Former UNC System presidents: less politics, more diversity needed in governance

NC NEWSLINE

Joe Killian

February 16, 2024

Eight months after the release of a 153-page report calling for more diversity and less partisan politics on the governing boards of the UNC System and its 16 university campuses, few of the report’s recommendations have been implemented.

That’s to be expected, former UNC System Presidents Tom Ross and Margeret Spellings said Thursday in an online discussion organized by the nonprofit Coalition for Carolina. But it doesn’t discourage them.

Last year Ross and Spellings, a Democrat and Republican respectively, co-chaired the Governor’s Commission on the Governance of Public Universities in North Carolina. They knew when they released the report most of its recommendations would require legislative action. The Republican majority, however, which purged the UNC System Board of Governors of Democrats for years and stripped the governor of trustee appointments, dismissed the commission’s work before it had even begun. GOP lawmakers made clear they never had any intention of taking action that would dilute their political power.

But Ross and Spellings, who each left their system leadership positions amid tensions with political appointees on the board of governors, said that doesn’t discourage them. In a wide-ranging conversation moderated by former UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor Holden Thorp, the pair said that recent university controversies have only strengthened their opinion that the system needs reform.

“We’re playing a long game here on university governance,” Spellings said. “These issues are going to be alive and well ten years from now. The worm may turn. Obviously, politics are fluid. So, there will be a time when these ideas will come, I believe.”

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