The Quad: Homegrown Leadership

Darrell Allison of Fayetteville State University. Kimberly van Noort of UNC-Asheville. Karrie Dixon of North Carolina Central University. Lee Roberts of UNC-Chapel Hill. Philip Rogers of East Carolina University. Aswani Volety of UNC-Wilmington. Bonita Brown of Winston-Salem State University.

What do the seven chancellors, all relatively new additions, have in common? They were all familiar faces in the UNC System before they got their current jobs. 

With chancellor searches on the horizon at Appalachian State, Elizabeth City State, and N.C. State, we’re keeping our eyes trained on who lands those roles. It’s possible that the new leaders will again be names you know.

Five of those chancellors—van Noort, Dixon, Rogers, Volety, and Brown—all at one point worked as administrators within the UNC System before becoming chancellors. And that’s not a total surprise. In fact, system policy encourages that outcome.

Section III-C in UNC System policy states: “The president, in consultation with the officers of the Board of Governors, shall undertake reasonable efforts to develop potential chancellor candidates within the UNC System and shall ensure that opportunities for chancellor vacancies are promoted in a manner that encourages interest from well-qualified candidates who are current residents of the State of North Carolina.”

But some internal hires are not like the others. Both Allison and Roberts are former Board of Governors members with law degrees and connections to conservative politics. Nationally, governing board members very rarely become chancellors, two experts told me.

“It’s not something we’ve really seen, especially for a larger system,” said Judith Wilde, a George Mason University professor who researches presidential searches. That is in part because governing board members don’t often have traditional academic or higher education backgrounds, said James Finkelstein, a professor emeritus at GMU who studied presidential searches with Wilde.

The system has taken several steps to cultivate leadership from within. In 2019, the system launched the Executive Leadership Institute to “build the next generation of top leadership from within the UNC System.” The program graduated its fourth cohort on Tuesday. Out of 100 participants, 29 have been promoted to leadership positions within the system.

And now, a new faculty assembly task force will focus on internal leadership development from the lowest levels all the way up to the chancellor’s office, Wade Maki, the group’s chair, told me earlier this month. It’s an effort that Maki said follows the Board of Governors’ lead with chancellor searches.

“We don’t want to leave talent or money on the table,” he said.

– Erin Gretzinger

Correction: An earlier version of this item incorrectly said five chancellors worked in the UNC System office before their current jobs. They worked within the UNC System.

What’s on your mind with all the new UNC System chancellors and searches? Drop us a line at highered@theassemblync.com.

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A Quick Question for You

We want this newsletter to be something you actually look forward to reading—not just another email cluttering up your inbox. That means occasionally we’ll have a survey question for you to help guide our decision-making.

Here’s the first of these questions. (Don’t worry, there’s not a longer hidden survey behind the link. One click and you’re done!)

Which one of these areas would you be MOST interested to see us highlight in our upcoming newsletters?

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Have other ideas? Shoot us a message.

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The Bank of Out-of-State Students

The North Carolina constitution requires that the benefits of the UNC System, “as far as practicable,” be free to the state’s people. And UNC-Chapel Hill has a plan to keep it that way: Bring in more out-of-state students and charge them a bunch more money.

Last month, an Enrollment Planning Working Group chaired by Vice Provost Rachelle Feldman submitted a report that called for UNC-CH to increase enrollment by 5,000 students over the next 10 years, split half-and-half between residents and non-residents. 

“To fund this increase and enhance the academic strength of the class,” the report noted, it would be “critical” to increase the percentage of out-of-state students, which is currently capped at 18 percent.

Growing the student body without doing so, the report says, would actually lose the university money over the first eight years. But ensuring that half of the 5,000 new students pay out-of-state prices “significantly increases revenue by a cumulative $327M.”

And the prices are going up. 

In a presentation at last week’s Board of Trustees meeting, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Nathan Knuffman made the case for aggressively increasing out-of-state tuition and fees. UNC-CH had already planned annual 5 percent increases while keeping in-state costs flat, but Knuffman argued that pace lagged behind other top-five public schools. Instead, he recommended a 10 percent increase next year followed by annual 7 percent increases. 

The trustees haven’t voted on the issue—“We still have some process to work through on campus,” Knuffman said—but the members of the Budget, Finance, and Infrastructure Committee generally seemed in favor.

“If we don’t charge [out-of-state students] as much as the market will bear, then we’re not fulfilling that constitutional obligation,” said trustee Marty Kotis.

–Matt Hartman

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Rural Community Colleges Are Living Paycheck to Paycheck

On Friday, Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed General Assembly Republicans’ mini-budget bill over concerns about the private-school voucher funding it contained. But the bill also provided much-needed funds to North Carolina’s community colleges.

The money–$64 million to support enrollment growth and nearly $13 million in tuition receipts–is now held up until at least October 9, when the legislature reconvenes and could potentially override Cooper’s veto. (Our friends at Awake58 have a good write-up about all this.)

Until then, community colleges are stuck waiting for that money. How are they making do in the meantime?

I called Dave Loope, the president of Beaufort County Community College, to ask. 

You can read the full Q&A here.

–Matt Hartman

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What We’re Reading

Be Like Socrates: Conditions are ripe for admissions metrics thinkpieces. But here’s the secret: No one really knows anything yet, especially in North Carolina. UNC-Chapel Hill has fewer Black students, Duke has fewer Asian students, and we don’t have data on others yet. We recommend the Chronicle of Higher Education’s breakdown of this new era.

You’re on Notice: There’s one group that’s not listening to our advice, and that’s the group that effectively started this whole thing. Students for Fair Admissions sent letters to Duke and other schools threatening lawsuits over declines in Asian students. Read the New York Times’ coverage for more.

Digital ID Debacles: A judge threw out a Republican-backed lawsuit seeking to block the state from accepting UNC-Chapel Hill digital student IDs as a valid form of voter identification. But our court reporters caution that the state GOP could appeal. And over at Duke, the elections board did block digital IDs, leaving Duke scrambling to print physical cards. Read more in the 9th Street Journal and NC Newsline.

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