Let the president run the university
Published November 16, 2017
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, November 14, 2017.
The UNC Board of Governors usually makes news only when it hires or fires the system’s president.
We hope that’s not about to happen.
Yet, one could get the idea that some members of the current board aren’t happy with President Margaret Spellings, who was hired just two years ago.
That would account for a surprising proposal discussed in a committee during the board’s November meeting. As authorized by the state legislature, the board would hire its own staff members.
UNC General Administration has a staff, which works for the president. The president reports to the board. That’s the normal governance structure for such organizations.
Suppose the Greensboro City Council decided to hire its own staff, beyond the city manager. Maybe an expert on law-enforcement policy, and another to advise about transportation, and another to work on economic development. That action would undermine the existing city staff, which works under the direction of the city manager. It would create confusion and add needless expense.
The UNC board doesn’t need its own staff. Any staff work it requires should be done through the president. This idea failed to win committee support on a 4-4 vote. But it isn’t dead, and the possibility that it could arise again doesn’t bode well for Spellings.
She was hired to replace Tom Ross, a Democrat, by a board whose members were appointed by the Republican legislature. Ross’ ouster was controversial and appeared to have political motivation. Spellings served as secretary of the U.S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush, and she’s done an admirable job at UNC so far. But she hasn’t always pleased Republican leaders.
She opposed the anti-LGBT House Bill 2, saying it couldn’t be enforced on UNC campuses. She supported the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and noted at a recent forum, “I come from a state (Texas) where in-state tuition is provided to so-called ‘Dreamers’ ” — which is not provided in North Carolina. She watched from the sidelines as the board barred the UNC Center for Civil Rights from engaging in litigation, and she was scolded in a letter by more than a dozen board members for seeking guidance from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper about a controversial Confederate statue on the Chapel Hill campus.
In bigger matters, Spellings is fully in line with the board on strengthening academic accountability. Individual campuses now have firm goals related to graduation rates, enrolling low-income students and attracting research funds, for example. Spellings wants them to achieve measurable results and a good return on the taxpayers’ investment in higher education. She’s right: Low graduation rates on some campuses don’t serve students or the state well. Failure is a luxury no one can afford anymore.
And that’s why some of the board’s preoccupations are so strange. Why waste time on exercises such as scouting alternative locations to base the UNC system headquarters, which have always been in Chapel Hill? Why interfere with a privately funded civil rights center at the UNC law school? Why spend so much energy on developing a “free speech” policy for the UNC system when there’s no big problem and individual campuses are doing fine dealing with issues when they arise? That policy, approved by a committee, will come up for a full board vote in December.
Spellings noted what should be distinct roles for the board and administrators in an interview with WRAL in September.
“Let me manage the enterprise, and let them set policy,” she said of her relations with the board. “Let them see, understand and defer to the chancellors and me, who have a lot of experience in the enterprise.”
The board should let the president do her job, unless it intends to fire her. We sincerely hope it doesn’t.
