Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622

The clerk the speakers room, washington, d. C. , august 4 2015. I hereby appoint the honorable jeff denham to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, john a. Boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain reverend dr. Dan c. Cummings from Skyline Wesleyan Church in san diego, california. The chaplain join with me in prayer. To the lord, the chief shepherd and savior of our souls. While members of congress are at home in their districts, we pray give each member rest. Cause them to lie down in Green Pastures lead them beside the still waters, restore and refresh their souls, lead them in the paths of righteousness for your namesake and our nations benefit. While other members are abroad who may walk through the valley of the shadow of death let them fear no evil, assure them you are near. Let your rod and your staff bring comfort. Prepare a table for all in the presence of their families. Anoint them with the oil of gladness. Lastly let them return to this chamber to follow justice and justice alone so as to live and possess the land, the lord, our god, has given us. In jesus christs name i now pray, amen. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to section 2a of House Resolution 380, the journal of the last days proceedings is approved. The chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The chair lays before the house the following privileged concurrent resolution. The clerk house concurrent resolution 72, resolved, that when the house adjourns on any legislative day from tuesday, august 4, 2015, through friday, september 4 2015, on a motion offered pursuant to this concurrent resolution by its majority leader or his designee, it stand adjourned until 2 00 p. M. On tuesday, september 8 2015, or until the time of any reassembly pursuant to section 2 of this concurrent resolution, whichever occurs first, and that when the senate recesses or adjourns on any day from tuesday, august 4 2015, through saturday, september 5, 2015 on a motion offered pursuant to this concurrent resolution by its majority leader or his designee, it stand recessed or adjourned until noon on tuesday, september 8 2015, or such other time on that day as may be specified by its majority leader or his designee and the motion to recess or adjourn or until the time of any resemblely pursuant to section 3 of this concurrent resolution whichever occurs first. Section 2a, the speaker or his designee after consultation of the minority leader of the house, shall notify the members of the senate to reassemble at such place and time as he may designate if in his opinion the Public Interest shall warrant it. B after reassembling pursuant to subsection a, when the house adjourns pursuant to a motion offered to this subsection the house shall again stand adjourned pursuant to the first section of this concurrent resolution. Section 3a the majority leader of the senate or his designee, after concurrence with the minority leader of the senate, shall notify the members of the senate to reassemble at such place and time as he may designate if in his opinion, the Public Interest shall warrant it, b after reassembling pursuant to subsection a when the Senate Adjourns on a motion offered pursuant to this subsection by the majority leader or his designee, the shall shall again stand adjourned pursuant to the first subsection of this concurrent resolution. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the concurrent resolution is agreed to and a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. Without objection when the house adjourns today it shall adjourn to meet at 11 00 a. M. On friday, august 7 2015. Unless it sooner has received a message from the senate transmitting its adoption of House Condition current resolution 72 and which case the house shall stand adjourned pursuant to that concurrent resolution. The chair lays before the house a communication. The clerk the honorable the speaker, house of representatives sir, this is to notify you formally pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the house of representatives that i have been served with a grand jury subpoena for documents issued by the United States District Court for the Central District of illinois. After consultation with counsel, i will make the determinations required by rule 8 signed sincerely, karen l. Haas. The speaker pro tempore without objection, pursuant to the order of the house of today the house standsed a jurnled until 11 00 a. M. On adjourned until 11 00 a. M. On august 7, 2015, unless the soon has the senate has adjourned house when inmates are actively involved. And we are definitely trying to do our part to ensure that for recidivism reduction in this nation that we are taking the lead. For the number of individuals who come into the bureau of prisons, despite all of the challenges and the figures that youre hearing the men and women in the bureau of prisons do an amazing job. When you look at the specific numbers relative to recidivism for the federal system, when individuals leave, we have 80 who do not return to the federal system. 80 . Now, we have that 20 who eventually end up in state and are local and we have always known that the overall recidivism for the federal system is 40 . 20 that return to the bureau and the 20 that go into the state system. And i would just also add that when you look at the bureau of prisons, and theres a study that has been done that for the state correctional system 30plus, when you look at the overall average for recidivism, its 67 . So i would still say that we have a lot of work to do. I mean the goal is to have 100 individuals never returning, but as ive already stated for the record, the amount of growth that has occurred over that time period, we are very limited with our staffing. But it does not remove us from the commitment to our mission. If our staffing had kept pace with the growth over the years, i do believe that i would be sitting here reporting that the 80 would have been much higher. So i want to give the Inspector General an opportunity to comment and how you think were doing on reentry and any work that youve done on that. Were actually, senator, in the middle of the reentry programs and the use of reentry and the middle of fieldwork going to the working to look at the Education Programs because of the occurrence wed concerns wed heard. I think we will have something later in the year for you to look at. But it is a very significant concern. One of the issues i will pick up on what director sam ules said on staffing, thats a significant issue. Thats a significant security issue, reentry, because what you see is, first of all, by most accounts the federal Staffing Ratio of inmate to staff is worse than many of the state systems what they have. And thats been exacerbated over time as the prison population has grown. Theres a cascading effect of that. The director and the staff have to pull people out of other programs to do correctional work that they cant be doing some of the other programs were all talking about. And so that i think is lost sometimes and something were certainly looking at right now is that cascading effect, if you understaff the prisons the director has to first and foremost make sure the prisons are safe. Senator ayotte i hope when you issue this report that youll also give us guidance on what the models are, what are the best models for reentry. If we are going to invest more resources in this to create a better path for success for people so that they dont so we can reduce the recidivism rate, i think your recommendations on the piece of whats working best, where we should invest resources would be really helpful. Thank you. Thank you, senator ayotte. While were quick on this subject, apparently only 10,000 out of the 210,000 population participating in that reentry program, could you quickly describe both of you . It sounds like a very successful program. Why arent more people engaged in it . Senator johnson in total we reached 45,000 prisoners every year. Director sam ules if its in references to the Vocational Training programs, we only have a limited number of opportunities that we could provide based on the number of inmates in our system. And that goes back to the crowding with increased crowding. You have waiting lists in the federal prison system no different than any other system. And the goal is to try to push as many of these inmates through and as we complete classes we bring more, you know individuals in for participation. Senator johnson Inspector General . Inspector general horowitz there are limited resources meaning a limited number of classes. Senator johnson senator booker. Senator booker director samuels, i appreciate you being here. Also, i appreciate the fact that you visited me in my office and take a lot of the issues and concerns. You represent an administration as a whole, as the president has, done some extraordinary steps around overall criminal justice reform. Im grateful that you are you a here today. It means a lot. Id also want to echo, you are a part of the Law Enforcement community and your officers put themselves at risk every single day to protect this nation. And im grateful for the sacrifices that your officers made. Im glad you mentioned as we see on the federal and state level, we do have officers, not just losing their lives in the line of duty but also officers who are injured pretty severely or often in the line of duty as well. We as americans should recognize that and that sacrifice and commitment. I want to talk to you really quick and focus my questioning on solitary confinement, begin with solitary confinement of juveniles. Theres a bipartisan dialogue going on right now about putting real limitations on the use of solitary confinement. Now, we know this is an issue that faces thousands and thousands of children across america, but when it comes to the federal system this is actually a very small amount. Probably would surprise a lot of people we are talking about kids in a matter of dozens. This is in two populations really. Its children that are tried as adults that are housed in adult facilities, and then the contracts, if im correct, that you do with state facilities for juveniles as well. Do you think its feasible that, as being discussed in congress right now and ive been in a lot of the discussions in the senate that we just eliminate solitary confinement or severely limit it for children . Being very specific, for instance, placing a threehour time limit on juvenile solitary confinement and banning it, really, for punitive or administrative purposes, is that something you see as feasible and something you would be supportive of . Director samuels thank you, senator. I believe that for this issue and in the federal system, as you already mentioned, we contract out the service. We do not have any juveniles in an adult correctional facility. And the expectation that we have with the Service Providers for us is that at anytime theyre considering placing a juvenile in restrictive housing, they are required to notify us immediately. Even if that placement were to take place theres a requirement also they have to monitor those individuals every 15 minutes. So in regards to your question with looking at the restrictions that could be considered i would say that for our purposes regarding this that it would be something that is definitely something that should be considered and looked at as a practice. Senator booker so if congress were to act on legislation, putting those severe limitations on the practice with