"I thought I had all the education I needed," Griffin said recently. "Then I got here and realized I needed more."

Spurred by the academic setting and a desire to move up the ranks, Griffin spent 13 years taking night classes at a community college in Sanford. It was important enough to him that he used vacation time to knock off an hour early some nights to drive the 52 miles to his class, carrying a beeper when he was on call.

But it paid off for Griffin, chairman of UNC's Employee Forum. Along the line, he acquired expertise fixing heating and air-conditioning systems; he also got his electrical and plumbing licenses. Now, 35 years after he came to the university, he's an HVAC repair supervisor.

He'd like other employees to follow his educational path but says they need help.

That's the impetus behind an initiative the campus employee group is pushing that will ask university administrators to focus more closely on staff needs in UNC's next major capital campaign.

Specifically, the forum would like funding for a proposal developed by a campus committee last year to provide free in-state tuition to public universities for the children of all permanent, full-time faculty and staff. The forum also proposes other ways of funding scholarships for employees and their families, including a fund to offset tuition for employees and their spouses.

Griffin knows the forum asks a lot, and he doesn't expect the money -- likely millions of dollars to address all these needs -- but a start would send a good message, he said.

"I would like to see them raise a pile of money and put it in a trust," he said. "I'm not saying we should get a free ride, but we need some help."

The forum will review a resolution on this request in January. It would come at a time when many in the university's rank-and-file staff have struggled to make ends meet in this tight economy. One way to make more money is to get more education, Griffin points out. But many employees make just enough not to qualify for the needed financial aid either for themselves or their children, he said.

A draft of the forum's resolution specifically targets the next UNC capital campaign. While there is no timeline yet for a massive, new fundraising effort, officials have already talked about wanting to raise $4 billion. The previous campaign, Carolina First, ended last year with more than $2 billion. Griffin wishes it had made more of an effort to raise money for staff needs.

"We supported the campaign because it helps us all out," he said. "But we did feel left out."

The university has not yet started planning its next big campaign, said Elizabeth Dunn, senior associate vice chancellor for development at UNC.

"When that begins, constituents on campus will be encouraged to submit recommendations for fundraising priorities," Dunn said. "These will then be assessed for inclusion in the campaign on the basis of feasibility. The Employee Forum will certainly be included in that call ... ."

Employees have gotten a boost before at UNC. Three years ago, then-Chancellor James Moeser committed $232,000 to a scholarship fund to help the children of employees go to college, either at UNC or elsewhere. That fund awards $2,000 a year to 10 to 14 students every year, and there are plenty of others who apply, said Bruce Egan, a UNC employee who created the program.

"I probably get 40-plus applications each time we do this," said Egan, who directs UNC's Help Desk, where students get their computers fixed. "We turn a lot of people down. There's definitely a demand for it."

eric.ferreri@nando.com or 932-2008.