The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will compensate Interim College President Carol Folt, UNC's incoming chancellor, an annual salary of $520,000 and benefits, the News and Observer reported on Thursday. The compensation terms are included in an agreement Folt signed last month. She will live in a home provided by UNC, and the university will cover her full utilities, housekeeping, health insurance and retirement benefits. More than a dozen UNC medical school professors have higher salaries than Folt will. On April 12, UNC announced Folt as the successor to current chancellor Holden Thorp. She will become UNC's first female chancellor when she assumes the position July 1.
Many higher education institutions have recruited disgraced public figures to their faculty, The New York Times reported. Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in 2008 after a prostitution scandal, now teaches a public policy course at City College. Former New Jersey governor James McGreevey, who resigned after admitting to an extramartial affair in 2004, teaches at Kean University. The arrangement benefits all parties, as disgraced public servants get a chance to pursue a new career, students have the opportunity to learn from those who made history and universities can hire high-profile figures to their faculty. Allowing those who have been caught in a scandal to teach, however, brings up ethical and moral issues, and many universities that have hired such figures face student protest and petition.
A group of Providence College students requested that the school take action in response a series of racial profiling incidents, the Associated Press reported. The students allege that campus security officers often ask minority students if they belong on campus, and that minority students are often followed by campus security. The students cited an incident last year when a derogatory term against blacks was inscribed in a bathroom. The group wants the school to enact a policy which prohibits racial profiling. Providence College officials responded, saying that the school is committed to reducing acts of discrimination, and cited its existing policy against racism and its hiring of a chief diversity officer last year. The group has met with administrators twice and the school has planned "cultural competency" training for its security staff.
