Students, not faculty, bear the cost

When members of the University’s Tuition and Fees Advisory Committee voted to increase the cost of our education, I didn’t see any prolix rhetoric from David Auerbach condemning them. When the chancellor recommended even higher amounts to the Board of Trustees, I didn’t see any letters in the Campus Forum from objecting faculty. And when the Board of Trustees rubber-stamped those recommendations, I didn’t see any grade-school-quality polemics printed in the editorial section of the News & Observer accusing board members of harboring “profoundly anti-democratic values.” When I did see all three, what was the subject? Certainly not tuition or fees; “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” and all that. No, this great cacophony of faculty outrage was triggered by the single greatest threat this University has ever faced – the prospect of even contemplating a potential discussion with a private philanthropist to expand an already-existing financial relationship. Auerbach and the other faculty involved can write all the Forum letters they please insisting their infantile conduct was defensible – their taxpayer-funded salaries afford them that luxury. But to claim they are high-minded defenders of higher education is a joke. And for those of us paying more for our education because of their earlier silence, the joke’s just not that funny anymore.

T. Greg DoucetteJunior, Computer Science