Faculty say effort to change how chancellors are picked is a ‘power grab’ by UNC System
The UNC System Board of Governors is proposing to allow the system president to add two finalists to each chancellor search process and then to select a final candidate from that list.
The board says the policy change would improve the succession of leaders, but professors at multiple campuses say it would be dangerous and would give UNC System President Peter Hans too much power in selecting chancellors.
The biggest concern is the president handpicking a chancellor without input from an individual campus, which “erodes our practice of institutional autonomy and shared governance,” said Karin Zipf, a history professor at East Carolina University.
Zipf is also the president of the ECU chapter of the American Association of University Professors. The group passed a resolution in August arguing that “selecting a chancellor without significant faculty and local input and buy-in appears politically motivated and can have disastrous consequences.”
The resolution said the proposal is a “radical and dangerous expansion” of the system president’s powers.
Zipf said the trustees, administration and faculty working together and being part of the selection process are critical to the success of a chancellor. ECU is in the midst of a search for a new chancellor, and this new policy would throw that system of shared governance out the window, she said.
“No matter how they want to spin it … ultimately it gives [Hans] absolute power,” Zipf said. “Not only is he bringing forward the people, but he’s also choosing the person.”
She said it also risks politicizing the chancellor position. For the ECU job, there has been talk that N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore is interested, though Moore has not publicly said so and is seeking re-election.
Zipf said Hans could could pick someone who is extremely partisan with little academic experience, which would be bad regardless of which side of the aisle that person is on.
The UNC System clarified Wednesday that the proposed policy change would not apply to the ongoing search at ECU.
Why change the policy?
The proposed policy was approved by the Committee on Personnel and Tenure in July with the stated goal of accomplishing “more effective succession planning and talent development for future chancellor vacancies.”
Currently, the board of trustees on each campus conducts a search and comes up with a list of finalists to send to the system president for consideration. The president chooses a final candidate to be voted on by the UNC System Board of Governors. The president and the board can also ignore the suggestions, reject those presented candidates and ask the campus to continue its search.
If the new policy is approved by the full board, Hans would be able to add up to two candidates to be interviewed by the search committee and automatically included on the list of finalists. Hans could then submit one of his hand-picked finalists to the Board of Governors for approval.
The primary reason behind the change is that the UNC System wants to start “building a bench” for campus leadership positions, according to board Chair Randy Ramsey. When it was being discussed in July, he said this new policy would allow the president to insert “potential superstars” into the search process.
The candidates would still have to apply for the job and be vetted by the board of trustees and campus stakeholders through the traditional process.
“In no way are we trying to usurp the trustees,” Ramsey said in July.
The president and board also already have the ability to ignore the suggestions and reject the finalists presented by the campus. But with this new policy, those candidates chosen by the president could still be considered finalists even if they aren’t approved by the campus trustees or search committee.
Mimi Chapman, chair of the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty, sent a letter to board members and Hans on Monday requesting changes to the language in the proposed policy. Chapman sent the statement on behalf of the UNC Faculty Assembly, which includes delegates and chairs from all of the UNC system schools.
Chapman suggests that the policy say that candidates designated by the president shall participate in search committee interviews and “at the discretion of the search committee,” those candidates “may” be part of the slate of finalists referred to the board of trustees for consideration. She also added the line “Such candidates will not be provided undue consideration or favoritism” to the policy.
“We remain concerned that a Chancellor imposed outside of this process will lack the legitimacy and goodwill necessary for success,” the statement says.
Proposed policy is a ‘power grab’
Professors at UNC Greensboro and UNC-Chapel Hill also released statements criticizing the proposed change.
UNCG’s AAUP chapter said the proposed changes will “undermine the integrity” of chancellor searches and waste taxpayer money.
The new policy will discourage high-quality candidates from applying when the results of the search “can be easily overridden,” the statement says. Individuals won’t put in the hours of work to take part in the search “if their efforts can be ignored.”
And the “substantial costs” to hire executive recruiting firms will be for nothing if the system president can determine the result of any chancellor search, the statement says.
The UNCG Faculty Senate said the revisions are widely opposed by faculty and voted unanimously that the proposed policy changes not be approved by the board.
UNC-CH’s AAUP chapter leaders followed UNCG’s lead on Wednesday, saying the new policy will give the system president “undue influence over individual campuses. Their statement says the changes “gut the principle of shared governance.”
Michael Palm, president of the UNC-CH AUUP chapter, said this move is a “power grab” and an attempt by the board and the president to tighten their grip over the entire process.
“The BOG is rigging the system by which they choose the leaders of the campuses who will then be even more beholden to them than we’ve already seen,” Palm said.
He said the UNC System and its governance have become saturated with politics and this decision further shows they don’t value shared governance with campuses. It also underscores why faculty feel like leaders are indifferent to their concerns, like the ones expressed around reopening campuses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This moment in particular, when trust in the campus administration and especially in the BOG are at what seems to be a historic low, to make this move now just couldn’t be more arrogant,” Palm said.
ECU and Fayetteville State University are in the middle of chancellor searches and expect to announce new leaders in December and January, respectively.
This policy would not influence the outcome of those searches, as they are already underway, but would affect future searches. The full board will vote on the policy at its meeting Thursday morning.
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 4:10 PM with the headline "Faculty say effort to change how chancellors are picked is a ‘power grab’ by UNC System."
