Asheville-UNCA-Buncombe Catch All

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Ramrouser said:
Heading to Asheville next weekend for the first time since Helene. We're meeting up with my daughter and her fiance at the Grove Park to scout potential wedding venues at the property. Any new restaurants, bars or attractions we need to check out?
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I just got back in town last night. I’ll ask around about what might have happened over the summer.

Congrats.
 
donbosco said:
This is pretty cool though...



Those old folks can be trouble though...
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As an old, that sounds great! How does it differ from auditing a class? My first class with UNC History Professor E. Willis Brooks was Russian History from about 1850-1905.

I remember a couple who were about 65ish auditing the class. They didn’t take tests or write papers.

Do these “students” write papers and take tests?
 
I can only guess but I imagine they’ll get an email address, a Zoom Account, and access to the teaching platform. Personally I’d prefer they not take tests or write papers but writing daily reflections I’d encourage. I’d also guess under this arrangement they can be a full-on student if they want. THAT, however, probably leads to paid enrollment after 1 or 2 classes. I’d also imagine they’d get bounced if the class is full and has a waitlist.
 
Not as cool as I originally thought:

AVLBound Portal​

We're offering a great opportunity for community members to take a class at UNC Asheville. We'll cover the tuition and fees for one of the courses listed below, up to the in-state rate.
To get started, simply fill out this free application. As you complete the form, please double-check that all the information is correct before you click continue. If you need to make any changes after you've submitted the application, just email admissions@unca.edu.
The application deadline is Friday, August 15.

The courses available through our Community Coursework option at this time are:

  • AFST 130 - Introduction to Africana Studies: Interdisciplinary course that explores the experiences of Africans and peoples of African descent.
  • ASTR 102 - Introduction to Astonomy: The Solar System: An introductory course covering the formation, characteristics, and motions of objects in our solar system.
  • HS 222 - Foundations of Public Health: This course introduces students to the history, science, and structure of public health, to gain an understanding of the complex factors that determine the health status of a population.
  • PHIL 325 - Contemporary Philosophy: A major tradition of 20th-century philosophy will be both anazlyzed and place in the context of contemporary philosophical practice.
 
donbosco said:
Not as cool as I originally thought:

AVLBound Portal​

We're offering a great opportunity for community members to take a class at UNC Asheville. We'll cover the tuition and fees for one of the courses listed below, up to the in-state rate.
To get started, simply fill out this free application. As you complete the form, please double-check that all the information is correct before you click continue. If you need to make any changes after you've submitted the application, just email admissions@unca.edu.
The application deadline is Friday, August 15.

The courses available through our Community Coursework option at this time are:

  • AFST 130 - Introduction to Africana Studies: Interdisciplinary course that explores the experiences of Africans and peoples of African descent.
  • ASTR 102 - Introduction to Astonomy: The Solar System: An introductory course covering the formation, characteristics, and motions of objects in our solar system.
  • HS 222 - Foundations of Public Health: This course introduces students to the history, science, and structure of public health, to gain an understanding of the complex factors that determine the health status of a population.
  • PHIL 325 - Contemporary Philosophy: A major tradition of 20th-century philosophy will be both anazlyzed and place in the context of contemporary philosophical practice.
Click to expand...
Public health and contemporary Philosophy seems pretty cool
 
Julian Price died as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident while en route to his mountain estate at Blowing Rock, on the eve of the third anniversary of the death of his beloved wife Ethel. In memory of their father his children established a professorship in life insurance at The University of North Carolina; funded with an original endowment of $80,000, it increased in value to $500,000 in the 1970s. Also, together with Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company, they gave their father's estate in the mountains of western North Carolina to the U.S. government as a part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is called the Julian Price Memorial Park.
 
With regard to UNC Asheville’s plan to lease 45 acres so a private developer can build a 5,000-seat soccer stadium, apartments and retail space, I sympathize with the concerns of citizens whose taxes will subsidize the stadium, Five Points neighborhood residents whose property will be negatively affected and the eco-minded over the irrevocable loss of a substantial urban forest. However, I find it scandalous that this project qualifies under the UNC System’s millennial campus act.

The purpose of the millennial campus designation is to generate revenue from university property and facilities to “enhance the institution’s research, teaching and service missions as well as enhance the economic development of the region served by the institution.”

Yes, UNC Asheville’s research, teaching and service missions depend upon the institution’s financial sustainability, but they are not one and the same, as UNC Asheville Board of Trustees Chair Roger Aiken implies when he argues that the stadium “will provide a valuable public resource and generate an estimated $1 million annually to support the university’s mission.” How so? No documents have been released detailing these economic projections or how leasing campus property to an Ohio developer to build and operate a sports and entertainment district adjacent to the main campus enhances the university’s educational mission.

The university’s presentation to the Board of Governors Committee on Budget and Finance meeting on June 18 made one reference pertaining to “academic integration” in the project’s “strategic alignment” with the university’s mission. It reads, “Internships and academic tie-ins will allow for year-round experiential learning.”

The project appears to rest on the assumption that private development of public land will attract and retain students and thus indirectly enhance UNC Asheville’s research, teaching and service missions through increased enrollment. Yet, Aiken himself notes that “demographic shifts are shrinking the pool of traditional college-age students, and public funding is becoming increasingly uncertain.” A year after announcing a stop to the enrollment decline, the university recently reported an enrollment decline and another $2 million budget shortfall. Meanwhile, the passage of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” ensures that college will become even more unaffordable.

The project is risky, requires several leaps of faith to figure its benefit to UNC Asheville and pushes the boundaries of legislation. Notably, when discussing legal consultation at the June 18 meeting, Board of Governors Committee on Budget and Finance Chair Kirk J. Bradley admitted it was a “little trickier and unusual getting this ground lease right.” Private-public partnerships like this one are ready-made for conflicts of interest and corruption.

A state whose constitution claims that the benefits of our public institutions of higher education “as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the state free of expense” could choose to increase funds for higher education and thus directly support the educational mission of its universities. Instead, our leaders continue to prioritize tax cuts and pro-capitalist policies, and so we get a plan to generate revenue for UNC Asheville that lacks any educational value and further privatizes the public sphere.

— Kirk Boyle
Professor of English
UNC Asheville
Asheville

Editor’s note: After this letter was published in the print issue, UNCA announced a “pause” to its development negotiations Aug. 14 and the creation of a Millennial Campus Development Commission.



Letter: What’s educational about a sports district? – Mountain Xpress

mountainx.com mountainx.com
 
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