GREENSBORO (May 16, 2016) – When it comes to core priorities for public higher education, there’s not much daylight between UNC System President Margaret Spellings and her predecessor, Tom Ross.

Spellings and Ross sang one another’s praises during an hour-long appearance at the Governor Morehead Forum in Greensboro this week, highlighting shared concerns for higher education in North Carolina.  Despite a rocky transition between the two system leaders, they pledged mutual support for the long-term goals of expanding access and protecting affordability.

Spellings outlined her vision for a university system where “everyone has access to what they need to be successful in work and in life,” calling for more North Carolinians to earn a college degree.

“We need to elevate expectations,” she said.

She said a key focus in coming years will be improving graduation rates. Though the system-wide graduation rate is well above the national average, Spellings said thousands of students who leave each year without completing a degree represent a tragedy of missed opportunity.

“Higher education is the golden ticket to the American dream,” she said. “We need to work on how quickly students get in and out of college.”

Ross said that despite national pressures on higher education — declines in state support and growing skepticism about the cost of a degree — North Carolina is in better shape than most states.

“No one is better positioned for greatness than us,” he said.  “We have a long tradition of great public universities.  We have a history of solid state support.”

Achieving and maintaining that greatness will require creative thinking, Spellings said, including a look at what other universities have done to bolster student success.  In data analytics, online education, and outreach to nontraditional students, there are new models the UNC system can consider.

“I think we’re always smart to look around at other laboratories of innovation,” she said.

Giving chancellors freedom to get the job done has become a theme for Spellings, who praised the work of her predecessor in selecting strong campus leaders.

“They’re wonderful, committed public servants,” she said.  “We need to tell them what we want, what we expect … and let them run their enterprises.”

Ross pointed out that each campus is unique and complex, and much too big to micromanage.

The current and former presidents both said the controversy surrounding House Bill 2 has been a detriment, and Spellings lamented how the firestorm over the law has detracted from the core mission of the University.

“This state and this system have such incredible things going on,” she said. “And we now have this House Bill 2 cloud hanging over us.  It has called into question some things I wish it hadn’t.”

LATER, speaking in Winston-Salem at a dinner in conjunction with the Crosby Scholars – an effort that works with 10,000 middle- and high-school students to prepare them for college and has leveraged more than $50 million in aid for Forsyth County students – Spellings sounded some of the same themes.

She spoke of North Carolina voters’ “affirmation” of their public universities and community colleges in a March bond referendum that generated 66% approval and passage in 99 of 100 counties.

Spellings noted that she is wrapping up an introductory tour of the University’s 17 campuses.

“It is an incredibly diverse set of institutions.  I cannot tell you how inspiring the people who work in them are.  They would make you proud to be a taxpayer and a citizen of this state,” she said.

“They are curing cancer.  They are educating people.  They are playing fantastic musical instruments.  They are training teachers and nurses and doing all manner of mind-blowing science.  And it is a treasure for this state.”