The University of North Carolina Board of Governors is expected to vote on a new academic freedom policy at its Feb. 26 meeting — though to many UNC-system professors, the proposed changes do little to encourage academic freedom and instead risk suppressing it. 

Vincent Russell, assistant professor in Western Carolina University’s Department of Communication and president of the WCU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said the policy that’ll likely be deliberated this Thursday doesn’t align with the AAUP definition — one that has been the foundation of academic freedom since 1940. 

On Friday, June 14, Western Carolina University’s Board of Trustees approved Chris Williams’ selection as its chief information officer. Williams, who comes to WCU after spending the last nine years as the IT director for Student Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will begin his new position Monday, June 24. 

A research project aiming to understand contamination levels outside the fence line of the now-shuttered Canton paper mill is likely to draw more than a quarter-million dollars in state funding to test soil, water and air samples nearby.