The Quad: It’s a Surprise

It’s a Surprise

Roughly six months after UNC-Chapel Hill set a goal of cutting $70 million from its budget, trustees on Wednesday advanced an unexpected resolution directing leaders to cut an additional $16.5 million from administrative spending. 

The resolution, introduced by trustee Marty Kotis, cited “material uncertainty” in the university’s revenue as a result of the General Assembly’s delay in approving a full state budget. But some members raised complaints about the process as the Board of Trustees’ Budget, Finance, and Infrastructure Committee instructed the university to “identify and specify plans” for the cuts by June 30.

The savings target is 5% of the university’s base spending on administrative salaries, the resolution notes, and the cuts would build on “more than six months of active savings planning” that began last summer. 

The university was already aiming to save $8.5 million in administrative costs through its ServiceFirst initiative, a plan announced last spring to restructure operations including finance, human resources, and information technology. Those savings were part of the $70 million that the university said it would cut over the next two fiscal years.

The resolution, which the full board will consider Thursday, would up that total to more than $85 million.

— Matt Hartman & Korie Dean

Thanks for reading The Quad, a higher education newsletter written by Matt Hartman and Korie Dean and edited by Emily Stephenson. Reach us with tips or ideas at highered@theassemblync.com.

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Friends in High Places

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced last week that it was awarding $10.1 million to UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Civic Life and Leadership, also known as SCiLL.  

The gift—all but $100,000 of which comes as a matching grant—will support new faculty positions in “American Political Tradition, Great Books and Leadership, and the Classical Tradition,” according to the NEH. A UNC-CH press release stated that it will also support the school’s plans to launch a master’s program in military leadership for active-duty officers and a doctorate program designed to prepare future civic educators.

SCiLL has ties to the National Humanities Council, which guides NEH’s funding decisions.

In October, The Washington Post reported that the White House abruptly fired most of the 27-person council. Only four members remain. All were appointed by Donald Trump.

One of the four is Keegan Callanan, a political theorist and college friend of SCiLL director and dean Jed Atkins. Callanan has been connected with SCiLL since it was first conceived, as The Assembly reported this fall. He also works as an adviser for the foundation of Paul Singer, the chairman emeritus of the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute.

Another NHC member is Matthew Rose, brother of SCiLL professor John Rose and director of the Barry Center on the University and Intellectual Life. SCiLL professor Connor Grubaugh held a Barry Center fellowship last year at Duke University.

“The agency’s lead career ethics official ensures that appropriate recusals are in place whenever a Council member has a conflict of interest with respect to a pending application, or where a Council member chooses to abstain in the absence of a covered relationship,” NEH Deputy Director Paula Wasley wrote in a statement to The Quad. “This process was followed with regard to the recent UNC application.”

Matthew Rose told The Quad he recused himself from discussions and votes about SCiLL’s funding. Neither Callanan nor UNC-CH responded to questions.

The NEH’s recent round of grants sit uneasily with some humanities scholars, in part because of the selection process.

“Since these grants are neither part of a critical review process nor competitively evaluated by external panels of experts in the discipline, their disbursement under the name of the National Endowment for the Humanities discredits the integrity and history of that institution,” UNC-CH classics professor Donald Haggis told The Quad in an email.

Haggis also said that the Trump Administration’s cuts to the NEH last year “are doing significant damage to research in classical studies, history, and philosophy, and indeed classical education in general, which some of these ad hoc reappropriations purport to promote.”

— Matt Hartman

Snow Place Like College

If you haven’t checked this weekend’s forecast for the Triangle and the surrounding areas, let us be the first to warn you: It’s most likely going to snow. And probably precipitate some other form of an icy mess. It could make for a dangerous situation, and we hope you all stay safe and warm.

But snow can also be fun! Especially when it means a snow day! In anticipation of the coming weather, we thought we’d share some memories of the snows that The Assembly Network reporters enjoyed back in our college days. 

I was lucky to get two big snows during my time at UNC-CH, including one on my birthday my freshman year. Later that year, it snowed during fall semester finals, and I was glad to have the extra days to study for my Spanish exam.

The Assembly’s Johanna Still also experienced snow at UNC-CH, where she was assistant visuals editor at The Daily Tar Heel. She sent us some photos, circa 2014.

INDY’s Justin Laidlaw took this photo of downtown Durham while he was on the staff of the Campus Echo at N.C. Central University.

The Thread’s Sayaka Matsuoka recalled using trashcan lids and cardboard boxes to sled down hills on College Avenue at UNC Greensboro.

But our coworkers who moved to North Carolina from colder climates certainly have us beat when it comes to snow stories. Border Belt Independent’s Morgan Casey said she ran 12.5 miles in the snow as a member of the track team at University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2021.

And our Assembly colleague Ren Larson tells us that it snowed quite often at her alma mater of Augustana College in Illinois, “so we had the salt and equipment to make sure us students could get to class.” She added: “I can recall wearing ski goggles to bike to class so my eyes wouldn’t cry from the cold.” 

— Korie Dean

Assigned Reading

Sans St. Andrews: After St. Andrews University shuttered last year, Scotland County leaders hope the campus could serve as a hub for industry and development in the region. In the first episode of a new podcast series, WUNC talked with local business, economic development, and community leaders about how the town’s identity is shifting after the university’s closure. For more on St. Andrews, you can catch up on The Assembly’s reporting here. 

Sue U: Duke University on Tuesday sued quarterback Darian Mensah, saying he “repudiated” the name, image, and likeness contract he held with Duke by seeking to enter the transfer portal. A Durham County Superior Court judge denied Duke’s request for a temporary restraining order to keep Mensah from entering the portal, then recused himself from the rest of the case because he is a Duke basketball season ticket holder “and thus a booster,” per Mensah’s attorney. ESPN has the story.

How to Succeed in Business: The Wall Street Journal reports that recent graduates of top-tier M.B.A programs are finding it difficult to land jobs in the current economy, which is seeing most employment growth in the health services sector. The trend is impacting alumni of Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, where 21% of recent graduates were still looking for jobs three months after graduation, and UNC-CH, where one student told The WSJ that he considered taking a job with a lower salary than he earned before getting his M.B.A.

Let us know what’s on your radar at highered@theassemblync.com.