A DECLINE IN PURCHASING POWER
When adjusting for inflation, most faculty salaries at Western Carolina University have fallen over the past decade. Sean Molholland/WCU graphic
University community hopeful for raise in 2021
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UNC system president visits Cullowhee
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The Cat-Tran then took a loop around campus, passing by active and more recent projects such as Noble Hall, Laverne Hamlin Allen Residence Hall, a 1,000-space parking deck and the construction site for the new steam plant, an expensive project that university representatives spent years lobbying the General Assembly to fund. UNC System President Peter Hans answers media quesThe final stop was the tions during a July 1 visit to Western Carolina University. Moore Building, which was Holly Kays photo completed in 1924 and is the oldest building on campus. demolished last year. The first of the new “This is the new steam plant,” joked residence buildings is expected to open for one member of the tour, pointing to the Fall 2022. likelihood that the university will soon The next stop was a hardhat tour of the make renovations to the old brick building $110 million Tom Apodaca Science a priority when requesting funding. Building, which is now nearly complete Moore used to house the university’s and slated to open for the fall semester. health and human sciences program, but it The new building will feature 185,000 has been vacant since 2012, when the new square feet of state-of-the-art lab and classHHS building opened on Little Savannah room space. In August, the old Natural Road. Before that it was home to campus Science Building — which in places stands dining and originally served as a women’s just a few feet away from the newly condormitory. Though old and in need of renostructed building — will be demolished vations, it’s still functional and has “good and remade into a quad area. bones,” university representatives told Hans.
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niversity of North Carolina System President Peter Hans toured institutional improvements at Western Carolina University July 1, marking his first visit to campus since the UNC Board of Governors elected him to the position in June 2020. “It’s thrilling to see 12,000 students strong here now in (this) N.C. Promise institution,” Hans said. “I think that holds great appeal because of the access and the affordability of the ‘Whee here without sacrificing any of the quality. And I only see onward and upward for Western from here.” Hans, who was president of the N.C. Community College System from 20182020, has visited WCU multiple times in the past while on the UNC Board of Governors from 2003-2015. Hans rode the Cat-Tran around campus with Chancellor Kelli R. Brown, several administrative faculty members and members of the press. The tour began with a drive-by of the Lower Campus Residence Halls, which are under construction to replace the Scott and Walker residence halls, a half-century old when they were
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July 7-13, 2021
BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER ith the state’s biennial budget process now nearing its conclusion, Western Carolina University employees are hopeful that they could soon see their first permanent raise in three years. “It’s time,” said UNC System President Peter Hans in an interview during his July 1
visit to WCU. “It’s a matter of recruitment and retention and morale for incredibly hardworking individuals who saw the university through one of the greatest challenges I hope we ever see over the past year with COVID.” Gov. Roy Cooper proposed a 7.5% raise over two years for university and community college employees, while the N.C. Senate more recently passed a budget that included a 3% raise. The House has yet to pass its version, but Hans anticipates that number will fall somewhere between Cooper’s proposal and the Senate’s. The three parties will then
The salary issue is not new. It’s a perennial topic of discussion at trustees meetings and in budget negotiations, but a March 5 Board of Trustees presentation from Sean Mulholland, a WCU economics professor and associate director of the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise, shed new light on just how dire the situation is in Cullowhee. “By all accounts, productivity at Western is incredible,” said Mulholland, showing how the university’s 58.5% six-year graduation rate is the highest of 12 peer institutions listed for comparison. Earlier in that same meeting, trustees had recognized WCU’s Catherine Brewer Smith Distinguished Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders Billy Ogletree for receiving the UNC system’s 2020 Governor James E. Holshouser Jr. Award for Excellence in Public Service, an honor that recognized Ogletree’s 28 years at WCU preparing people in the field or new to it to lead the way in supporting people with speech-language pathologies. “The reason why we have good people like Professor Ogletree is because of investments in the past,” said Mulholland. “And that is why we are doing so well today.” Over the 10-year period from 1993-2003, inflation-adjusted salaries at WCU rose by 8%, and while the size of the inflation-adjusted
UPCOMING WYC RETREATS
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Housing crunch exacerbates WCU’s stagnant salaries
have to meet and settle on a final version. “I’m going to stay after it,” he said. “I know the Chancellor (Kelli Brown) has been a strong and very vocal advocate, and I believe we’ll be successful.”
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