limitations of just a matter of hours, thats something you would agree thats something that is feasible . Director samuels yes. Senator booker i appreciate that. Thats encouraging to the discussions going on right now. And frankly, its a small population but doing it on a federal level would send a signal to really resonate throughout our country and frankly would is already being done in some your dictions. To adult solitary confinement, if if i may, this practice, as you know, has been harshly criticized. If you listened to the other panel, theres a lot of data from the medical community, specifically, and also Civil Rights Community and human rights communities. A may, 2013, report, which i know youre also familiar from the g. A. O. Found that the federal bureau of prisons didnt know whether the use of solitary confinement had any impact on prison safety. Didnt know, necessarily, how it affected the individuals who endured the practice or how much, frankly, is costing taxpayers in general. Just this year a recent internal audit by the bureau of prisons noted inadequacyies in Mental Health care and reentry preparedness for people in solitary confinement. As was said in the previous panel, many people max out in solitary and then find themselves going right into the general i should say general population. Going right in the public. In many ways i think this report is a wakeup call of the seriousness of this issue. I first want to say, do you know right now how many people are in solitary confinement beyond 12 months or, say, 24 months or 36 months . Do you have that data . Director samuels senator, i can provide the data for you. Senator booker so we do track those folks who are saying often for years in solitary . Director sam umes senator booker, id like to state for the bureau of prisons, we do not practice solitary confinement. In my oral testimony in my written testimony our practice has always been when individuals are placed in restrictive housing we place them in a cell with another individual. To also include that our staff make periodic rounds to check on the individuals. And i also believe its important senator booker i need to be clear on that. Your testimony to me right now, the b. O. P. Does not practice confinement of individuals singularly in a confined area . Director samuels youre correct. We only place an individual in a cell alone if we have good evidence to believe that the individual could cause harm to another individual and or if we have our medical or Mental Health staff given evaluation it would be a benefit to the individual to be placed in a cell alone. We do not under any circumstances nor have we ever had a practice of placing individuals in a cell alone. Senator booker ok. Thats astonishing to me. Id love to explore that further because all the evidence that i have said it is a practice at the federal level. So youre telling me there are not people that are being held for many, many months alone in solitary confinement, is that correct . Director samuels when you look at the bureau of prisons agencywide that is not a practice. We have three forms. We have our special Housing Units which are the majority of individuals throughout the country placed in restrictive housing. We have a program senator booker so in the s. H. U. They are not individually held . Director samuels no, sir. Average agencywide the amount of time individuals are spending on average, again total, is little more than 65 days. Senator booker so the s. H. U. Is not solitary confinement, an individual not in the cell alone . Director samuels that is not the practice in the bureau of federal prisons. That has not been the practice. Senator booker i hope there will be another downed. Senator johnson senator mccaskill. Senator mccaskill how many have been convicted of a federal crime in the Violent Crime in the federal courts . Director samuels give me a second. Approximately 5 . Senator mccaskill ok. So we have 5 violent. 95 nonviolent. I think the thing that people need to understand which im not sure people do is that 5 that committed Violent Crimes you dont even have primary jurisdiction, probably, on most of those crimes in the federal system. I dont think people realize that the federal Law Enforcement system was not designed or ever intended to address what most people think of as crime in this country. It was originally intended to be just for those kinds of crimes that because of the interstate nature of them they needed to be handled by the federal government. That would be Crimes Involving the drugs going from country to country. Then eventually we started nibbling away at that and started doing bank robbers and then we started doing interstate kidnappings. I know this because we handle a whole lot of murder cases when i was the prosecutor in kansas city and nothing was more irritating to me. We had the best homicide detectives i believe we had in the midwest in the Kansas City Police department. We had experienced prosecutors who handled murders every day and invariablely when there was a highprofile murder case, all of a sudden the f. B. I. Would start sniffing around and try to grab that case and find some kind of interstate part of the crime so they would take the case as opposed to us who handled murder cases all the time and frankly in my opinion biased as it may be, had more expertise. I say all this because youre spending 7 billion and 95 of that money is being spent on nonviolent offenders. Thats an astounding number on nonviolent offenders. An astounding number. So my question is, how many times have you been brought into the policy questions of who is being prosecuted in the federal system and why . You guys dont get 911 calls. Nobody calls the f. B. I. With a 911 call. I used to make the point to my friends who are f. B. I. Agents. Hey, they didnt call you. They called us. So the federal system gets to pick what they this is not required. They get to decide what they want to prosecute. Unlike state prosecutors who have to make a decision on every single case. So are you ever called in to the policy discussions about the growth of federal Law Enforcement and this massive amount of prosecution thats going on and the growth in the prison system . Because these decisions are being dictated by the department of justice and how many cases theyre actually filing. Rougher are you ever consulted on those decisions . Director samuels senator mccaskill senator mccaskill, when the discussions are taking place, we are brought into the discussion when needed by the department. But i also would share, which im sure you are aware, for any policy decisions relative to who is being prosecuted, that remains with my colleagues who would be more than anyone else regarding this issue capable of responding to that. Senator mccaskill lets talk about the elderly offender program. The way you entered into some of the contracts, you didnt specify out what the cost of home detention was versus your detention, correct . Director in other words what you did, you werent able, in the pilot isnt this correct, mr. Horowitz, they werent able to discern what a release into home detention was costing versus incarceration in the prison facilities . Mr. Horowitz correct. The g. A. O. Found that. Senator mccaskill so you arent in position what it cost what a Home Detention Program versus prison would be, correct . Director samuels since that time, once the finding was made, weve been working to isolate those costs. Senator mccaskill ok. How are you doing that . Director samuels we put together staff who are responsible for the contracting oversight to monitor. Senator mccaskill ok. There were 784 of the 855 app i will caintcants for the elderly release program that were denied. 784 out of 855 were denied. Can you explain why they were denied that massive amount . These are all elderly. These are not young people. Director samuels i can take your concern back, but from the knowledge that i have regarding this, many of those individuals, it was dealing with the issue of being eligible based on a criteria that was put in place. Senator mccaskill who sets the criteria . Director samuels the criteria for the pilot . Senator mccaskill yes. Director samuels by congress. Senator mccaskill they said we couldnt we said we couldnt go to a home program unless theyve served 18 months . Director samuels well, that was something that was done through conversation between department and members of congress. Senator mccaskill well, id love to know who was in on that conversation if youd provide that for the committee. Id love to see the criteria. If you got 95 of your population is nonviolent and youve got we know that the recidivism rate for people over the age of 55 is somewhere between 2 and 3 . Thats a recidivism rate that any Drug Treatment Program or any state court system would die for. That is an amazingly low recidivism rate. I do not understand how we cannot even were turning down 784 of 855 applicants for a Pilot Program. It seems to me that the institution is being stubbornly stuck in the status quo. Stubbornly stuck in the status quo. I am so excited that we have Critical Mass around here. As somebody who, against a lot of political head winds, started one of the first drug courts in the country as an elected prosecutor. I convinced the people in my community and the Police Department that a drug court was a taxpayer factory. Because the people who went into drug court were either on welfare or they were stealing. They werent paying taxes. And all the nonViolent Crimes they were committing because they were drug addicted and the drug court movement, ours began in 1993. It spread all over the country and the world because it worked so well. You know what i had i begged the federal government to participate in our drug court program. Didnt want to hear a word about it. I couldnt even get them to send us their mules, the girlfriend mules. They wouldnt even send us those for i say, let me take your cases. Your lowlevel drug offender cases. Wouldnt hear of it in the 1990s. Im just not sure we moved that much in the department of justice. I hope we can all work together. I know my times up. Ive got some questions. I would love i have some questions for the record about reece county. That contract. Why are we using to as a gobetween for a federal contract. And also these criminal alien prisons we have that half of them are immigration offenses. Im curious about the 1 billion price tag on that. So ill get you those questions for the record. Senator johnson i dont want to put words in your mouth. I think were finding another area of agreement here. You know, the federal government getting involved in something that from my standpoint is better left to the states and local governments because theyre better at it. Theyre closer to it. Use a little more common sense approach. I say washington, d. C. , the federal government the definition of law is negative unintended consequences. Were seeing that here today. Not because of good intentions and not because people are working hard and sacrificing, but i think thats just basically true. I want to be respectful of the witness time. Lets not abuse the time. Senator booker the d. O. J. Defines solitary confinement as the terms isolation or solitary confinement mean the state of being confined to one cell or for approximately 22 hours a day or more with one or two other individuals. The Health Consequences for solitary confinement, period are well alert. This is a common practice in the federal system. But its not just with other prisoners. In the s. H. U. , often in federal prisoners, in