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Carolina Rankings
by Michelle Muscatello

Part of a proposed tuition increase would go to faculty salaries and benefits. UNC-Chapel Hill faculty resources rank 72nd among America's universities, causing Carolina to slide in the overall national rankings. But Carolina is still attracting some top-notch faculty.

You hear it all the time on the Carolina campus. There's just something special about Chapel Hill. Though it's hard to pinpoint exactly what that special touch is, faculty say that's part of the joy of working for UNC.

"It's just a nice place to work and to live," says Jan Yopp.

"The southern part of heaven as they say," says Jonathan Hartlyn

Faculty council executive committee member Jan Yopp says we attract people who understand Carolina's unique situation.
"I think anybody who is coming here to teach has to recognize that we're a public university, a state-sponsored university and we have to speak to the other aspects of teaching, not just the paycheck you bring home," says Yopp.

Provost Robert Shelton says that paycheck isn't a top priority. "When you talk with faculty I think they would say salary is third or forth on their list of priorities," says Shelton.

"Salary is not a primary issue," says Yopp.

"We have in spite of some of these problems been able to attract and maintain some pretty extraordinary faculty," says Hartlyn.

So maybe the University's biggest concern about faculty salaries and benefits does come down to the rankings. Carolina administrators want to move up, but are still pretty pleased to be in the top five.

"Ninety-eight percent of the institutions would die to be in the situation we're in right now. We need to continue to understand that this university is only as good as the people in it," says Shelton.

The faculty council says a tuition increase, where part of the funds goes to faculty resources, is the first step in improving Carolina's rankings.

 
   

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