Spellings deserves our support
Published October 24, 2015
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, October 24, 2015.
The UNC Board of Governors closed ranks behind its president-elect, Margaret Spellings, Friday. So should everyone in North Carolina, because the future of a great state university system depends on her success.
Spellings is a former U.S. education secretary under President George W. Bush and now heads his presidential library in Dallas. She also served as a domestic policy adviser in the White House. Her political association with the former president began in the early 1990s.
“I am prepared for this role,” she said following her unanimous election. She also pronounced herself “humbled, honored and thrilled. I can’t wait to move to North Carolina.”
She praised the state for its leadership in public higher education and stated her own commitment to maintaining good relationships with faculty, keeping costs affordable, driving innovation and preserving academic freedom. She pointed to her work as head of the Bush-appointed Commission on the Future of Higher Education, which she said identified challenges that have yet to be addressed.
Spellings has her own challenges to overcome. She’s been an innocent bystander in a search process that some described as a train wreck. It began in January with the forced resignation of Tom Ross and ultimately drew complaints from several board members and legislative leaders for its lack of transparency.
While he joined others in voting to hire Spellings, board member Marty Kotis, a Greensboro businessman, said he hoped the search process for presidents and chancellors can be reformed.
Kotis, along with Thom Goolsby, a former legislator from Wilmington, voted against Spellings’ compensation package. She will take office in March with a five-year contract paying a base salary of $775,000 a year — a 29 percent increase over what Ross is getting. She’ll also receive an annual retirement contribution of $77,500, an official residence, car allowance, 30 days’ annual vacation and moving expenses.
She’ll become only the second system president to move into North Carolina, after Molly Corbett Broad in 1997. That will present her with a steep learning curve, just in getting to know the 17-campus university system. Then there are the tricky political currents to negotiate in a state where even her mention of academic freedom could be viewed as a warning to an overbearing legislature. No doubt, that wasn’t her intention — although it could have been meant as an assurance to faculty.
Given recent political tensions over funding cuts and other matters, it might not have been such a bad idea to bring in someone new, who doesn’t have ties to one faction or another in North Carolina yet has national credibility among Republicans.
Spellings wisely asked the board for help as she begins her work. While members have been divided over Ross’ ouster, this process and Chairman John Fennebresque’s leadership, they certainly should respond affirmatively to her request.
For his part, Fennebresque said he had “tears in my eyes right now.” He undoubtedly was relieved that he secured his choice and still held his post following the meeting.
But Spellings’ confident bearing probably helped put the concerns of recent weeks in the past, at least for some. “I will give you my best every single day,” she said. The UNC system deserves nothing less.