the special management units, its common as well. The average stay in that have 277 days. And in the a. D. X. , the administrative maximum prisons, the average solitary confinement is 1,376 days. This is a real problem. It does exist. Forgive me if my semantics are wrong. Director samuels at the a. D. X. , and when i testified in 2012 at that time we had a little more than 400 inmates at the a. D. X. In florence, colorado which makes us less than 1 of our entire population. For those individuals they are placed in single cell and the majority of that population, also when you look at their offenses 46 have been involved in some homicide at some point in their lives. Senator booker again, but the reality is the actual result i dont care if its a homicide nonviolent drug crime, what are we getting for taxpayers for putting them in an environment in which human rights folks consider that torture . And we have a medical community that has a consensus about torture. And so or the harmful excuse me traumatizing effect of that. What im saying is again the crime violent nonviolent, this is a nation that doesnt endorse torture or believe we should traumatize folks. If theres no data that supports us actually having something positive coming out of this, its got to be a practice that weve we should end. Or severely limit. And thats what im just saying. Im trying to do a datadriven approach, relying on experts and science. Just because i want to stay on the good side of the chairman, im going to shift off of this issue because i have enough questions to last another 10 minutes and i dont think im going to get that. I will tread upon his indulgences as long as possible. So just real quick. A real quick point. Federal bure our of prison houses 14,500 women. Bureau of prisons houses 14,500 women. As we talked about in the last panel, overwhelmingly these women have children. Children of a minor age. The trauma visited upon children and often the primary caregivers, theres a lot of issues. I just want to get to this one reality that in danbury, connecticut, which is a mere 70 miles away from the new york city area, i like to call it the greater newark area, which is an easy visit for those in the northeast, thats going to change and those women will now be moved slated right now to move to alabama to a facility there which is about 1,000 miles away from the greater newark area, a drive that takes more than 16 hours. So why was the 500mile policy enacted which is a good thing, which is something i endorse, do the cost of due to the cost of families, would you commit to revising the rule to have a presumption of 75 miles, if possible . Do you understand . Is there a chance to revise that rule . Director sam umes senator when we looked at the Mission Change for danbury, we made every effort to try to make sure in fairness to those offenders who were not only living in the new england states, as far as their residence, but we had many offenders who were from texas, california and what we tried to do is make sure with the realignment that we move those individuals who were not from that part of the country so they could be closer to their family. Senator booker we are taking away of the californians. There are a lot of people from the northeast, a lot of women with small children who are having those connections effectively severed and that is very problematic. Im just going to shift for now, if i can, and i apologize. Just want to quickly just look at the private prison issue real quick and shift to mr. Horowitz, if i can. I dont want you to feel like i was ignoring you in this hearing. Are you concerned about the growth of private prisons that contract with the f. O. B. And b. O. F. And we have contracts with a total costing us 5. 1 billion for taxpayers, and these are forprofit companies that according to the sentencing project 33,800 b. O. P. Prisoners wh held in 2010 and that number has grown significantly. Over 38,000. Im concerned about oversight. And theres a lack of reporting , information thats just i can get a lot of information easily from the prisons that are being run by the director. But theres this unbelievable, really offensive to me, lack of information and data about our private prisons and whats going on there. And so i want to i am done, just wait for the answer. Is the abuse reports of immigrant detainees now, i understand these folks are nonamerican citizens but they are human beings. And the report of abuse at our private prisons are troubling. Thousands of men live in 200foot kevlar tents that each house about it 200 men. The facilities are described as filthy, insect infested, horrible smells, constantly overflowing toilets. This is an affront for this nation for what we stand for. For me its an affront. Im wondering what steps are you taking to hold these prisons accountability and to lift the vail that protects the American Public from being known whats being done with billions of their dollars . Mr. Horowitz we issued the report on the reeds county facility earlier this year. Focusing on that particular private prisons. Some of the issues we found of concern. Staffing levels, for example as you know they had a riot several years ago. One of the issues was supposedly staffing levels. We looked and saw and had concerns about staffing. We had concerns about the contracting practices. We made a variety of recommendations as to that facility. Were currently looking at the adams county falt in mississippi. Leavenworth in kansas. As well as the broader view of monitoring overall of the contract prisons because thats an issue of concern as spending has increased and the number of prisoners has gone from 2 to 20 of the overall federal prison population. Thats an issue of concern. So were doing those reviews. Several of the contract prisons like adams, like the willis, northeast correctional facility, ohio had all had riots in the last several years. Those are contract prisons being used by the b. O. P. And it has raised the concerns that we are looking at closely. Senator booker and why not better reporting . Why cant i or the public get the same kind of transparency and reporting that we would get with the prisons that are directly under the purview of director samuels . Mr. Horowitz and thats something were looking at as well because were looking at what kind of reporting the b. O. P. Is getting from these institutions. In addition, what kind of information is flowing and is accessible and why isnt more being done to be transparent about it. Thank you. Well continue to use this committee to highlight these issues. This is an important issue. I want to thank your service to this nation, for your thoughtful testimony. I want to thank all the witnesses. I think really did accomplish my primary goal of every hearing is to lay off the reality, lets admit we have a problem. We certainly have weve taken that first step and admitted weve got a problem. With that the hearing record will remain open for submission of answers and questions for the record. This hearing is adjourned. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] and if you missed any of this hearing on federal prisons, you can watch it anytime online. Well have it up on our website, cspan. Org. And the chancellor of the university of North Carolina, carol, she will be talking about the accessible and affordability of college. Well take you to the National Press club for that. At 3 00, the future of afghanistan and the conflict there. Well hear from general John Campbell the commander of Operation Resolute support, live here on cspan. Thats at 3 00. Next, lets take a look at a review of last nights Republican Candidates Forum from this mornings washington journal. We are back. Joining us from manchester is the president publisher of the New Hampshire union leader, joe mcquade. Inc. You for being here. Thank you for being here. Which candidate stood out to you . Guest they all did. I sat in the second row behind the candidates. As i watched, i was thinking what a wonderful opportunity this was for the Republican Party to show off a deeper field than i can remember going six months into a primary. Standouts, i liked Carly Fiorina. She did a shout out to the thing on. Other than that she did a shout out to the union for putting the thing on. It was fine. I think it improved the position of all the candidates who were there. Host your headline in the union leader, america meets the gop. What do you mean . Why was this form important . Forum important . Guest it was important for the three early voting states. Fox announced it was limiting the field to the top 10 candidates on the basis of polls. Which might be ok in february the weekend before the primary. But six months before, it is absurd. And doesnt present to either the three states or the nation the broader field of candidates. So america meet the gop. They are not going to meet them if they only watch the 9 00 Program Thursday night. They have an earlier thanksgiving kiddie table for lower tier candidates. I talked to a former senator in the audience last night and he was expressing great frustration and wonderment that a network could leave off the stage one of the most knowledgeable u. S. Senators on Foreign Policy lindsey graham, who is low in the polls at the moment. And quite possibly the governor of ohio, where their socalled debate is going to be held, john kasich. Both outstanding. And Carly Fiorina, quite an accomplished is this woman who is on the bubble of getting in or not. So we wanted america to see the broader field and i think that was accomplished thanks largely to cspans showing it nationally. Host what you think of a forum versus a debate and why did you organize it that way with the candidates taking questions oneonone . Caller yes. We wanted to make it easier for the candidates to accept our invitation. And as you may know, the Republican National committee has specified a limited number of debates. And this wasnt one of them. If we had had a debate with all of the candidates questioning each other, than those candidates according to the rnc would not be allowed in any of their official debates. Frankly i think if a couple of name candidates had said to heck with that we are going to do a debate in New Hampshire, the rnc would have folded its tent and let them in. But the great thing about the event last night i think it was more informative and more in depth with questions to the candidates then you are likely to see on thursday night. We did two hours with 14 candidates. Two rounds of questions about four or five minutes in the first round and a couple of minutes in the second round. I was doing my terrible math on the way in this morning and fox has 10 candidates, 90 minutes. How much time does each candidate get then . After introductions, etc. . It is going to be interesting to watch, but i think we will come out with more content and indepth questions and answers than the fox thing. Host did you miss donald trump not being on the state . Stage . Caller not at all. Guest not at all. Some stories lead with that. Most of the reporting was on the candidates and what they had said. I was trying to think with the chemistry would have been like if trump had in there. I think it would have been totally different and distraction rather than attraction of solid candidates. So no. To tell you the truth i dont understand his reasoning. If he doesnt think we are going to endorse him and therefore he is not coming to our party it makes no sense. He might be sort of criticizing himself for not participating because we got a lot of coverage around the country