For the second year straight , enrollment is down at Western Carolina University — but an uptick in freshman class size has university officials hoping that trend will soon reverse.

A recent federal grant award for the Preventing School Violence initiative was awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice to the Thirtieth Judicial District Domestic Violence Sexual Assault Alliance in partnership with Haywood County Schools and the Haywood County Sheriff’s Office. 

A five-part series exploring free speech and free expression on college campuses wrapped up last week in the University of North Carolina Board of Governors’ Committee on University Governance  with a report  on the results of a survey examining how those issues play out on UNC campuses.

Last week, Jackson County Schools held its 10th annual Snack Master Competition, after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Students created original recipes for healthy snacks and put their snack-making chops to the test in a competition with their peers. 

Enrollment at Western Carolina University is the lowest it’s been for any spring semester since 2018, according to student census data collected Jan. 24. The school cites the ongoing pandemic and its impact on student finances as drivers of the 2.7% decrease in enrollment between the 2022 and 2021 spring semesters.

Since a Western Carolina University student took to national news this month to air her concerns about the school’s gender and racial diversity training for resident assistants, a discussion about inclusivity, tolerance and how to interact with people of differing worldviews has been swirling through the Catamount community. 

There is a special moment that happens whilst playing music, a moment when concentration takes over as a musician uses both hands in a complicated way on their instrument or tunes into harmony with another voice. It is a moment when nothing else exists. All of a sudden it is only the musician and the sounds that are being created. Despite anything and everything else that may be challenging or distracting, in that moment it all disappears. 

At 10 a.m. Friday, June 25, the parking lot above the Jackson County Early College was nothing but a mundane expanse of asphalt on the upper campus of Southwestern Community College, all but deserted for summer break. 

Excitement could be heard in the unconstrained murmuring of elementary school students at Blue Ridge School Monday morning as they filed into the cafeteria. Tables were set with Mason jars, pre-cut vegetables of almost every color of the rainbow, salt, pepper and oregano. 

As the pandemic continues to recede, Western Carolina University is planning for a fall semester that “will look more like fall 2019 around here than fall 2020,” Chancellor Kelli Brown told trustees during a June 4 meeting.