College president staying put

CCC’s Board of Trustees voted earlier this month to extend President Catherine Chew’s contract for another three years, according to the Sun Journal.

Dr. Catherine Chew

Chew took the reins in October 2008 after Dr. Scott Ralls left Craven upon his appointment as president of the N.C. Community College System. She earns an annual salary of $140,000 and did not seek a raise because college faculty and staff members’ pay had remained stagnant, the New Bern newspaper reports.

Students, what do you think of Dr. Chew? Do you think she’s leading Craven in the right direction? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Sexual harassment policy gets red light from FIRE

By William R. Toler

Did you hear the one about the college administration that couldn’t take a dirty joke?

I’m pretty sure I stole that from Corey Friedman, former editor of the Campus Communicator and the Independent Register, but it is the reason for a recent rebranding of Craven Community College by a students’ rights watchdog.

The Foundation for Indidvidual Rights in Education has designated CCC as a red light college in its Spotlight, which looks at policies of colleges and universities across the country and determines how dedicated the institutions are to the rights of students, especially when it comes to free speech.

Student newspaper reborn at Craven

Welcome to CravenCCNews.com, the online home of The Campus Communicator.

We’re working to relaunch the Communicator as a printed newspaper providing coverage of student life and campus events at Craven Community College. While we recruit students to write for the paper and establish the Communicator as an official student organization, we’re getting started by writing about Craven happenings on this website.

The Campus Communicator began in 2002 as a monthly newsletter published by CCC’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter. It soon grew into a robust broadsheet newspaper and became a staple of student life on Craven’s New Bern and Havelock campuses. We hope to reclaim this role with a new crop of student journalists to cover college news.

Our new website is sponsored by IndieRegister.com, a news and politics blog maintained by three CCC alumni and former Campus Communicator editors. Click here to read more about our sponsor. Also, check out our History page to read about the Communicator’s beginnings, including its infamous First Amendment fight with the college administration after publishing a shortlived sex column.

Student journalism is a proud tradition at Craven, and we need your help to write a new chapter. If you’re interested in joining the new Communicator staff, e-mail Editor Samiah Culbreth at communicator@indieregister.com.

Smoking ban leads to art censorship

By William R. Toler

In trying to keep in line with a tobacco-free policy, administrators at Craven Community College removed a decorated auto hood from the student center because it featured a caricature of auto-body instructor Bob Hall smoking a cigar in January, according to the New Bern Sun Journal.

The hood was airbrushed by students of the autobody program for Hall’s drag racing car. Hall told NewsChannel 12 that the students were disappointed. “They’re hurt,” he said, “because the students that worked on it wanted to show their project.”

In a standard public relations move, college flack Sandy Wall said that while the display was a postive project for the students, “I think the depiction of a faculty member or anyone else smoking sends a message that we don’t want to send.”

Less tar, less nicotine, less freedom

By Corey Friedman

Sometimes, explained Sigmund Freud, a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, it’s the First Amendment.

Craven Community College sneaked an unconstitutional prior restraint rule in its tobacco-free campus policy in spring 2009, and administrators appear unwilling to revise the problematic provision.

Included with the college’s ban on cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco on campus property is a declaration that student publications may not publish ads for tobacco products and student groups can’t accept money or gifts from tobacco companies. While this arrangement may sound palatable to some antismoking advocates, it violates students’ First Amendment right to free speech and free association.