thanks to you. And we had an extraordinary number of commercial television stations including to hear in newwo here in New Hampshire. It got out to a lot of people. As much as i follow the political business closely, the average joe or jane it is summertime for one thing. They have to get the kids back to school. There are not really paying great indepth attention to this thing. Trump is out there. People know trump and therefore he is getting some recognition. This was an opportunity for the voters to ask candidates questions and we did that i putting up on our site and the cosponsorssites a list of topics and asked voters to weigh in on what they were interested in. Our moderator managed on the fly to ask some great followup questions after the planned ones were over. Host do you think New Hampshire residents missed donald trump from the stage . There was a poll yesterday that showed the billionaire was up in the Granite State 26 . Guest pulls in august of 2015 mean zip to me and i hope to my newspaper. Polls in august of 2015 mean zip to me and i hope to my newspaper. I rap the knuckles of reporters who write these stories. Brad pitt could get in the top 10 if it was just based on name recognition but i dont think he is running. Host lets turn to our viewers. We have a fourth line set aside for New Hampshire residents. Lisa is up first in florida. Independent. Caller thanks for taking my call. I really didnt appreciate the debate. I really appreciated the format of your show. I am echoing a couple of people. I want to say i am also disappointed we are not hearing more about marco rubio. Every facet of his politics may not be something everybody agrees with, but i find that every time he opens his mouth he is so on point. He is so wellinformed. He is so articulate. He makes a great deal of sense. I would like to be hearing more comments about him and i hope he makes it to the thursday night debate. Regarding carly i havent heard her speak very much. She sounds very strong. Considering her background, when i think about her ability to speak with people in other nations and to feel to take care of things, she strikes me as a woman with impeccable Critical Thinking skills. Conflict resolution skills. The kind of things that really do matter. Unlike trump, who can also be very spot on about things. Its like he cuts right to the bone. But i am very concerned about the fact that he pisses people off the way he does. Whether or not he can actually be taking care of our country because of his inability to have the kind of decorum that i think somebody in politics dates to have. Host all right lisa. Lets leave it there and have joseph respond to what you had to say. Guest i think what we did last night was showcase both senator rubio and Carly Fiorina and getting them to answer questions and i agree that senator rubio is a very articulate young fellow. Thats what the senate is and should be all about, is people who can argue a point well. Both he and ted cruz, who had to be in washington last night were really articulate about what they did or it as was rand paul who try to take a different position on some things. I was very pleased we had all those candidates. I love the way people go to the shorthand of, i like your debate. As i explained, it was not a debate. The last real debate was between lincoln and douglas. And i think brian lamb taped it at the time. Host a republican. Caller good morning. I thought it was awesome. I appreciated it so much. I was really impressed with perry of course. I like cruz, i like carson. I was impressed with miss fiorina. I have never heard her speak for. My choice would be perry carson jindall did a great job. I would have asked every candidate about what their thoughts on immigration would be. That to me is so important. So i thought you did a great job and a Great Service for our country. We needed this. Host all right. Joe, some of the candidates did answer the immigration question. Guest the immigration was the top issue and we tried to ask a number of questions in different ways to elicit positions from the candidates. It is interesting what the caller from texas says about never seeing or hearing Carly Fiorina before. That is why she is in New Hampshire and iowa, and i imagine south carolina. As are a lot of the other candidates. Because they are not known nationally. And to be known nationally at this stage, you have to have money that trump doesnt have. He is known nationally because of television and Business Books and his name on the side of buildings. These other candidates who are really thoughtful and are testing the waters, that is what the stage is all about. I was talking this morning to a guy who worked in new york in another day and then came up here and he was comparing and contrasting what the cost would have been or would be for a candidate if new york was the first primary state. In fact what we seem to be heading towards is a National Primary with National Networks calling the shots and picking the candidates. Unless you have a billion dollars, you might as well stay home. We are selfish. New hampshire likes the attention. But i dont think thats good for the country. I dont think thats a good way to pick a president. Host these candidates dont have the resources to be known nationally. Thats why they do these smaller town halls where they talk to the voters. The voters in these early primary states are the first test for these candidates. What do you think the appeal is of Carly Fiorina . We got a lot of calls this morning of people saying they really liked what she had to say. Guest you can be sexist and say, well she is a woman, hillary is a woman, that is an interesting comparison. Carly fiorina is a genuine article. She is a very thoughtful person who has some International Experience and just really does how to make a point. But has some background that i think people would find interesting in the oval office. One of your callers earlier said fiorina, trump. Two businesspeople, different approaches. I think that is one of the things that Carly Fiorina has. Even in New Hampshire, she is just getting around now doing these town hall meetings. The New Hampshire people appreciate it and like to be able to actually see and hear a candidate and this year, with this brought a field broad a field you cant go downtown without bumping into someone who is running for president. Host who has the best infrastructure in this early primary state . Guest good question. I am not the political reporter. I just sign the checks. One who has none in New Hampshire is mike huckabee. Which may have been part of the reason why he declined our invitation. I dont think he understood what a big deal this was for the early primary states. We went on his website to see what campaign he had in New Hampshire. It refers you back to little rock. That is where he is staking his ground. Some of the candidates have hired very skilled, deep professionals from New Hampshire as well as having national ones. Bush has a fine organization here. Lindsey graham has a pretty smart guy up here doing field work for him. Chris christie does, too. He is amazing in terms of the town meetings that he has held. And he doesnt leave until the last question is asked. The interesting thing is oneonone versus television. Some people come across well on tv or they can be stiff on tv, and in person it is another story. Im avoiding your question because i dont know how big the staff is. Donald trump has a place in manchester with a parking spot out front with his name on it. Host william in niagara falls, democrat. Caller thank you for taking my call. I was concerned about the moderator not asking any of the candidates about the voter id laws that are going on across this nation. Many of the candidates up there have voter id laws in their government. And the senators never mentioned anything about them. Everyone that i know know that the voter id laws are voter suppression. Cutting off access to the polls has nothing to do with id. Cutting early voting has nothing to do with id. I believe in texas you cant even get use your university of texas id to get the voter id for texas. But your gun license works. So its not about id. North carolina is in court right now about voter id. So i am wondering when is the Republican Party going to address that voter id situation . Because they seem to be silent on it. Host all right. Guest interesting. That was not an issue that came to the top or anywhere really in our survey of voters. Which is why it wasnt asked of us. I dont think its the republican candidates not willing to bring it up. They werent asked anything that came close to that. In New Hampshire, we have a very Large Population of socalled independent voters who arent registered in either party. But they can walk in to the president ial primary the day of the vote in either party and say, i want to sign up as a republican, get a ballot vote, walk out and say change me back to an independent. There has been quite a deal of conflict about the looseness of lack of voter id in New Hampshire. Republicans have tried to change that so that college kids bussed in from massachusetts cant come to a precinct in New Hampshire and say i am joe blow from kokomo give me a ballot. If they are challenged all they have to do is cited affidavit that says yes, i am joe blow from kokomo. There is the task of trying to validate all those and they never get to all of them. When they find some, they find out that some people who arent from New Hampshire at all. But the count of the vote still counts. Once you put the ballot in, the people at the polling place dont know whose vote that was. So the bizarre thing with go ahead. Host im sorry. I thought you were finished. Finish your thought. Guest its just bizarre that someone can come in from out of state, sign a waiver that they are from here vote, go home it turns out theyre are not from here and their vote counts. Host independent from louisiana. Caller hey. I want to thank both of the yall. The format was wonderful. I wish that was the way it was done. Debating one another for a minute and 30 seconds just kind of it is more snarky than it is informative. I thought Carly Fiorina did great. I have been a fan of persons she ran against barbara boxer. I thought dr. Carson did great. I just want to thank yall for putting this format on. Host from twitter, someone wants to know, did the candidates have a say in the choice of subjects of the questions asked . Guest no. They didnt have a say in anything except coming there. We told them there would be two rounds of questions. Their turn was drawn by pingpong balls. I think you may have skyped in the back with their names and faces on them. I was hoping that could be part of the televised show because i wanted them to get the trump ball and throw it over their shoulder because he wasnt there. There was very little concerned by the candidates because they recognized how important these states are. There wasnt one candidate who wanted to be able to skype in. Because of the planned parenthood vote, we had to have the senators in washington. Senator graham did not partake in that vote, preferring to be up here. The vote lost anyway. It was a motion for cloture and it didnt come close. I was wondering if it had failed by one vote, would senator graham be rethinking his decision on it. Im really happy with the lady said about the format. It is not a debate. It is not people on stage. I honestly think that we got more informative answers on a variety of topics then you are likely to get in what so far has been the modus operandi of