FROM THE HILL
BOG Asks Legislators to Return Tuition Revenue
Tuition increases for undergraduates and graduate students, approved by UNC’s trustees last fall, have been approved by the UNC System Board of Governors.
The BOG voted in mid-February to increase tuition 5. 2 percent for all
undergraduate students and 3.7 percent for graduate students, effective this fall.
In dollars, the increases mean undergraduate and graduate resident tuition
will increase $200 a year; fees for all undergraduates will go up $96 a year, or
5. 5 percent. The trustees had followed the recommendation of Chancellor
Holden Thorp ’ 86.
As of now, the state’s General Fund will receive all of the increase paid by
N.C. students and the first $200 of increases from nonresident students. Because
of the state’s revenue shortfall, the N.C. General Assembly last year put an end,
at least temporarily, to campus-based increases that had been the norm for several years and that had enabled individual schools in the UNC System to keep
revenues raised from tuition increases. Additional revenue from the higher
increase for nonresidents can still be kept on individual campuses.
At the urging of UNC System President Erskine Bowles ’ 67, the BOG has
adopted a proposal to keep money generated from increased tuition on cam-
puses rather than going into the General Fund.
The proposal will go to the N.C. General Assembly when its short session
begins in May.
Starting next fall, annual tuition and fees are expected to be $5,921 for in-
state undergraduates, $24,736 for out-of-state undergraduates, $7,457 for in-
state graduate students and $22,387 for out-of-state graduate students.
The revenue that could be returned to the Chapel Hill campus under the
present structure would be about $4 million.
Last year, Carolina’s tuition went up an average of 4. 2 percent for resident
students. UNC’s tuition has increased in four of the past six years.
3 CAROLINA ALUMNI REVIEW
Out with the old: The Zeiss loomed over the audience.
Planetarium Converts
to Digital Technology
In the end, there was no one left at the Zeiss Optical Co. in Germany who knew as much about the Morehead Planetarium’s 40-year-old analog star
projector as the planetarium’s staff — that’s how out-
dated the behemoth centerpiece of the star theater was.
The Morehead finally is joining the worldwide
planetarium shift to digital with a $1.5 million gift from
GlaxoSmithKline, enabling it to replace the Zeiss with
what’s known as full-dome digital video technology.
The star theater has been renamed the Glaxo-
SmithKline Fulldome Theater.
“I’ve been dreaming about today for about 10
years,” said Chancellor Holden Thorp ’ 86, who directed
the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center from
2001 to ’05 and had tried then to secure the funding to
go digital. “Just don’t ever say we can’t do something.”
Appropriate to the planetarium’s history as a gate-
way to UNC for schoolchildren, third-graders from
Carrboro and Roseboro were the first to watch a full-
dome digital show.
The technology is a world-class projection system
that puts Morehead in the same class as the National
Museum of Air and Space, the American Museum of
Natural History and the Griffith Observatory. The system can be programmed for any type of science show,
while the Zeiss knows only astronomy. And the digital
format will enable the Morehead to present shows
created elsewhere and to market shows it creates to
others.
Morehead visitors will experience the new technology directly through super-high-definition 4,000-by-
4,000 pixel resolution, a digital surround-sound system
and reconfigured seating for better sight lines. Full-dome digital video creates an immersive environment
in which each visitor is surrounded by the show.
The theater reopened to the public Feb. 5. It is the
largest full-dome installation in the southeastern U.S.
HARRY LYNCH/THE NEWS & OBSERVER
Bowles Stepping Down
Erskine Bowles ’ 67, who took office as president of the UNC System in January 2006,
announced in mid-February that he
plans to retire.
Bowles, who will turn 65 on
Aug. 8, told the UNC System Board
of Governors that he would continue
to serve through the end of 2010 or
until a successor is found.
SHAWN ROCCO/THE NEWS & OBSERVER
Less than a week after his announce-
ment, Bowles was tapped by the
Obama administration to help lead a
new National Commission on Fiscal
Responsibility and Reform.
Bowles previously served in the
Clinton administration, where as White
House chief of staff he brokered a bal-
anced budget agreement in 1997.
For more on this story, see
alumni.unc.edu/news.
Erskine Bowles
