the last university on their list of UNC System schools. Accuracy in Media staffers, though, have revisited some of the UNC schools “that we’ve exposed in the past 12 months, and we’re shocked by some of the things we found, and we’ll be releasing those investigations in the next few months,” he said.

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    Jane Winik Sartwell

    The News & Observer

    Jane Winik Sartwell covers higher education for The News & Observer. 

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    Jane Winik Sartwell

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  • UNC Chapel Hill board members shoot down proposed tuition hike on in-state undergrads

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    A board of trustees committee at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill refused Wednesday to give its approval to a proposed 3% increase on in-state undergraduate tuition for the incoming class, calling on the university to keep that tuition flat for another year.

    The proposed increase on in-state undergrads, which came from the university’s administration,  would have amounted to $211 per student per year and raised about $800,000 in the first year. Current in-state undergrad students wouldn’t have been impacted by the increase. 

    Schools in the UNC System, including UNC, haven’t raised tuition on in-state undergraduate students since the fall of 2017. The UNC Board of Governors, for the first time since that hike, is allowing the boards at UNC System schools to consider a tuition increase.

    Chancellor Lee Roberts said during the meeting that he supported the proposal and called it “a very measured, reasonable increase, entirely consistent with our obligations to the North Carolina Constitution.”

    But trustees on the budget committee weren’t swayed, citing constitutional concerns, university spending and the UNC System’s taking of money from the university through performance metrics. 

    Several trustees said they would support the tuition increase if the UNC System promised not to take money off the Chapel Hill campus to give to other schools in the system. Trustees contend the UNC System took $7 million from the campus under a new performance formula and repeatedly called it a “tax.”

    However, a majority of the board said it was opposed to the in-state undergraduate tuition increase under any circumstance.

    “I think the principle on in-state tuition is that you don’t raise it unless you absolutely have to,” said trustee Jim Blaine, one of the most vocal critics of the plan. “I don’t see in our budget that we absolutely have to.”

    Blaine criticized the university for a $1-million contract with a D.C.-based public relations and communications firm, saying such spending feeds into the narrative that UNC is not careful with its money.

    “I don’t see the point in an $800,000 increase on in-state students, given our constitutional obligations, and I would like to see the graduate stuff reworked to be where it’s not shifting more of the burden to in-state students,” Blaine said.

    So the committee instructed the administration to bring back a proposal that includes no tuition increase on in-state undergrads and instead raised tuition on out-of-state graduate students to compensate for the lost revenue. The full Board of Trustees meets Thursday in Chapel Hill. The full board could consider the original proposal as well.

    Trustee Ralph Meekins was the lone vote against the plan to ask for a new proposal. Meekins said the original tuition proposal went through a long vetting process with administrators, students and faculty. He said he would take the Board of Governors’ allowance of an increase “as a recommendation that we should.”

    “We’ve gone nine years without increases in our tuition,” he said. “We are the No. 1 university in the country for the money and we need to stay competitive in that area.”

    The original proposal presented by the administration included a 10% increase on out-of-state undergraduate students and no increase on the base tuition for either in-state or out-of-state graduate students. The proposal also included increases for housing and meals. The trustees on the committee were OK with the out-of-state undergrad, housing and meal parts of the proposal.

    NC State’s board of trustees will also consider a proposal to raise tuition by 3% at its meetings this week.

    No matter what the university trustees ultimately decide to do regarding tuition, it might not be the last word. The Board of Governors oversees all the schools in the UNC System. And Republican lawmakers in the state House and Senate voted earlier this year on dueling budget proposals to hike tuition and force spending cuts at nearly every UNC System university, including Chapel Hill. Those plans are on hold as the legislature has failed to pass a new state budget.

    The Chapel Hill campus announced a $70-million cost-cutting plan in July.

    In-state undergraduate tuition has remained at $7,019 per year since the 2017-18 school year. Fees at UNC were $2,076 for the current 2025-26 academic year. The proposal included a $53 increase in fees to help fund a new campus recreation and wellness center as the university has outgrown its current one. Construction on the new rec center isn’t expected to begin until at least 2027.

    The university has been aggressively raising tuition for out-of-state undergraduate students. Tuition for those students was $26,575 in 2012-13 and is now $43,152, but demand in the form of applications continues to rise.

    “You should be contemplating a world where we’re going to be likely in this range [of increases] for some time,” Nate Knuffman, the university’s chief financial officer told the committee.

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  • UNC, NC State seek tuition hikes ahead of expected state budget cuts

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    Incoming undergraduate students at UNC-Chapel Hill could see a tuition and fee increase beginning next year, for the first time in nearly a decade.

    North Carolina State University is also proposing tuition increases for all of its students as public universities deal with expected budget cuts from North Carolina lawmakers.

    The UNC board of trustees will meet this week to consider a proposal to raise tuition for resident undergraduate students by 3%, the maximum allowable under state law. The change would go into effect for the class that matriculates in 2026. Current students wouldn’t see a tuition increase.

    The 3% increase would raise tuition by $211 per year at UNC. Along with a proposed $53 fee increase for a new recreation and wellness center, UNC resident undergrads would pay $9,360 in tuition and fees per year.

    Resident undergraduate tuition at UNC-Chapel Hill has been flat since the fall of 2017 as it has at other public schools in the UNC System. The university is routinely ranked among the best values among public universities in the nation.

    State lawmakers considered large cuts to higher education funding last year during their stalled budget process and pushed for universities to consider tuition increases. 

    At least one trustee is against the idea.

    “I’m opposed to the tuition increase on in-state students,” trustee Jim Blaine told WRAL.

    The proposal includes a 10% increase for non-resident tuition. If approved, nonresident undergraduates would pay $49,601 in tuition and fees. UNC would still rank behind peer institutions such as the flagship public universities in Michigan, Virginia and California. But the Increase would put UNC higher than Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and others.

    The proposal wouldn’t increase tuition for graduate students, but it seeks to include increases for students in the schools of government, law and pharmacy.

    The proposal includes a 7% increase for fees for residential halls and an average 3.9% increase for meal plans.

    The trustees will consider the increases at Wednesday’s budget, finance and infrastructure committee. The full board meets Thursday in Chapel Hill.

    If approved by the trustees, the tuition and fee rates would be submitted to the UNC System Board of Governors for review and approval early next year. The Board of Governors oversee all of the state’s public universities. But tuition decisions are made on a campus-by-campus basis.

    In 2024, UNC-Chapel Hill began covering out-of-pocket tuition and mandatory fees for in-state undergraduate students whose families make less than $80,000 per year and have typical assets.

    NC State University’s board of trustees also meets Thursday and Friday, and it will consider a 3% across-the-board tuition increase on all students — undergraduate and graduate, resident and nonresident. Current resident undergrads wouldn’t be impacted. Tuition would rise by $196 per year for the incoming cohort of resident undergraduates.

    The tuition increases for all students would generate an additional $7.7 million with most of the money going toward improved quality and accessibility, according to the university.

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