the National Televised debates. Host whats next for the candidates in New Hampshire . we will leave the last minute of washington journal, and take you to the National Press club in washington, d c. Introductions been made by thomas, the current president. Thomas school commissions oncologist. Folt spent 30 years at dartmouth and served as interim president for a year before moving to chapel hill. She is keenly interested in boosting undergraduate Graduation Rates, particularly among lowincome firstgeneration and underrepresented students. They could ago, the university introduced the carolina covenant, a program that awards lowincome students a combination of grants and subsidies and gives them in a hurry Student Loans and graduate thatfree debtfree. Please join me in giving a warm, National Press club welcome to chancellor carol folt. [applause] chancellor folt thank you tommy, for introducing me. It is a pleasure to be here. I am looking for to this and looking forward to your questions, so be sure to put down lots of it once. You are right, it is an extra deny to be the chancellor of the university of North Carolina at chapel hill, and i will tell you, i would not have any other job in america. [applause] chancellor folt yes chapel hill people. This is the best time. What happens in Higher Education is so important for the nation. Our business is a very serious one. People take it very seriously. We have a huge impact on individuals and the future of the nation. It is a time when we have the opportunity to really shepherd in the great changes taking place. So, it is a real pleasure to be here. Carolina itself has a big footprint. It is the Oldest Public University in america. It was the first to graduate students the only Public University to graduate students in the 1700s and it has an extremely proud legacy. We are as proud of what we are doing to get past these issues that you raised you know, we are very, very proud of what we are trying to do. I will say that working in Higher Education the new normal is to be facing some of the greatest issues of the day. Yes, were looking at how to balance athletics and academics. We are all pink and about how to deal with Sexual Assault. Thinking about how to deal with Sexual Assault. Were trying to help the country understand the Value Proposition of Higher Education. These are the issues we face and the issues that those of you in the press cover all the time. It is important that we have these conversations. It is exciting to be at the kickoff at the month of office august, speaking to you today, talking about the portability, accessibility, and attainment in a great of a Great College in a Great College degree. I would like to thank the National Press club members, everyone at the head table. Im looking at mary, who will be the speaker, the first time we have had a graduate speak. And all of you at the table members from the North Carolina delegation staffs that are here thank you all for coming, and of course, carolina alumni, thank you for being here. I thought i would start by just giving a little bit of an overview of what the university of North Carolina at chapel hill is because we really understand what goes on in a university and to understand the context of affordability and accessibility it is a good thing to know what we are trying to bring our students into. Unc we call it carolina, has a budget between 4 billion in 6 billion a year, and it depends on whether i am including our hospitals or not. It is a major enterprise. It has more than a 3 billion endowment. We raise a lot of money through philanthropy. This year we had over 440 million from our generous alumni and that is in a single year. That actually happens to be carolinas best year ever in philanthropy. Our alarms ours alums are sticking with us and i think that makes a great statement. We are getting a lot of money through research. Carolina has been increasing its research portfolio. We almost 1 billion in research that is mostly washingtonbased federal funding from the nsf and and ih and nih. This is a Huge Investment in research that will change lives and save save lives and change the world. We have more than 10,000 people employed in various aspects of our institutions. We have more than 33,000 applications for less than 4000 entry positions and, you know, top 10 top one programs in so many fields from medicine Global Health, pharmacy, humanity, social sciences, and one of the points i want to make is accessibility and affordability, especially for students of lowincome, firstgeneration, should get them to the best universities in america. I think it is really important that we consider that part of that mission. It is important that they come in and understand what is happening in the world. We recently had a number of stories you probably read about in the paper and Historic Partnership for chapel hill that program will have a number of undergraduates working in it. We have a Population Center that got 185 million grant from usaid, the largest grant in history, last year, to basically that the metrics for Global Health and gender relations throughout the world. We received a 100 million gift to build entrepreneurial activities through pharmacy. This is what we want students to learn about as they are going through college. Exactly two weeks from today hard to believe classes are going to book going to begin at carolina. It is clearly one of the best times of the year. You just cannot eat the buzz that happens on beat the buzz that happens on a campus. It is a school where people smile and they sing as they walk along. I think it is the light blue. That helps. It is really exciting, but they also are scared to death. This is a big deal. They are coming to college and it is our job when they come to make sure they can be successful. That is part of everything that we think about doing. For many of them at carolina, it is over 20 they will be the first generation to attend university. We are really proud of that. That is so important. More than 14 of them are going to come from the lowest income families families with Median Incomes of 22,000 a year, 23,000 a year. We will also have students coming from all rings of the socioeconomic stratus across the country and that is what that place feels like. I tell students to try to remember the magical feeling they feel on that first day that anything is possible, whatever they want is what they are really going to be able to find their work to do, and that is my message always to them, feel as good on the second day as you did on the first, or remember there is no limit. Of course, that first day on august 18, between that day there is another important day on the calendar, friday, august 7, tuition bills are due. I do not know how many of you have students going to college right now. How many of you have students paying to wish and bills wishon bills . Tutuiion bill . I will give you a number that could shock you the tuition is 8,000. We have very low tuition. The debt for students at North Carolina has not changed in inflationscaled dollars for more than 15 years. So, this is going to be the story about things that do work, to try to do it, and i think it is really important because we have to understand how to scale the parts of our institutions that are working to be more effective. We have about 20,000 undergraduates. Of those, 43 , even with that tuition, are going to receive a form of needbased aid. There is still great need out there. The Median Income in North Carolina is less than 50,000 a year. This can still be an important part of their experience. North carolina is one of possibly two public universities that is needblind we do not consider parents income in the application and one of the only ones remaining that meets full need after they fell out there equation, we cover the rest of the need. This is important if youre going to help students attain a successful degree. I am acutely aware that for students to attend carolina and many other universities in america, the start of the Academic Year is one of great excitement, but most of our high school students, less than half, are going to be going to college. They do not have that same sense of optimism. Many selfselect and think that they are not going to be able to do it. They are fearful that they are not going to be able to afford it, and they are afraid to assume a debt load that they think they will never be able to pay. New data shows that the average debt at a graduation is about 35,000 for students that do go to college. Carolina, it is 17,000. Again, keeping those costs low is a way to help attract capable students. It is very important if you look at the United States statistics, we have about 3. 2 Million Students regimen from high school. About 1. 8 million of them will apply to a fouryear university, but in the end, only about 9 million of them are going to 900 thousand will graduate to that means about 2. 3 million graduates, High School Kids are not making it into college, and more than 50 that, are, on average, not graduating. There is a lot of work here. Many who start did not finish. It is known to be a negative cycle. We also know that Educational Attainment is one of the most prominent determinants of class status. It is unofficial sorting that takes place and it is not helpful. It tends to reinforce the social economic gap, the disparities, i know everyone in this room wishes we could eliminate, and it is happening even more so. College applications are going down. At the very moment when we know the skills of college are actually more valued. We know the lifetime earnings of someone with a College Degree are considerably greater. We also know that the new knowledge economy, the one that is bursting and growing the one the country wants to compete in is requiring the skills of a college graduate, and it is not just their stem skills and their programming it is their writing skills, Critical Thinking, problemsolving. Without those, we are not going to bring those 2. 