Fundraising skills seen as key for next NCCU chancellor

University of North Carolina system President Tom Ross told a chancellor’s search committee Thursday that the next person to lead N.C. Central University should be a gifted fundraiser.

As state and federal money becomes harder to come by, Ross said the university needs someone who can build the kinds of relationships that will lead to substantial private dollars to help propel the university forward.

“Regardless of what happens to state support, private funding is the margin of excellence at any institution,” Ross said. “That’s what can take the institution farther faster than anything else, so we’ve got to have someone who knows how to raise money and who is willing to raise money.”

Ross made his statement during the 19-member committee’s first meeting held Thursday in the chancellor’s dinning room inside W.G. Pearson Cafeteria.

He said the committee should bring him three names to replace former chancellor Charlie Nelms, who abruptly resigned the post last month.

No deadline has been set for the selection process, but NCCU and UNC administration officials have said it could take between six and nine months.

Once the three finalists have been identified, Ross said he would interview them and make a recommendation to the board of governors.
He said the person selected for the job should have integrity, understand shared governance, be transparent and inclusive, have great people skills and understand the balance between academics and athletics.

NCCU may eliminate programs to deal with budget cuts

Facing increased cuts in state funding, the chancellor of N.C. Central University has proposed eliminating several degree programs, merging others and increasing the class size of selected general education courses as a way of balancing the budget.

Under the proposals, NCCU would no longer offer bachelor of arts degree programs in French, sociology or public administration; mathematics and physics would be combined into a single department and the dance program would be “restructured” and moved to the theater department.

In recommendations that he’s presenting to a series of “listening forums” across the campus over the next few weeks, Chancellor Charlie Nelms said that his proposed fiscal, administrative and academic restructuring is necessary “to free up funds to reinvest in academic and related programs, which will enhance the university’s quality and competitiveness.”

The proposals also include a parallel streamlining of administrative processes and practices designed, in total, to generate around $2 million in savings during the next fiscal year.
Taken together, Nelms said, the recommendations would not only save money but would “enhance the university’s capacity to increase retention and graduation rates,” produce graduates who possess critical thinking and analytical skills, and “respond to current and projected budget challenges.”
Nelms’ recommendations are based on a report on the academic side by Provost Debbie Thomas and on the administrative side by Vice Chancellor Wendell Davis. 

NCCU conducting a top-to-bottom review of its academic programs

N.C. Central University has undertaken a massive review of all its academic programs that could result in the merger, realignment or even elimination of some programs.

“Make no mistake about it, this [review] will impact all the work we do here,” Chancellor Charlie Nelms told the school’s Board of Trustees on Tuesday. “We are trying to determine exactly through this who are we? What are the things we do well and the things we do not do well? We realize we cannot be all things to all people.”

NCCU Provost Debbie Thomas emphasized that the effort would not “eliminate or compromise the educational core” of the university and instead would “insure its academic integrity.”

NC Central among the most popular in the nation

The law school at N.C. Central University, along with Yale and Harvard, has been selected as one of the nation's most popular law schools.

U.S. News & World Report ranks NCCU ninth on its new list, which is headed by Yale, followed by Brigham Young University and then Harvard. Central is the only North Carolina law school on the popular list.

The list is based on the percentage of students admitted to a particular school who actually choose to enroll there. For 2010, the NCCU law school had an admission yield of 49.6 percent. Of 415 applicants accepted by the school, 206 subsequently enrolled there. By comparison, around 80 percent of the applicants accepted by Yale chose to go there.

Other schools in the ranking included Southern University, Liberty University, the University of Oklahoma, Regent University, the University of Memphis, and the University of New Mexico.

This isn't the first time the NCCU law school has been highly ranked.

It had previously been rated as the nation's best value for law schools for two years in a row by National Jurist Magazine.

NCCU students want new Union bldg.

Students at N.C. Central University want a new student union.

"What we have now is too small. It's just not big enough for us anymore, not in the year 2010," said Dwayne Johnson, the NCCU Student Government Association president. "We really need a new union."

The current Alfonso Elder Student Union was built in 1968 and last renovated in 1992, it has one main floor, a lower level and a total of 39,575 square feet.

That's not nearly enough, Johnson says.

"We have about 130 student organizations now, and there are about seven to nine rooms available in the union," he explained. "There's not enough places for everybody to meet. And there's nowhere to hold events or to just hang out with friends. The place is just too small."

