How my last professor raise compares to what the UNC system president just got | Opinion
The $493,500 bonus recently paid to the UNC system president, on top of his $600,000 salary, is an excessive unethical insult to the UNC system faculty. As a senior professor, my last raise of 3% in 2024 falls well short of the 11% average national inflation since January 2023. In other words, I’ve had a large pay cut despite having two of the best research years of my career a few years ago, coming out of that miserable pandemic.
People running the show don’t seem to truly understand the extraordinary value we add to this state and its young people (in other words, its future), and how much hard work on the front lines is involved in that. With pay cuts seemingly baked in, I imagine many faculty members are reconsidering how they allocate their time to maintain a basic quality of life as they are continually squeezed to do more with less. Students don’t come to the university for the overpaid administrators, and overpaid administrators don’t change students’ lives. We do.
David Genereux, Raleigh
Voting changes
NC is not a friendly state for voters. This trend is not new but one that unfortunately continues. Elections should be fair and free and are a cornerstone of our democracy.
New rules that can be approved in advance of the November midterm elections are under consideration and affect — handling of recounts, absentee voting, and voting site constraints. There’s an intensified priority to search using a flawed federal database for voters who are non-citizens but registered. The number of times that this occurred has been negligible.This is in addition to elimination of same-day registration and pre-registration of 16/17 year old and strict voters ID laws.
Recently, a bill was filed proposing the reduction of early voting from 17 days to 10 days. This bill is in contrast to a recent poll, across all voters, stating that 17 days was “about right.”
The road forward is narrow and bumpy. Stay alert!
Rosemary E McGee, Chapel Hill
Early voting
I have served 15 years as an election official in Durham and Wake Counties and worked at early voting sites between 2016 and 2022. I never complained about being overworked as NC Senate President Phil Berger has mentioned in news reports regarding the proposed reduction of the early voting period from 17 to 10 days.
My suspicion is Berger is upset because early voting ballots were the reason he lost Rockingham County and his position of power during the primary.
Mark G Rodin, Durham
So much winning
In his State of the Union address, President Trump promised that our country will be winning so much, we won’t be able to stand it. He’s right: Given what I’m paying for gas, food, and utilities since he came into office, I can’t stand it. Can you?
Jeff Braden, Raleigh
Wake Med
Don Gintzig, Wake Med CEO, makes close to 2 million dollars per year. He can easily afford all the health care he needs. A lot of average folks struggle to pay their monthly premiums, or have little or no health care benefits.
Back in 2018, my wife, Chris, and I traveled to the Netherlands (my country of birth) and Belgium to visit cousins. Chris got sick, and when we arrived in Belgium my cousin, who is an emergency room doctor, made arrangements to have her seen at her hospital ER. Chris had an X-ray, blood work and an ECG. Total cost: 240 American dollars.
Robert Mulder, Raleigh
Data center issues
I write in response to the recent op-ed on data centers by State Representatives David Allen Willis and Jeffrey McNeely.
Recent polling shows only about a quarter of North Carolinians support building new data centers, with most either opposed or undecided. If anything, the loudest voices are the well-funded lobbyists, consultants, and developers paid to push these projects forward.
The real-world impact of data centers deserves intense scrutiny from our elected officials. There are already countless testimonials from residents who put up with incessant noise pollution and soaring electric bills. Meanwhile, states are rewarding developers with millions in tax breaks in exchange for a comparatively modest number of jobs. While the stock market may love AI for now, it’s clear that our state would not reap the benefits.
Communities across North Carolina have paused or questioned these developments for good reason. Instead of dismissing those concerns over little-to-no economic return, lawmakers should provide clear, concrete plans for how they will protect residents from the documented downsides of large-scale data centers.
Rania Masri, Raleigh
This story was originally published May 31, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "How my last professor raise compares to what the UNC system president just got | Opinion."