3 Million High School students every year back to be part of a flourishing national economy. So we know we have to do it, and im going to give you some examples of ways i think it is working well at unc things that i think can be scaled, but that is really the issue ahead. First of all, you have to build universities that draw on the talent of people from all incomes and all backgrounds. Need admission is critical to that. If you are selfselected for wealth, you are going to get it, but that is hard. Most students schools, in the last five years, and we had funds from the state, most of them drop the needblind admissions programs. That is a tendency because they believed they could not afford it. We also know they have to get into the field that contributes to the knowledge economy so they can be part of that burgeoning growth area. We know that it is a world of change. If we are not getting students into programs that teach people change i do not believe you want to put people into single scale programs because everyone knows the skill today is probably not the business hiring in five years. It is our job to be training them to get the diverse skills of the multifaceted learner. So universities have to be the catalyst to this the places where we nurture this type of energy, but the question is our our universities meeting the need question mark if we are great need . If we are not, we have to get on the ball fast. The brookings hamilton project recently released a report that showed that Family Income is may the strongest predictor of Graduation Rate. That is a very sad statistic because they can even control for s. A. T. And other levels of attainment. That is something we are constantly trying to think about. The likelihood of a student from a highend come bracket graduating is fivetimes greater than the student from the lower income bracket, all other things being equal. These things play out more in underrepresented populations. The trends are even greater. We find these troubling. I spent my whole life in fire higher ed trying to change these china grentech and that is why i thought trendlines and that is why i found my slice of heaven in North Carolina because i was able to come to a university doing this in such a strong way. 14 times kiplinger named North Carolina the best value. The New York Times ranked North Carolina the third most economically diverse and to be above on the list you had to have Graduation Rates above 70 . Hours are much higher than that. Of the universities educate 70 of the students in america. I am proud of what we account pushed, i will you some examples, but that does not mean it is all right. We have a long ways to go. How did carolina get here in a way, we have to almost go back to 1789. When carolina began as a great experiment it came out of the revolutionary war. It was an idea that we are going to have freedom, we had better have education. It was founded at the same time we had our first president inaugurated, and it said we are going to get education to improve the life of north carolinians at the lowest price correctable. Practical. It is in the dna of the distant of the institution. That is in part from the getgo. The First Student walked 133 miles to get to the university, but we pride ourselves on reaching out to people from every part of the community, not only in the state, but across the country, and bringing people from every kind of means to the university. How do we do it . Well, it is important that we i have to start by saying we do it in part because we still have a generous state. North carolina is still supported well. We have had more than 30 cut in the last five years but we are still generously supported. That is important. All of the future has to find a way to continue to get some public dollars. If we care about this, public dollars are going to be important, even if we supplemented with philanthropy and all sorts of ideas. That is an advantage for us. Americans have a 1 trillion National Student that. Ac tuition rising. We have to be able to they see tuition rising. We have to be able to counter that. To keep tuition low, we have to make decisions all the time, and some of them are not fun they hurt. We have not been able to give faculty raises to the level we like and we have faculty ringing in over 1 billion of research. It is a competitive environment. You are dealing with very tough decisions because this accessibility and affordability is probably at the heart of everything that tends to be our default position, but it will not exist if we do not continue to have that great faculty. So, with affordability, keeping tuition and debt low is a top priority for us. So is needblind and meeting the demonstrated need. I will come back to that in a minute, how it has had a huge influence on Student Success and i will come back to that. Excess ability has been the next part. That means accessibility has been the next part. Carolina still has almost 82 of the undergraduates that come from the state of carolina. That covenant with the state has been very important. That is why the state still supports us at such a high level. That is a strong relationship. Lots of interNational Students at the graduate level. A global campus. That is important. We have developed a lot of programs to go into high school. If you want to solve these problems, you cannot guard with the applicants. Cannot start with the applicants. You need to get into the high school and i will give you an example of that. You also have to focus when they are on campus very much on the advising, especially what takes place in the first year. If you do not put the money into that first year, the money into getting them ready, no my child number how much money you spend on getting them to start theyre not going to be successful. The third thing we need is still having an institution that is at the highest level of excellence. I do not think lowincome students should be put in a less than great education. I think that is completely unfair. I think you need these three working together to really solve these problems. Our Graduation Rate are 80 at four years and over 90 at six years, putting carolina right up there with the best of the privates. When they are accepted to a school they believe they will graduate, there is good that a that shows believing in them, investing in them is a major factor that will determine their success. I will give you three examples. You heard a little bit about the carolina covenant that is this program that brings students in from very low income and the big thing about that program not only do we work to get them in, they graduate with no loans. They do work study, and they get grants, but that completed believe in students has been so important. The Program Began in 2610 looking at students from the exact same income and similar numbers and comparing Graduation Rates preand post covenant, it has been extraordinary. Precovenant lowincome students from that program graduated at 57 . African american males were graduating around 30 . Since the covenant has been in the entire program Graduation Rate is just 3 lower than the 80 . It has skyrocketed and the africanamerican males has doubled. This investment and the advisement that goes along with it is very important. I can tell you stories of students. The average gpa coming in is over 4. 0. These are talented students, yet they have families back home that need them. They do not have the advising and they frequently lack the confidence. We have so many that say im going to drop out, yet if they get the advising, they stick with it and the stories are amazing. I met three covenant scholars recently and all three told me stories about their lives. Two of them graduated, had great jobs. One already bought a house. Two of them were putting their mothers through college because their mothers had been so instrumental in what they had been doing. These pay it forward for society and in an incredible way. We have programs that reach out into the high schools. In North Carolina, lowincome high schools, 65 of them, we are part of a program called the carolina advisory core. You might know about the National Advisory core. It is one of the best programs in america and it started in virginia and was house that unc. It has branched out. They take recent graduate and put them into high school. We are at 65 of the 90 poorest schools in North Carolina right now. The time in those schools that can be given to any student that was to apply to college can you guess how much time they have to spend with them talking about college . Less than five minutes year. They do not have parents families. They cannot possibly do it. Since they had gone in with the advising program and application rates up 12 , 15 . I went to one of them. I talked to the students there. A number of them will go to Junior Colleges. I told them that i had gone to a Junior College because i did as part of my own background. I had no idea how meaningful that would be. The students they had a couple on tape afterwards and they said the chancellor at unc went to Junior College. I do not think you can never underestimate how a few touches can have such an impact, but students come in through the program, get advising with young, amazing North Carolina graduates, and it just changes the world. Then we got another program to work with a Junior Colleges and carolina in the last six years has started to really admit students. If they get selected in their first year and they achieve a certain level of success, first of all, they graduate from twoyear school and the Graduation Rates from the twoyear schools are extremely low. They get automatic guarantee to get into unc chapel hill. It is phenomenal and if you meet some of those students, you will be blown away. One of them i met grew up in nigeria, a wartorn area, saw a poster of unc and dreams of being at unc. She went to Junior College graduated last leicester, head of her class in nursing, he is going to medical school. We have to remember not all students will do the traditional path, but if were going to make accessibility, affordability the brand for our nation, we need to do this we need to start before, give them the support they need, the advising on the ground, and we need to continue to draw from such a broad range that we do not miss so many students that are out there. If we start doing that and we have programs that can help universities do this, and have programs that can do it in places where graduation is what they do, i think we have a real chance to change things in the next three to five years. I look at what is happening in the news right now and i hope you will ask me a lot of questions on any of these subjects, but how were going to make the treatment of Higher Education the dream of this country and reverse the trend that has been taking over our nation fewer people flying higher i think it is one of the great challenges and i hope in the next decade we achieve that. I would not be standing here if i could not have gone to college, worked as a waitress and paid my way through college. I did that many years ago. Could not be done now. I wanted to make sure that all of those people like me have that chance and we have some good ideas about how to do it. So, thank you for listening, and im looking forward to answering questions. [applause] thomas thank you, chancellor. We have quite a few questions. The 20152016 tuition i think you mentioned the price 33,000 644 for outofstate and 8000 four in state. That is a good deal compared with other universities, but the growth in tuition at carolina for outofstate students since the early19 80s has increased nearly six times the rate of inflation. What has caused a huge increase and will we see the costs slowdown to match the rate of inflation or dropping below it . Chancellor folt thank you. It is a great question. I am in a great Public University and i am part of a university where the state taxpayers do really expect the majority of the support to go toward instate students. What we have been doing and what we in times where there was a retrenchment we did not choose the times when they would be legislated for us. The 30,000, as you said, is still low compared to our peers. Right now it is harder to get into unc chapel hill than any school in america. It is a great place to go up in what we have been doing to counter that is use philanthropy and nonstate targeted dollars. They are eligible for the covenant, which i think is great, and some of our covenant scholars do come from out of state. 