N.C. College Makes Headlines With Ritzy Retreat

According to an article in The Charlotte Observer, Rowan-Cabarrus Community College trustees spent almost $16,000 on a retreat at Asheville’s ritzy Inn on Biltmore Estate just months before laying off faculty members because of a $600,000 budget shortfall:

That was 60 percent more than the much larger Central Piedmont Community College spent on its retreat last year. And it was mostly public money.

The state paid $11,018 toward the RCCC retreat last April. Rowan and Cabarrus counties chipped in $2,803 for meal costs beyond what the state paid, college officials said. The college’s foundation paid the nearly $2,000 tab for spouses’ meals.

About three months later, RCCC cut 26 part-time faculty positions, gave full-time instructors heavier teaching loads, increased some class sizes, and cut travel and supply costs. …

The retreat money could have paid for a dozen part-time instructors to teach a semester, one college official said. …

When told the retreat cost, trustee Wayne Troutman was surprised.

“It kind of blows my mind,” he said. “I had no idea that much money was being spent.”

Meanwhile, the University of Maine at Farmington joins the list of institutions that are cutting faculty and staff members as states tighten their belts, the Associated Press reports.