One fire to the next
Published November 7, 2015
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, November 7, 2015.
The UNC Board of Governors has stood out this year for generating controversy. Starting one fire after another isn’t a good way to run a university system.
Trouble began in January with the forced resignation of President Tom Ross for no stated reason. The board did ask him to remain in office for a year and raised his salary from $550,000 to $600,000.
Next came the search for a new president — a process that drew complaints from some board members who felt excluded and a bill passed by the legislature directing the full board to consider at least three final candidates.
Gov. Pat McCrory let that bill become law without his signature. Before then, the board already had hired Margaret Spellings — the only candidate the full board interviewed. She was given a five-year contract with a base salary of $775,000 a year, a hefty 29 percent raise over what Ross is being paid.
Three days later, the board’s chairman, John Fennebresque, resigned. He had engineered the Ross ouster and Spellings hiring, and some board members were unhappy with how he’d managed both.
But the controversies weren’t over. Last week, the board moved on to another matter. Meeting in closed session, it granted substantial pay raises to several chancellors. After complaints about a closed search process for a new president, using a closed meeting to take this action was beyond ironic.
Across the system, faculty were stunned. Resolutions and petitions emerged, expressing outrage. After all, there were no pay raises for faculty this year. Professors’ salaries have been stagnant for years.
Recently hired chancellors, such as UNC-Greensboro’s Frank Gilliam, who earns $375,000, did not receive raises. For others, the bumps ranged from nearly 8 percent to 19 percent. N.C. A&T Chancellor Harold Martin’s boost was 12.5 percent to $360,000. At the top of the scale are Randy Woodson of N.C. State at $590,000 and Carol Folt of UNC-Chapel Hill at $570,000.
The board had hired a consultant to conduct a salary study, which determined that chancellor salaries weren’t competitive for “top tier” talent.
What about “top tier” faculty talent? After all, faculty are the ones who teach and lead research, which are the principal functions of universities. Isn’t it important to compete for the best and most effective professors?
There are other concerns. With state support for the UNC system eroding, tuition has risen sharply. Is the board setting the right priorities in choosing to invest more in its highest-paid employees? Is it sending the right message about who’s valued the most in the university system, students and faculty, or system and campus leaders?
Faculties have a right to complain, and students likely will join in. It’s not a protest against the president or the individual chancellors. Woodson, the highest-paid chancellor, and his wife just last month donated more than $1 million to N.C. State to create a new scholarship. No doubt, other chancellors make generous gifts to their universities, too. They are talented leaders who deserve to be well-compensated.
Yet, that’s not the real issue. The Board of Governors didn’t give sufficient justification for its action. Its timing was poor. It ignited another fire.
Unfortunately, that’s getting to be standard operating procedure.
