RALEIGH (May 8, 2024) – There’s a process to choose chancellors at UNC System campuses.
Follow it.
If there was any doubt university leadership has become hyper-politicized in recent years, state House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger removed it last week.
As if we need more evidence, both declared that ‘interim’ should be removed from UNC-Chapel Hill Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts’ title.
Moore said Roberts showed “incredible leadership” and “a lot of backbone” in directing removal of pro-Palestinian protesters from the main quad on UNC’s campus and ordering the American flag to be restored after protesters took it down.
Asked whether he supported Roberts becoming permanent chancellor, Moore responded, “100 percent.”
Moore said he told UNC System President Peter Hans and UNC System Board of Governors Chair Randy Ramsey they “ought to take that interim title off and name Lee Roberts the chancellor today,” according to The News & Observer.
Similarly, Berger told reporters there was “no question” Roberts should become the permanent chancellor.1
Roberts, a former state budget director under Gov. Pat McCrory and former member of the system Board of Governors, was named interim chancellor in December after Kevin Guskiewicz announced he would leave Carolina to become president of Michigan State University.
There’s no question Roberts was decisive in dealing with the protesters last week, who offered him a political gift when they removed the U.S. flag Tuesday afternoon.
“That flag will stand here as long as I’m chancellor,” Roberts told reporters after the American flag was restored.
But this isn’t about Roberts so much as the politicians. By virtually anointing Roberts, they made his job harder should he become chancellor. (He still hasn’t said publicly whether he’ll apply for the permanent job.)
They confirmed beyond any doubt that the choice of chancellors is a political (and emotional) one – and in the process further poisoned his standing with a skeptical university faculty.
“It was not a good look for the interim chancellor to be standing on the steps of the South Building with armed guards next to him, right?” said Anthony Charles, a member of the Faculty Executive Committee. “It kind of made the situation a lot worse.”2
And support from the faculty is critical to any chancellor’s success.
THERE’S A PROCESS to follow, and the politicians should allow that process to play out, rather than jumping the gun to declare a winner.
We’ve already heard mutterings for months that “They have their man.”
The General Assembly doesn’t have a direct role in chancellor searches, but it does appoint all members of the systemwide Board of Governors and some members of campus Boards of Trustees.
After more than one version and significant teeth-gnashing, the Board of Governors adopted a new chancellor search policy last year – and Roberts was a member of the Board at the time.
By changing the composition of search “advisory” committees at each campus, the policy shifted considerable influence in the process away from the campuses to the UNC System Office.
The committee can include no more than 13 members. It must include the System President, the Chair and another member of the Board of Governors, and a sitting or retired UNC System chancellor. It also must include members of the campus Board of Trustees, faculty, student body, staff and alumni.3
The search advisory committee recommends candidates to the campus Board of Trustees, which must recommend at least three candidates to UNC System President Hans, who in turn recommends a final nominee to the Board of Governors.
The current search committee at UNC Chapel Hill includes just two members of the faculty: Dr. Cristy Page, Executive Dean at the UNC School of Medicine and chair of the search committee; and Dr. Beth Moracco, Chair of the Faculty.4
AT THE OUTSET, university officials promised a legitimate national search for the next chancellor at UNC Chapel Hill.
“A thoughtful and professional search goes a long way in setting a new chancellor on the path to success,” Hans told the search advisory committee at its first meeting in March.
“And if we meet our responsibilities well, building trust through a fair and rigorous process, we can help ensure that an incoming leader has the confidence and the support of the campus and wider community.”5
Building trust through a fair and rigorous process – that’s the ideal.
If the politicians can just keep their fingers out, it would be a very good thing to let that process play out.
It might just help build a better North Carolina.
1 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article288208965.html.
2 https://www.wral.com/story/it-was-not-a-good-look-unc-committee-discusses-interim-chancellor-s-actions-during-pro-palestinian-protests/21408970/.
3 https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/policy/doc.php?type=pdf&id=74.
4 https://publicedworks.org/2024/03/unc-ch-chancellor-search-launches/.
5 https://ncnewsline.com/2024/03/22/search-begins-for-unc-chapel-hills-next-chancellor/.
Jeff M says
The decision that Lee Roberts would be Carolina’s next chancellor was made when Phil Berger and Tim Moore told Peter Hans to name him. They want their puppet in Chapel Hill so he can run off more faculty and dictate their right-wing agenda.
John Dsvis says
Lee Roberts has been compromised. So irresponsible for Moore and Berger to make such public statements. EVERYONE loses. This is about education and our flagship university. Not politics. Gheez!
Betty Gabriel says
Hanging the American flag doesn’t constitute appointing an interim as Chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill.
The Republican Party has made disastrous decisions that have negatively impacted NC universities and public school education. I cannot believe that any clear-minded citizen would vote for the most ignorant candidate Mark Robinson for governor. The “R” beside his name blinds the greater good of education. What has happened to the Republican Party!!!
Michael Childs says
Many of us knew it was just a matter of time until Public Ed Works (PEW) began its inevitable “Get Roberts” campaign. After all (as McClatchey editorialists often say), squelching any influence by uppity Republicans is what PEW is largely about. Higher public education in North Carolina has been a Democratic satrapy…forever…and, by gum, that’s how it should stay.
I wish Messrs. Moore and Berger had muzzled their enthusiasm for Roberts – there is, as PEW points out, a process to follow – but it is understandable under the circumstances. The circumstances, of course, are the enormous good will and praise the University has received on account of the bold and proper action Chancellor Roberts took, bolstered by a bunch of brave, mostly male, students, to restore the American flag to its decades-long, proper site on Polk Place. Restoration was necessary because the anti-Israel mob took it down and replaced it with a Palestinian flag, an outrageous act if there ever were one. (The American flag should not be replaced by any protest flag, but the Palestinian flag, which to many protestors means “from the river to the sea” or “go, [terrorist] Hamas!”, was particularly inappropriate.)
Naturally, some already “skeptical University faculty” (PEW, above), waiting for a good opportunity to undermine Roberts – who is of a different political faith, you know – saw Roberts’ actions in terms of a “bad look”, standing on the steps of South Building with armed guards as he did. In my view, given the poor behavior of “protestors” all over the country, the prior and immediate tacky and risky actions of some of Carolina’s antis, and the exacerbated tensions arising from the mob’s taking down the American flag, the “look” was just right, Moreover, in doing the right thing Roberts didn’t make things worse, unless Professor Charles meant he (and the boys) are blameworthy for causing all those angry people, some of whom were students, to throw water bottles and scream “fascist!” (?) at him (and the boys).
I thank Chancellor Roberts for his bold and proper actions, and I hope he tosses his hat in the ring, notwithstanding his Duke background (umph) and that an already “skeptical faculty”, along with PEW and most N.C. media, will loudly gripe and moan (goaded by the irrepressible immoderate professor Gene Nichol) over his candidacy. He has shown “strong leadership” and “backbone”, which are needed in these days of pronounced faculty-student-media’s lurching from the center to the left, to the detriment of Carolina and North Carolina alike.
Sincerely.
R. Michael Childs ’61
Charlotte
P.S. to PEW: I wrote this quickly and ought to have some time to review it. I am not sure how Gene Nichol spells his last name.
Art Padilla says
As Captain Louis Renault said in Casablanca:
“I’m shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here.”