On the lower level, there's a bookstore, a post office, a game room, a small snack bar, a billiards room and even a small meditation room. An annex with bowling lanes, built more than 40 years ago, adds another 5,800 square feet.

NCCU already has more than $100 million in construction projects under way on campus, including construction of a massive parking deck, a new residence hall and a new nursing school building.

Johnson said he understood that the push for a new student union is unlikely to bear fruit in the immediate future.

"But I think we can begin to make progress," he said. "We need to get people talking about this. We need to set the groundwork. Whether this takes five years or 10 years, we need to get this started."

NCCU to welcome 1,400 freshmen this fall

N.C. Central University is expecting to welcome 1, 400 freshman this fall -- among the largest freshmen classes the school has ever had. The new class begins moving in this week, and the university apparently has enough on-campus housing space to accommodate them all.

"We have reserved enough spaces," said Kevin Rome, NCCU's vice chancellor for student affairs and enrollment management.

"Right now, we're at capacity, but we should be fine. The only problem would be if we have a large number of students in the next day or two who haven't already confirmed that they are coming. We don't expect that, but there's no way to predict that now."

The 1,400 first-year students would tie the record set last year as the largest entering class. Those figures are about 30 percent higher than any previous classes.

NCCU, traditionally shy of on-campus housing, had to struggle with the size of the class last year. The university ran out of on-campus options and had to house around 300 students for the first semester at the Millennium Hotel.

There are no plans to do anything similar this year, even if more students do show up this week, Rome said.

"We are no longer in the business of providing off-campus housing," he said.

"We've decided not to house any students off-campus. We will make every attempt to keep them here based on what vacancies we have. If we can't accommodate them here, if we have 20 or 30 students we didn't anticipate, we will work with the students to identify off-campus housing possibilities."

The university was able to meet its enrollment goal and keep the Class of 2014 at the record-setting number of 1,400 students despite tuition increases totaling $548 a year for undergraduates who are North Carolina residents.

"I don't think the increases have had a major impact on enrollment here," Rome said. "It is, of course, a significant increase for some students, but when you factor in financial aid, the impact is not as great as it is at, say, UNC Chapel Hill."

At the end of its session this summer, the state Legislature agreed that the additional funds brought in by tuition increases at UNC system campuses could remain with the schools and be used for financial aid.

At NCCU, around 90 percent of students receive some kind of financial aid and more than 50 percent are eligible for the need-based federal Pell Grant financial aid program.

NCCU Law named best value by law magazine

For the second consecutive ranking, the North Carolina Central University School of Law has been ranked as the No. 1 Best Value Law School in the Nation. The ranking by the National Jurist Magazine is based on affordability, bar passage rate and job placement.

“We are again honored to receive this recognition,” said Raymond Pierce, dean of the NCCU School of Law. “Our law school continues to take pride in the ability to provide a quality and affordable legal education for persons seeking to enter the legal profession.”

U.S. Chief Justice visits NCCU Law

John G. Roberts Jr., chief justice of the United States, visited N.C. Central University's law school today. The chief justice largely avoided the limelight and the camera. Roberts spent most of his time not before a crowd but with small groups of students and lawyers. His schedule was tightly controlled, and the media - aside from one campus newspaper reporter - was barred.

For NCCU students, the visit was a rare opportunity. Roberts was on campus to preside over the school's moot court competition.

Roberts, who joined the nation's high court as its chief justice in 2005, visits just a handful of law schools each year. Two years ago,NCCU Law Dean Raymond Pierce met him at a judicial conference in West Virginia and asked him to speak at NCCU.

Roberts told Pierce that he doesn't usually give speeches but he'd preside over a moot court competition - in which teams of law students argue a case on appeal to a panel of judges.

Roberts will met with students, presided over the competition and held a U.S. Supreme Court Bar swearing-in ceremony for about 20 NCCU law alums, said Pierce, who doled out most of the 120 seats in the NCCU courtroom to students through a lottery, leaving plenty of alums and professors alike disappointed.

Roberts visits about six or seven law schools a year, often to preside over moot court competitions and occasionally for other reasons, Arberg said.

Roberts' visit is a coup for this small but well-regarded law school stuck between Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill, two institutions with law schools boasting larger reach and profile. Duke has hosted U.S. Supreme Court justices at least a handful of times, and two chief justices have spoken on campus, William Rehnquist in 2002 and Earl Warren in 1963.

In the last decade, UNC-CH has hosted associate justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Connor.

NCCU has hosted just one in its history, associate justice Potter Stewart in 1980.

