Observations: Time to "respect the ball"

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More weight for grad rates?

Each year, public universities get taxpayer money for each student they enroll -- the state's investment in the young minds of tomorrow.

But many students drop out. Now, UNC system leaders want to link that public money to academic performance so campuses have more incentive to make sure students graduate.

The idea is this: Rather than automatically receiving funding for every new student enrolled, campuses must first meet retention and graduation goals. If they don't meet those goals, they can't enroll more students.

NCCU improves on nursing exam

Though N.C. Central University's nursing graduates showed a marked improvement on the state licensure exam in 2006, they still fell just short of a UNC system requirement that 85 percent must pass.

As a result, NCCU must admit 15 percent fewer students to its nursing program this fall, a blow to a program charged by the UNC system with doubling its number of graduates by 2010.

The percentage of its graduates who passed the state exam jumped from 65 percent in 2005 to 82 percent last year, higher than the state Board of Nursing's 75 percent requirement. NCCU and university system officials see that as a program on the rise.

NCCU program put grads in limbo

The 25 graduates of N.C. Central University's unauthorized satellite campus in suburban Atlanta would have a hard time getting into at least one North Carolina graduate school.

Since the now-defunct program and its degrees aren't recognized by the commission on colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, those graduates wouldn't even get a look from UNC-Charlotte's graduate admissions officials.

"They would not be able to get their foot in the door," said Johnna Watson, associate dean for enrollment management and information systems at UNCC's graduate school. "For us, the accreditation is just a key component."

NCCU wants to improve graduation rate

The 546 students receiving bachelor's degrees from N.C. Central University this morning are, in a sense, survivors.

At NCCU, a historically black public university, fewer than half of undergraduate students complete their course work in six years, according to campus and UNC system data.

"Some students have come to the university because their parents said to go, and they don't really want to be here," said Bernice Johnson, dean of NCCU's University College. "Others are too busy. They work. It's hard to work 40 hours a week and have a 3.0 [grade point average]."

Many enroll, leave in 1st year

As an impressionable N.C. Central University freshman, Kai Christopher hung around his dormitory lobby listening to older students debate the merits of W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.

These vigorous conversations helped shape Christopher's academic curiosity, and as he became older he felt a responsibility to bring young students into such debates. But Christopher, now a senior, thinks that environment has fallen victim to the university's enrollment boom and other forces that pushed older students off campus. With less interaction between elders and underclassmen, Christopher believes NCCU's intellectual prowess has faded to the point where "we have a bunch of knuckleheads running around."

As NCCU looks for a new chancellor, Christopher and others want a leader to stress student retention as much as current Chancellor James Ammons emphasized recruitment. During Ammons' tenure, enrollment at NCCU increased 50 percent, a significant increase that has won widespread praise