UNC students lined up at the Old Well all throughout Wednesday to take a customary and superstitious sip from the fountain to start off a new semester on campus. Just a few yards away at the steps of South Building, people also gathered for a rally in support of six global area studies centers that the university is preparing to shut down. The student-organized demonstration urged UNC administrators to reverse course and understand the value of the centers beyond simply looking at them as budget expenses.
The Daily Tar Heel reported on Dec. 17 UNC administrators will present a plan to the university’s Board of Trustees in January to “sunset” the Carolina Asia Center, the African Studies Center, the Center for European Studies, the Institute for the Study of the Americas, the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies. Citing emails from Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Jim White to the Carolina Asia Center, the paper said administrators are planning the move as part of a broader effort to cut $70 million from the annual operating budget – a priority for both Chancellor Lee Roberts and the Board of Trustees.
The university’s media relations provided a statement to Chapelboro on Wednesday saying a working group of faculty and staff identified the centers to save $7 million annually based on “a variety of issues including their long-term financial viability.” But a mix of UNC undergraduate and graduate students, current and former faculty and others made their support for the six centers clear on Wednesday. More than 200 people gathered for the rally, with signs reading “Stop the Chop,” “Global Education Not Bloated Administration” and simply “Save Area Studies.” Many speakers claimed the decision was more politically driven than financially driven, especially without sharing more details to the impacted centers before going to the Board of Trustees.
“They announced these cuts when they thought no one was watching – but we are watching,” said Christina Huang, a leader of TransparUNCy, which helped organize the protest. “And we’re here to say, you do not get to dismantle our education quietly.”
Cecilia Martínez-Gallardo is a political science associate professor who serves on the Institute for the Study of the Americas’ advisory board. When she spoke to Wednesday’s crowd, she pointed to UNC’s “global guarantee” to provide access to meaningful and comprehensive learning through “the richest menu of global education opportunities possible.” Eliminating these centers, Martínez-Gallardo said, goes back on that promise and will damage UNC’s ability to recruit graduate students to help all areas of global studies on campus.
“I also want to ask,” she said, “have you seen the news lately? It doesn’t seem to me that this is a time to turn our back to the world. It is not time to stop training our students for global engagement. It is not the time to stop guaranteeing that they [can] acquire the skills they need to compete and think globally. It is, perhaps more than ever, important to double down on our commitment to global education.”
Annika Deshpande, a senior global studies and economics double-major, spoke to the crowd about the importance of the centers to her collegiate experience. Not only did she secure a scholarship through the Carolina Asia Center’s Phillips Ambassadors program to study in Indonesia, but she’s used several programs to attend events and gain knowledge she wouldn’t have otherwise on campus.
“I mean, I’ve been to Korean documentary viewings, I’ve been to Chinese calligraphy classes, I’ve been to Persian tea ceremonies,” Deshpande said. “These [are] experiences I would not been able to have without the area centers.”
PhD student William Pryor also spoke about the influence of Carolina Asia Center’s support on his education. He said he’s seen the professional benefits of it through their connections leading to partnerships with programs in Thailand that support his research efforts. The cultural benefits are clear too, through examples like the center’s Southeast Asia Home Initiative partnering with a club at East Chapel Hill High School, where Pryor coaches wrestling.
“This proposed closure of the area studies centers tells me something: that global relationships, community partnerships and public scholarship are expendable when budgets tighten,” he said. “And that is a profound shame, because these centers are where the public university can actually live [up] to its name. Disinvestment is a choice, and so is care.”
Part of the reason cited by UNC for seeking budget cuts is the shift in federal funding from the Department of Education and other sources that have traditionally supported the university system and Chapel Hill campus. While Carolina community members acknowledge the challenges those cuts present, plenty point to the university’s strong financial standing as a way to cover – at least in the short-term – costs that may be cut by federal changes.
Don Nonini, a professor emeritus at UNC who stood on South Building’s steps holding a sign during the rally, made this argument. A recent audit commissioned by the local AAUP and TransparUNCy reported UNC having more than $1 billion in unrestricted reserves and billions more of cash on-hand, which Nonini said a fraction of could be used to help the centers. He also pointed to the Trump administration’s strategy to target global studies and outreach organizations as another reasoning for the university’s leaders to be making the move.
“It doesn’t add up,” Nonini said of the ‘purely financial’ argument. “And it hurts students, as everybody’s saying here. They’re doing it for political purposes. They’re not doing it to [help] students’ educations, they’re not doing it to make our students more capable as global citizens. They’re doing it to close those possibilities down, because it bugs them.”
With Roberts and Vice Chancellor for Finance Nate Knuffman set to present the proposal to the Board of Trustees on Jan. 21-22, the rally organizers urged supporters to contact both administrators and trustees to share their perspectives and benefits of the studies centers. Professor Graeme Robertson, who helps runs the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies, said since the news broke in December, the centers have received hundreds of messages of support from across the world. He said he hopes to still open a dialogue with Dean White and Provost Jim Dean before the meeting to discuss ways to reform and adjust the centers to keep them open.
“We’re ready to have that conversation anytime,” Robertson concluded. “We urge them to begin that conversation immediately before there’s any more damage to UNC’s global reputation.”
Featured photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.
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