CHAPEL HILL – With the resignation of Harry Smith as Chair of the UNC Board of Governors, we have yet another in a series of leadership changes across the University of North Carolina System.
The Board elected Randy Ramsey yesterday to serve the remainder of Smith’s term as Chair until June 30, 2020.1
But this revolving door among leaders of our state’s public universities – which keeps spinning even as the system embarks on a search for a new president – speaks to poor governance and a disturbing lack of stability.
By next year, the UNC System could have placeholders in as many as six key positions:
- President of the UNC System;
- Chancellor at UNC Chapel Hill;
- Chancellor at East Carolina University;
- Chancellor at UNC Charlotte;
- Chancellor at Fayetteville State University; and
- Chancellor at the UNC School of the Arts.
Change can be good, and some turnover is to be expected in any organization.
But the cumulative effect of this is not. This amount of churn is not the picture of stability our state’s students, parents, faculty and business leaders expect at institutions that will shape the futures of both individual students and the state.
As Interim UNC System President Bill Roper has said, we need to settle things down.
According to the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, by next year, two-thirds of the jobs in North Carolina will require education beyond high school. It will be difficult to complete the vital task of preparing our state’s workforce if we cannot attract top talent for our leadership positions.
1 https://www.northcarolina.edu/news/2019/10/unc-board-governors-elects-new-officers; https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article235664702.html
Boyd M Brown says
Our great system has gained (and earned) the embarrassing reputation of bing led by a hotbed of radical left-leaning liberals. We’re mentioned in the same disgusting category with Berkeley and Madison. Let’s choose our chancellors and presidents a little more wisely than in the past.
Stephen Leonard says
Not a single person named in this piece could be called a “left-leaning liberal.” To the contrary, most are well-known as conservatives.
This mess is the result of mayhem in the upper reaches of University governance, not some kind of imagined liberal takeover of NC public higher education.
I’m not sure where you get your news, but my contacts in higher education circles around the country — and what gets in the national press — is that our “great system” is being maintained by the commitment and work of staff and faculty from below, and that reputation is being eroded by hyperpartisan meddling from above.
Democrats have done their share of that in the past, and steady leadership in the University prevented them from succeeding with some of their ill-conceived schemes. The problem now is that we have authoritarians in charge, and not even thoughtful and responsible conservatives can protect the University from hyperpartisan excesses.
The logical conclusion is that the only people who can succeed as Presidents and Chancellors today are partisan conformists. Responsible conservatives (like Margaret Spellings, or Bill Roper), let alone responsible liberals (like Spellings’ predecessor Tom Ross) don’t stand a chance.
The solution isn’t better leadership in the University, it is smarter politicians who have enough sense to let the University community do its job and continue providing the people of North Carolina with a great system of higher education.