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Students Mark Spellings' First Day With Protests

Students protest on Margaret Spellings' first day as president of the UNC System March 1, 2016./ WFDD photo by Paul Garber

Margaret Spellings, the new president of the University of North Carolina system, had her first day on the job Tuesday. Her hiring has been controversial and at some campuses, it a was day marked by protest.

About a hundred people gathered outside of the student union at UNC Greensboro to voice their concerns about Spellings. Alumnus Zachary Easterling says she's not good choice.

“We're worried about her ideology which seems to be moving the university system to more of a for-profit institution. We're worried about the closing and defunding of HBCUs and the underfunding of minority studies and liberal arts programs," he says.

Sophomore Nikki Russ says she doesn't think Spellings will listen to students with an open mind.

"She's not here for the students, she's here to capitalize off of us," Russ says. "She's called the students 'customers' several times before."

Other students were willing to give Spellings a chance. Tyler Sweed spent five years in the Navy and is now a sophomore at UNCG. He says he sees too much complaining on campus.

“It's great to have your own beliefs and your own opinions and this and that. But really it's like the old kindergarten saying – if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all,” he says.

Spellings is a former Education Secretary under George W. Bush. She takes over for Tom Ross, who was ousted by the UNC board last year.

 

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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