If the six NCCU students chosen for the moot court competition never argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court during their careers, they can at least say they took legal fire from the nation's chief justice. Roberts was joined on the panel by Allyson Duncan, a former NCCU law professor who sits on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Henry Frye, a former member of the North Carolina Supreme Court.

Dominique Williams, a third-year law student, is one of NCCU's six participants in a case involving whether the government should be allowed to medicate a man in order for him to be considered competent and able to stand trial.

"We all have put in long nights and endless days," he said. "It's a great honor, so we've prepared very hard to make the university proud."

Bryan Nye was a second-year law student at the University of Kansas last year when Roberts presided over his moot court competition there.

Nye was wound pretty tight until he attended a question-and-answer session with Roberts before the competition. Seeing Roberts in person, joking and approachable, put him at ease.

"If you get to hear him speak, you'll realize he's brilliant, but also, he's very personable," Nye recounted recently by phone from his home in Kansas. "He's not out to get you as a law student."

Audit turns up financial problems at NCCU

State auditors cited N.C. Central University for "significant deficiencies" in the university's handling of its finances for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008.

Among the trouble spots were overpayments to employees of more than $13,000 and underpayments of $6,200, which occurred during calculations for retroactive pay related to salary adjustments.

Auditors noted that the mistakes occurred while NCCU was experiencing "significant turnover" in the university's payroll division that led NCCU to hire "temporary employees to perform crucial payroll functions."

While the overpayments and underpayments are small in the context of a $117 million budget, a spokesman for the Office of the State Auditor the fact that they occurred at all is cause for alarm.

"The amount is not as relevant as the fact that the weakness is there," said state auditor spokesman Dennis Patterson. "It's the fact that there is a weakness, a hole in the armor that might allow for greater loss."

In a statement, NCCU said, "Chancellor Charlie Nelms and the entire NCCU leadership team are fully committed to resolving all internal control issues identified by the Office of the State Auditor."

Auditors found that the university did not properly manage students' accounts. The deficiency resulted in ineligible students being allowed to live on campus and register for classes and the university's accounts receivable balance being misstated.

An examination of 40 student accounts receivable balances found among other things that nine students were allowed to register even though they had a combined balance of $33,194. Policy requires students to pay all of their prior balances and one-half of their current charges before they are allowed to register. Auditors reported that they were unable to determine who was responsible for allowing the students to register.

NCCU officials said steps to resolve the deficiencies include "reviewing and re-engineering the student account process and by strengthening interdepartmental communication and holding ourselves to a higher level of accountability."

Auditors also identified weaknesses in the university's information system's access policy, which they believed could lead to unauthorized or inappropriate transactions.

Those weaknesses included:

- Multiple employees in the information technology systems unit who can log in to the information system under a single user name. This single user name accesses the security form that creates/modifies user accounts, grants access to security classes, sets up passwords and locks/unlocks user accounts. With multiple users having the ability to log in using a single name, there is no way to trace activity to the responsible employee.

- Several individuals having unnecessary access to forms and security classes, even though they had no job responsibilities that required them to have access to some of the forms and/or classes.

In response, NCCU said the items identified by auditors were immediately resolved by "significantly reducing the number of people who are granted access to the information system."

"To further strengthen controls, management has initiated a restructuring program in IT to review and monitor the university security system," the statement said.

With SACS visit on the horizon NCCU missing files

With a once-a-decade, three-day accreditation visit by Southern Association of Colleges and Schools scheduled to take place next month, N.C. Central University is search for missing credentials of 126 of its faculty members.

The university submitted materials to the agency in advance of the April visit, but was notified that their was incomplete information on the credentials of some faculty members.

Until just a month or two ago, the faculty info was on file within NCCU's human resources office.

But that office just relocated, and the faculty files have not found their way yet to a new home. They're in boxes somewhere on campus, said Pauletta Brown Bracy, NCCU's director of university accreditation. They just need to be found and produced before the SACS team arrives April 14.

Bracy said she isn't worried about the credentials of the NCCU faculty; it's all just a matter of misplaced records.

"I think we're in good shape," she said. "We have to make sure they're all accessible."

While it appears a simple matter of unearthing records from boxes, it will be no small matter if the paperwork isn't all in order when the SACS accreditors review it, said Bernice Johnson, NCCU's assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs.

"If they pull your documentation and your CV is not there, the entire university is out of compliance," she said.

Essentially, SACS is making sure that faculty members have the proper background -- advanced degrees, experience, etc. -- for the courses they are teaching.