EDITOR’S NOTE: After months of preparing to return to campus, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz made a wrenching decision this week to shift the University back to remote instruction. With Entrepreneur in Residence Buck Goldstein, Guskiewicz teaches a graduate seminar called The American Professoriate. These are his reflections after the first day of class. By… READ MORE
Rimer: Time to take the off-ramp
Who makes decisions? Decision-making about whether to reopen a UNC System campus to residential students, especially students in dorms, is a complicated multi-layered process. Whatever choice is made, a good many constituents will be unhappy, and it seems like everyone will have had an opinion, some of them incredibly strong. The constituents of a public… READ MORE
Welcome to 2030
RALEIGH (Aug. 13, 2020) – Welcome to 2030. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated change in North Carolina workplaces to where it would have been in 2030 without the pandemic, NC State University economist Michael Walden told a virtual audience at the NC Chamber’s annual Education & Workforce Conference. Though jobs in North Carolina food preparation… READ MORE
Guskiewicz: Faculty ‘solving the grand challenges of our time’
CHAPEL HILL – Viruses are Carolina’s thing. Whether it’s pioneering work in HIV by Dr. Mike Cohen or development of the drug remdesivir by Dr. Ralph Baric to treat COVID-19, the university has a focus – and a reputation – for taking on some of the world’s nastiest infections. While professors teach the next generation, UNC Chapel… READ MORE
Recent grads urge students to ‘Embrace the Weirdness’
CHAPEL HILL – Three recent graduates of UNC System schools urge students to “Embrace the Weirdness” and abide by community standard during the pandemic in a lively video produced as a public service announcement. Graduates Annalee Banks of Western Carolina University, Liz Chung of UNC Asheville and Najawa Huntley of N.C. A&T State University worked… READ MORE
Excerpts: Funding NC Public Education Through the Pandemic
RALEIGH (July 29, 2020) – Funding for public education in North Carolina can be uncertain even in good times. Now try it in the midst of a global pandemic. In the following excerpts from Zoom webinars Higher Ed Works hosted last week, state legislative leaders discuss the many uncertainties they face in budgeting for public… READ MORE
‘A culture of expectation’ at Elizabeth City State
ELIZABETH CITY – For Elizabeth City State University Chancellor Karrie G. Dixon, reopening campus amid the COVID-19 pandemic boils down to holding yourself and those around you accountable for doing the right thing. In the accompanying excerpts from a Zoom interview, Dixon discusses how ECSU will start the fall semester a week earlier than originally… READ MORE
ECSU drones to help fight COVID-19 in rural NC
ELIZABETH CITY – Elizabeth City State University has a tool not many schools have to combat the spread of COVID-19: Its own air force. Situated just 2 miles from the largest U.S. Coast Guard air station in the country, ECSU has the only four-year aviation program in North Carolina. Last fall, the school also launched… READ MORE
Woodson: ‘Human interaction… is kind of a big deal’
RALEIGH – The on-campus college experience is very important to Randy Woodson. The university will start early, forego fall break and end the semester by Thanksgiving in an effort to keep students from traveling widely and then return to campus, NC State University’s Chancellor says in the accompanying video from a Zoom interview. Students and… READ MORE
UNC Asheville Chancellor: ‘We can do this’
ASHEVILLE – Students and parents want to come back. Faculty and staff want to get back to work. And Western North Carolina’s economy needs it. So with pages and pages of health procedures in place to respond to any number of potential scenarios, “We believe we can do this,” UNC Asheville Chancellor Nancy J. Cable… READ MORE