50 of our covenant scholars are firstgeneration outofstate. We really do try to use these banner programs to attract them and for me, in the future, a lot of our money that is not already targeted will be going to keep those levels down. I think many states do not understand truly, the benefit of the influx of students from out of state. First of all, all the students want to meet people from everywhere, but when students moved to a place like chapel hill, they want to stay there forever, but the truth is they do come. They are important parts of building the state and i think other institutions handle that differently. That is something we think about a lot. s thomas somewhat related there are a host of students that are undocumented immigrants. Is there anything universities can do to help the students in that situation . Chancellor folt you are hitting two really big issues. I am actually wearing the pin from our latina organization. I wear different pins every time because it is a growing part of the population. We do not give forgive outofstate tuition for undocumented students. We use philanthropy for students to be able to cover outofstate rates, but it is a huge disadvantage if they cannot get the outofstate rate. Our state now makes it possible for all active duty military personnel to have instate rates. That, too, is another underserved population that we really want to get actively involved. Where moving in that direction. I think there are about 30 states werent you saying that that might actually do that. Beyond that, we have to do right now is continue to find resources that can be used in the areas of most critical need. Until you can get that if you can forgive it at the state level, it would really help in that area. Thomas some have argued making college more accessible could mean a decreasing academic quality for university students. Do you agree question mark do you agree . Chancellor folt this one i would have paid you to ask. [laughter] chancellor folt i have a figure that shows a diagram of the students in the covenant and puts them on the entire unc entering class. If you were to pull out the covenant and the needsbased aid students, every single metric, top10 valedictorian s. A. T. , gpa goes down. I did not buy into the argument that it has anything to do with reducing quality. I do also realize that being part of a Great Organization you get to draw the students that have that capacity. Part of the issue is what do we do for the next tier of students that do not have that come performing at the level that they could, but we are really drawing an incredible population so their ability to graduate and lead the world in many ways is there, so that is why we have to make sure they can graduate. Thomas a lot of questions in the United States now about testing how do you monitor the quality of education problem solving, Critical Thinking how do you monitor that, grade that . Chancellor folt i think i have entegris professor of there with me. She might ingrid inglis english professor with me. We do get tests grade papers, give feedback, but what we are not so good at doing is understanding the emergent hole when you finish. We do not give final grades for bio majors. Many students there is a lot of effort put to every major to understand that clear skill sets paperwriting, Critical Thinking, problem solving are increasing. I am most concerned that if we moved to educational system that starts looking like it is massproduction, we will lose critical pieces of feedback, extermination, risktaking, that are what creates the great thinkers that cannot only take a job, but create new jobs. There was a great study, again a chapel hill study that i want to mention in the New York Times recently where they read it all of their intro stem courses. We want to make sure the population all is able to take stem, science, technology, engineering, and math. And they did two studies. They get between lowincome students in those two ways of teaching completely closed. There are ways we can change the way we educate that will have really measurable progress. That is in the infancy. Im sure metrics are part of that. It is not all something easy to measure. Thomas so, lets talk politics for a second Higher Education seems to be bearing the brunt of fierce political attacks across the country, as the of scene for example, in wisconsin. As the head of a major Public University what message do you wish to send to politicians who won greater efficiency and accountability command to faculty that want to keep their tenure and Economic Freedom . Chancellor folt this is when i turn to you you probably have answers to that question. I think one of the big problems now about Higher Education is we tend to talk about it as if it is monolithic, everything is the same. I am talking about carolina. I told you what it was like to begin to basically make clear it is not the same as every other university. I think we need to understand what Community Colleges do look at our historic black colleges and universities. Find what the Great Research universities do, and we need to Start Building in the metrics of success based on who they are, their mission and what they are actually doing. That is one of the problems. Second, everyone is willing to do efficiency. It is not true yes universities are like herding cats, but they are like Innovation Centers every single invention that make sure life better has actually come from the university. Some beginning of that innovation. Our industry right now in america used to be 70 rnd. It has moved to last and 30 all in University Less than 30 , all in university. I think we need to talk about the specifics. It is important to understand where economies come in you should allow universities to feed it back into the innovation p i think there is a lot of misunderstanding there. The biggest innovation there. I think there is a big misunderstanding. The 7 billion is about a seven dollar return for every dollar given to us by the state it is more than that. I think we are not giving the nuance. The last thing, tenure and academic freedom, i think you would destroy america if you destroyed american universities by eliminating academic freedom. I think that is at the core what it is, exactly, might be misunderstood and it might be abused, and there might be things like that, but in general, the ideas that what people study, the work they do has to be held to a standard not bound by the mores of the day is really important. I think the tenure serves a useful purpose. I do not think tenure means no accountability. That is another mistake or even tenured capacitors go through posttenured professors go through posttenured review. I think we need to make those things understood and real. Thomas by your answer, i am going to guess that you supported president barack obama backing off his plan to have the government rate Higher Education in institutions. Chancellor folt yes. [laughter] thomas we will get through a lot of questions if the answers are like that. Speaking of College Costs beating the trend of colleges like a big universities having nicer dorms workout facilities, contributes to the rising cost of college . Chancellor folt it does. People try to figure out what are the main drivers that have increased cost and facilities are part of it. Do remember, though, most of americas great universities were built in the 20s, the 30s. We have an aging infrastructure. We will be building buildings and they cost money and they cost more to build now than they used to because we have to comply with standards that are different. To say it is all about climbing walls is a tiny fraction of what it is. There is also a race for better students facilities, where they live, and i understand that. I do think, though, that we are part of the times. You know, i used to send my son to a camp that did not believe in having mosquito netting and i wanted them to be top i wanted him to be tough. He did not like that either. [laughter] that was a New Hampshire thing. I think we are working with the student generation and what is actually more important to them than fancy facilities is that they feel they are part of a place where facilities will allow them to be part of the great things that are happening. For example, if im going to put something in at unc, i want to put in makers spaces. These are just rooms that you build into dorms that might have a 3d printer, new, expensive, digital equipment, but in a makers space, in the basement of a dorm last year, a young student in his junior year had working with a disadvantaged child in the region who had to have an artificial hand. As he was growing, they could not afford the 100,000 it took to build the hand, and for 20 in the basement of the dorm he built him an artificial hand. That is what students want access to stuff that will let them do great things. They want to feel fit and part of the action, but they are looking at things that we want to give them and that is really where we get the best return. Thomas now to a more controversial question recent events including campus shootings and Campus Police use of weapons both on and off campus have put a spotlight on Law Enforcement powers of those police officers. What you consider to be the proper role of Campus Police and what limits, if any, should be put on them when dealing with students and citizens should they be armed with live ammunition and should students be allowed to carry guns on campus . Chancellor folt well, the idea of whether you carry guns in a public institution, i do not get to make that choice. That is a decision by the state legislature and across the country there are different decisions by different legislatures. A lot of them do want guns to be allowed on campus. Usually they have to be locked up. Ive not seen a campus where people walk around with pistols and are doing that at this point and i think every College President and chancellor is deeply worried about that. I think our Campus Police what you saw and what has been in the news i do not think reflects the majority of Campus Police. Most Campus Police and i am now speaking directly from my unc Campus Police, but i knew every single officer at dartmouth. I know a lot of them on every campus at nc state. I met so many of them when we had our recent tragedy and we work together. Most of the Campus Police officers are Campus Police officers because they love students so i think there is a huge role for Campus Police to play as a liaison and a safety coordinator on campus. We have to get those partnerships to be very strong. We need to keep them really working. Students often really like their security teams if they develop a relationship that is positive and strong. So, i think there is a lot of work to be done, but there are many great examples where they do it. The police recently voluntarily, decided to get cameras together with the local towns in parts of they can say to the students we want to do this because we will do anything to make you more comfortable. These tragedies are highlighting it, so every time Something Like that happens, we all go back and ask ourselves i have meetings with the police and all our towns and the Security Police the next day saying what can we do better . Are we prepared for making sure this would never happen . I think it is a tragedy. I do not think it reflects most Security Forces on campuses. Thomas sticking with the controversial for a minute, on the periphery of the unc chapel hill campus since the memorial dedicated to the those that served in the confederacy. As chancellor, should changes be made . Chancellor folt we have been through a major year when our campus is really looking at not just the memorial, but also names on buildings and the issues associated with that. I think this is a very national issue. It is not just the confederate flag. I am very happy to have my friend sam hairpin we have been thinking about it as an institution, sam here. We have been thinking about it as an institution. The board took action and decided to rename one of the calls halls from the name of a person that was known to be a leader of the kkk. At the same time, we said we would not go down the road of changing