Former chancellor: Welcome to the club, Kevin. Another victim of UNC's middle schoolers | Opinion

[useapen]

For the second time in 10 years, a University of North Carolina Chancellor
ordered a green tie online and put it on for a press conference. I did
that when I went to Washington University in St. Louis, and Kevin
Guskiewicz did it when he went to Michigan State.

In the middle, former Chancellor Carol Folt donned maroon to go to the
University of Southern California. We all left for more money and better
job security. In all three cases, it was a failure of good governance that
led to our departure.

Since 2010, the governing boards of the University of North Carolina
System have shown that they’ve been watching too much “House of Cards.” If
the leaking, undermining and bad governance don’t stop, they could easily
make it 4-for-4 in a few years.

On any functional board, the only board member who speaks to the media is
the board chair and that is done with full knowledge and cooperation of
management. I worked for the board at Washington University in St. Louis,
which included many prominent conservative members, and I’ve had the honor
of serving on the boards of the St. Louis Symphony, Saint Louis University
and PBS. On none of these boards would it be tolerated for a board member
other than the chair to speak to the media either on or off the record.

But in North Carolina, it is now standard practice for board members to
carry out their own public relations efforts separately from the
administration. While this certainly happened before 2010, it has now
become rampant. The irony is that many of these board members think that
the university should be run more like a business, but they conduct
themselves in a manner no business would tolerate.

In recent months, the UNC Board of Trustees have carried out their own
public relations campaign to gain credit for launching the School of Civic
Life and Leadership, a potentially commendable effort that could easily
have been achieved without induced bedlam.

Instead, members of the Board of Trustees introduced a surprise resolution
and then went on Fox News and bragged about it. They had their own public
relations firm separate from the UNC communications staff that helped with
all of that.

More recently, after it got out that Kevin was a finalist at Michigan
State, the board leaked and then said on the record that they had been
discussing Kevin’s exit with him. This was like a middle schooler saying,
“You can’t break up with me, I’m breaking up with you!”

All they had to do was sit quietly and let him go, but you have to assume
that they wanted political credit from their conservative friends.

Add to all of this something that is a long-standing problem, which is the
chaos of having separate, politically appointed boards for both the UNC
System (Board of Governors) and the campus (Board of Trustees). As far as
the statutes are concerned, the BOG has far more power, and this leads to
competition between the two boards.

In my case, the BOT asked me repeatedly to stay right up to the end (for
which I am eternally grateful), but the BOG never did. In North Carolina,
where chancellors do not have contracts, it made no sense to stay unless
both boards wanted me to. In Kevin’s case, it was the other way around;
his BOT mistreated him at every turn, but the BOG, although unfortunately
silent, was not his problem. The complex political skills required to keep
both boards aligned all the time with all this competition are rare. Yes,
NCSU Chancellor Randy Woodson has done it, but he is one of very few.

Don’t worry about Kevin, Carol and Holden. We all went to better jobs with
more job security, more money and more influence. In North Carolina, we’re
all seen as failed chancellors who got run out. In the other 49 states,
we’re survivors who did the best we could in the midst of pandemonium.

If the boards continue their “look at me” behavior with the new
chancellor, he or she will be welcome to join our club.

Holden Thorp is the Editor-in-Chief of Science and served as UNC-Chapel
Hill Chancellor from 2008-2013.

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article282830838.html