Money for mentors

In the Oct. 25 article “UNC panel eyes employers’ needs,” UNC associate professor Dan Gitterman said the “faculty get no reward for helping students gain internship experience or networking skills, so it doesn’t happen. Students have to seek out the campus career office, typically a secondary university function.” Gitterman is quoted, “We’ve got to work on this.”

I take his comments to mean that for his annual salary of $94,211, Gitterman feels he’s not paid enough to help students in those areas so he passes on the opportunity to actually mentor his students. With a commitment to teaching like that, UNC-Chapel Hill would be better off finding his replacement. I’m sure there are plenty of qualified unemployed associate professor types willing to go out of their way to help students with finding internships and with networking skills.

That would be one way to improve higher education instead of throwing more money at it.

Jim Pomeranz, Cary