My LTTE was published this morning in the Raleigh News Observer

[mnhtnbb]

and without any editing of content!

Regarding the Jan. 9 news article “Consultants will study UNC before Spellings starts work”: “A $1.1 million privately funded study by a management consulting firm will analyze the UNC system’s administrative operation before UNC President-elect Margaret Spellings arrives in North Carolina.” Anonymously funded. Really? What a coward. Follow the money.

Who has what to gain from this “study” from a well-known management consulting group that is devoted to analyzing business strategy? Since when is the “university of the people” all about business? Is that what the people of North Carolina want? To transform the oldest public university in the country into the University of Phoenix?

What a sad day. The only hope to save the UNC system from this Rovian/Bush bot imported from Texas is to get out and vote in November and send the Republicans responsible for hiring Spellings packing.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article54520845.html#storylink=cpy


OK, my cover is blown. Y'all know who I am now.
I may not have won the jackpot on the Powerball, but I am pleased to see the letter--and the opinion piece from the two UNC faculty members
mentioned in another thread I posted. The more people stand up to this, the more likely they are to come out and vote in November and that
increases our chances of changing the Republican control of government in NC.

I have posted about this controversial hiring of Spellings from the moment it was announced. There are a couple of threads about it in the NC group


http://www.democraticunderground.com/10696077

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10696062

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10696040

[tazkcmo]

1. Congrats

And good luck in your fight. Remember when most of our country's research was done in colleges? So much has changed. Keep us posted!

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. Well done. Welcome to the world of blown covers!

[zazen]

7. ha! n/t

[mnhtnbb]

12. hehe

[NRaleighLiberal]

14. so far, I've not had much bleed through between my politics and my gardening...

it did happen in a big way some years ago, and provided much angst! Then I learned to not use the same screen name everywhere!

[CurtEastPoint]

3. Thank you. UNC-CH '72 here and it is distressing to see this.

Good for you.

[mnhtnbb]

9. I'm a Carolina mom--or I was--2008-2012.

My youngest son graduated with honors with a double major, Phi Beta Kappa, went on to spend 10 months in Berlin on a Fulbright
Scholarship and is now a second year grad student at the Yale School of Drama. He would NEVER have seen the kind
of academic challenges and achievements he's experienced if UNC were nothing more than the University of Phoenix.

We live in Chapel Hill. UNC is the heart and soul of our town. I cannot imagine what it will become if this woman--and the Republicans
backing her--have the next five years of her contract to work their privatizing changes. They must be stopped.

[CurtEastPoint]

16. I have encouraged what few NC friends I have left to raise hell.

A damn shame. F McCrory and all his cronies.

[ladyVet]

18. Thanks for speaking out. We're going to lose a great school if things go on this way.

I try to get up to Chapel Hill/Carrboro as often as I can to get away from the rural area I live in. Do a little shopping (PTA thrift stores are nice), see more liberal bumper stickers, enjoy the young people stretching their minds. I'd hate to see the college vibe change around there.

[Omaha Steve]

4. Thanks for posting

K&R!

OS

[underpants]

5. I KNEW it was you

Just kidding. Nice LTTE.

[mnhtnbb]

11. .

Thanks!

[zazen]

6. good for you!! we'll have to have a Triangle DU-ers get together!

The late xchrom organized a few of those, if I recall, and I never could make them, but it'd be nice to now. I don't get out of the house much but spend way too much time on DU. It'd be good to translate some of that into actual human interaction.

What do you think of the N&O requiring FB sign-on? I posted on another thread here yesterday how frustrating it was to me to go from being able to anonymously post under a screen-name that people assumed as male (and get lots of positive support) to having to now log-on as my fluffy blonde southern belle self (looks like you have the same affliction!) and risk additional attack (and mostly invalidation) because I'm a woman. The N&O didn't take a second to think through what identifying females would do to their willingness to "out" themselves, as you say.

I've been involved with the universities for years and Ross' firing/Spellings hire is a quantum leap in the creeping academic capitalism afflicting higher ed. I mean, even Erskine was too corporatist for my taste, but the presidents haven't exactly been firebrands since the 60s. My hope is that they've really over-reached.

Thanks again for writing your letter! Oh, I'm trying to go to Quail Ridge tonight for the talk on the Wilmington Ten. If you'll be there, PM me.

Best (a DU-er who probably passed you at the IBMA or on Wade Ave.)

[mnhtnbb]

10. No, I won't be there tonight

we live in Chapel Hill. Symphony tickets tonight at Memorial Hall.

My undergrad and graduate degrees are from UCLA. I had Ronald Reagan's signature on my BS diploma. He started this crap--destroying the
public universities--back in the early 70's when he attacked the UC system. You have to give it to the Republicans--if they are anything, it is focused and determined--for
their commitment to destroying public education.

I just hope that the academic communities of the UNC System will get together with the Moral Mondays group to get out the vote in 2016. The Republicans
simply must be stopped.

[zazen]

13. yeah, it's hard with gerrymandering, but I doubt Spellings will stay for long

As I've written elsewhere, she has little leverage against undergrad protestors. The institution is set up so that you can't stifle dissent among that population as well as you can grads and faculty, and unless they send them home, you've got an easily organized bloc that once activated for this will be much more easily deployed for Moral Mondays.

I really think they've over-reached here, but it's going to be quite ugly for a while.

Enjoy the concert!

[NRaleighLiberal]

15. those local meet ups are not easy - I did a few

but then got busy. struggle4progress and I were pushing them along. I think it may be a good time to get them going again - my schedule isn't easy, but I can fit things in where I can. May be a good one to take to our NC State folder on DU.

[Stellar]

8. Well done, congratulations! nt

[Esse Quam Videri]

17. Great job, mnhtnbb!

NCSU - class of 94 here.

[mnhtnbb]

19. I have had positive feedback all day and last night from the letter.

We went to the NC Symphony at Memorial Hall last night. Several people gave me a thumbs up on the letter.

I think it's important that people not sit quietly to "wait and see" how things develop. You can bet this
woman has an agenda and it isn't in keeping with the tradition of the UNC system being "the university of the people".