every name and the state recently said you cannot change memorials unless you get action from the state. Sometimes you are working in a changing environment. I have to adjust and work with whatever is happening around me, but what we really said we were going to do is spend a lot of time understanding how to conceptualize history. Contextualize history. That is a really big job and that will require voices from throughout the community to come together and have those conversations about what does it mean to be from the Oldest University in america where peoples names are on buildings from a time in the past to a time in the present. How do we honor the past, learn from the past, and respect the dialogue that shapes today. I cannot give you the answer, but that is one of our Top Priorities Going Forward in this year. That memorial to silent sam is one of the pieces. I think we will end up with broader conversations at talk about the role of race in the south. I think we will be talking about that and the role of race in america. Isnt confined to anyone campus. These are some of the biggest issues of the day. Thomas recent revelations as such places as the university of oklahoma have cast the spotlight on fraternities and sororities. What do you think of the system and do you see it as a help or hindrance to make college more accessible to a diverse population of students . Chancellor folt he is going down the list of all the hard issues. You really did mean it. There is a great article actually the chronicle of Higher Education, a lot of the journals have been covering issues associated to this. Chapel hill is less than 20 fraternities and sororities. It is not numerically that large, but of course, they are influential care they have a real place there. I think that the scrutiny that has been coming to campuses starting with Sexual Assault but also binge drinking, hazing this is extremely healthy for universities. We need that conversation. As someone that has been in higher ed for more than 30 years, and a woman in higher ed when i started in higher ed, nobody would would go talk to anyone except the woman in the by department because women students suffering from Sexual Assault felt very little opportunity to talk and most of the people driving these issues would have been women. This is changing. We are seeing a lot more men and women talking about things. I am looking at the way the Panhellenic Councils are changing in our institutions. The fraternities were the first to put in a whole program of Sexual Assault training. I am not saying it is all perfect, but i am saying we need to continue to turn to the students themselves to involve them in the process. Social engineering is a very difficult idea and if you are going to really change people, you have to work with people. That does still mean you have to have serious consequences when people are doing the things that we cannot believe they should do. I think that the National Organizations have started to be more active. I think you are starting to see a much Bigger Movement towards getting people spaces that are noxious chess associated with sororities and attorneys. Fraternities. That is the big issue on a College Campus they own houses and students want to be part of a space that has separate spaces. We need to give the alternative were students have spaces so they do not find their own only alternative in a greek system. Thomas thank you. What would you like to see high schools do differently to improve the College Readiness of incoming students, and along that line of questioning, North Carolina is reviewing its commitment to the common core standards do you think adopting common core will help the readiness of Incoming College students . [laughter] chancellor folt i might not have an answer to the last one. I have not gone that involved in the common core debate, though we spend a lot of time in Higher Education. The big focus of our university and the unc system is to get more ready teachers to improve the pipeline as teachers and improve the success of teachers in the classroom and the retention. They have recently been trying to deal with that issue. It is very important. I think we need to teach students in high school how to write and critically think because i think those arson skills those are skills everyone in my generation will agree with that one, but it is something that we see. The online world has done some positive things. Some students read more because of the online word world that ive never been a. To say you i have never been a purist to say you have to only read one kind of book. If you can get a student to read anything, you can probably direct them to read more and more of what you want, but the online world has probably not help very much in good writing or even Critical Thinking skills unless it has really taken on people can use the online world to completely ignore critical analysis. In high schools, is given the right amount of help, they could take advantage of the age these students are, their excitement about this online world, and use that in new and exciting ways to improve those skills. We also need to make sure the schools have class sizes that are small enough to that they can have engaged learning. There is not anything the same about being in a class of 60 and a class of 30, no matter how superhuman that teacher is. It is really difficult. And i tend to think we need to pay our k12 teachers more if they are going to be able to be held to a standard, we need to make it a more viable career because we want great thinkers going in and bring in those 3. 2 Million Students through high school in a way that does prepare them. When i say writing, i will have to say math, too. That is an important skill for the future. If we let them say i do not like algebra, geometry, we are allowing them to cut themselves off from a major set of Life Opportunities and we should not let that happen. Thomas questions how have uncs athletic recruiting class recruiting changed, and are there other lessons particular regarding the academic integrity issue . Chancellor folt we have been working on this a lot. More than 70 reforms. I think some of those reforms are cutting edge. They are reforms, not only in the way we monitor classes, and the events that happened, really, that we talk about all the time, and they should have been stopped. There shouldve been a process in place almost instantly that evaluated that chair every single year and could have stopped it. It is a great tragedy to say we couldve stopped that. We would stop it now. The better parts of it why i think we are a stronger institution coming out of it that we may have been is because we have also completely done our read on our advising. I was telling about the covenant scholars. We have a Pilot Program to share that exact same advising with all of our students, including all of our athletic advising. We develop programs that allow us to really make sure students are coming in and not being trapped into a few majors. This is not just carolina. This is really important, and it is not just for busy athletes. It is true for many students, probably many of them who work or who may have other outside activities and find themselves with a narrow subset of majors because they cannot get the courses at the right time. We are changing those sorts of things. I think these are the types of programs that help us recruit in the end. Most athletes that come to carolina are going to be great theyre going to be on outstanding teams, but they will graduate and go on to careers that are not as active play in their sport. So, it is our job to recruit them to get a great chance to win, get a great team, but get a chance to go to a great university. It is putting our efforts increasingly on that duality. We think you can come here, do both. Thomas unc students have put issues of race and diversity high and the priority list especially after the killing of three Muslim Students. Howdy facilitate the conversation about these tricky topics as chancellor . How do you facilitate the conversation about these tricky topics as chancellor . Chancellor folt when we had the death of the three Muslim Students it was at as terrible as terrible as you can imagine. What i saw then was the beginning of real opportunity and we saw that in charleston, too. The families of the slain students were incredible. They came forward and they said we want to talk about the love, the hope of these students how our families produced wonderful children, how they grow and nurture a community. So, the community, almost as a whole, turned toward the celebration of life and it really had a big impact on the way people started talking about these conversations. It does not mean people were not extremely angry, but the anger was not the driver. We immediately put in a program that we are calling carolina conversations and invited students to help us do it. It will be starting this year. The very first conversation was on race. Setting that up, we went around to all of the student groups i had two or three big dinners and i invited students from every organization, across the political spectrum, and every one of them committed, in a way, to bring people to that meeting and one of the most meaningful conversations that i heard was between two young men, different races, talking, and one of the students going why are we here were supposed to talk about race this is really hard. The other student said because you came because this is the first time and maybe the only time you wouldve talk to someone that looks like me. So, i see hope. These are not always for everyone. I do not think you have to worry as much about getting everyone in the conversation as starting the conversation, and bringing the students in an wielding these conversations out with real in and wielding these conversations out. If we think every time we meet we have to change the curriculum or redo everything, we will not make progress, but its every time we meet we have an income until idea, we try it, tested, put it back in place, students will come, start believing in the process. I think carolina conversations is one step and stay tuned i will come back next year and tell you about the rest. It is pretty important. I think almost every campus in america is probably going to be doing something more trying Something Like that, or i hope they are. Thomas thank you. Before i ask the last question i have a few announcements the National Press club is the leading organization for journalists and we fight for a free press worldwide. For more information visit www. Press. Org. We would also like to remind you of upcoming programs tomorrow, we are hosting the command commandant of the United States coast guard. Then the right reverend of the african methodist episcopal church. Then nearly 13 years after hurricane katrina, Mitch Landrieu will speak. For more information go to press. Org. I would like to present the speaker with the traditional National Press club mug, which im sorry is not in North Carolina blue. [laughter] chancellor folt thank you. It is not[applause] so, for our last question the unc duke basketball score this season. And we will hold you to it. [laughter] my , going to be my gosh, going to be really good game. High score. Carolina, 90. Duke, 88. [applause] you heard it here first. Thank you, chancellor. [applause] i would also like to thank the National Press club staff, journalist staff, and Broadcast Center for organizing todays event. If you would like a copy go to that website, press. Org. Thank you. We are adjourned. [applause]