The UNC Board of Governors is in the process of reviewing hundreds of centers and institutions housed throughout college campuses across the state. This review is long past due, as Civitas alluded to in 2009:
Again, regrettably questions of duplication and public benefits emerge. For example, North Carolina Central University houses The Center on Family relations while UNC-Greensboro has the Family Research Center. UNC-Chapel Hill supports the Center for European Studies and the Center for Slavic Eurasian and East European Studies. Considering the current economic conditions, are there sufficient public benefits to justify continued public funding for such narrowly focused projects as the Center for Biology of Nematode Parasitism (UNC-Greensboro) or the Mountain Aquaculture Research Center (Western Carolina University)?
And earlier this year Civitas once again spotlighted the UNC centers and institutes.
A quick review of listing reveals several things. First, most centers and institutes focus on highly specialized areas of research. Second, the centers and institutes reflect a fair amount of duplication. There is an Institute for Marine Sciences (UNC-Chapel Hill) and a Center for Marine Sciences (UNC-Wilmington). North Carolina State University houses the Institute for Climate Studies while UNC-Charlotte hosts the Center for Precision Meteorology. East Carolina claims the Center for the Liberal Arts; UNC-Chapel Hill houses the Institute for the Arts and Humanities. The duplication seems to extend not only across campuses, but also within campuses. UNC-Chapel Hill is home to the Institute for African- American Research, the Sonja Hayes Stone Center for Black Culture, and the African Studies Center.
And of course, perhaps topping the list of UNC centers that should receive close scrutiny is the John Edwards founded UNC Poverty Center, a hyper-partisan and non-transparent radical organization now headed by left-wing blowhard Gene Nichol.
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