May 17, 2007
Peer portfolio
PLANNING CAROLINA NORTH: Plans and public meetings continue at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill about the future development of Carolina North, a 970-acre tract of land near the campus, including where a small airport now stands. In April, public meetings were held where three “work-in-progress” site plans for the development were shown to the public. “All three sketches … are for what is intended to be a ‘vibrant, compact, mixed-use community’ where professors, graduate students and their families can live, work and play” according to the campus newspaper, the Gazette.
UC DAVIS ROADS SCHOLARS: The University of California, Davis, is building a couple of test roads, to help its researchers test roads, according to the university’s newspaper, UC Davis Dateline.
One road will be 300 feet long and the other 1,000 feet. Different types of pavement will be put down and then driven over with “heavy vehicle simulators,” riding on test wheels. The roads will be used for two basic kinds of research, the newspaper reported: “one to look for more durable pavement, the other to develop better highway construction and maintenance methods and equipment.”
HIRING ‘PAUSE’ AT UC DAVIS: The University of California, Davis, is embarking on a “hiring pause” for positions connected to growth in the 2007-08 school year — about 25 jobs in all, according to the university’s newspaper, UC Davis Dateline.
Hiring may continue for positions allocated in previous years but not yet filled, and for vacancies resulting from retirement, resignation or death. Provost Virginia Hinshaw told faculty in a letter that the hiring suspension “will allow us to align future faculty FTE allocations with enrollment and academic plans that emerge from our planning process.”
Hinshaw said she will wait until January to decide whether the hiring pause will be continued through the 2008-09 school year.
Peer Portfolio is an occasional column focusing on what’s going on at the UW’s peer institutions.
