GOP lawmakers want to have more input into selecting Community College President

 Next week the State Board of Community Colleges and N.C. Community Colleges Presidential Search Committee will hold two joint meetings.

The meetings, April 11 and 12, will take place at 9:30 a.m. at the North Carolina Community College System Office, 200 W. Jones Street in Raleigh.

The meetings are open to the public and will be livestreamed on the N.C. Community College System Office YouTube channel, but most of the proceedings will take place in closed session. That’s not uncommon in discussing personnel matters and leadership searches, to preserve the privacy of candidates.

The community college system’s last official president, Thomas Stith, resigned suddenly and without a stated reason last July. Stith was on the job just 18 months, experiencing tension with the board over that time. He was the 58-campus system’s sixth leader in six years, succeeding Peter Hans when he left the post to become president of the UNC System. The current interim president, William Carver, has served in the role since Stith left. He also served in the role after Hans departed.

The State Board of Community Colleges chooses the system’s president. The governor appoints half of the board’s members and the N.C. General Assembly appoints eight. Two ex-officio members are appointed by the state treasurer and lieutenant governor. That set-up has led to more diverse and bipartisan board than the UNC Board of Governors, which is appointed solely by the Republican majority of the General Assembly. With Democrat Roy Cooper now in office as governor and the leadership of the N.C. House, Senate and offices of the lieutenant governor and treasurer held by Republicans, Stith’s replacement will need buy-in on both sides of the political aisle.

But an amendment to a bill this week could change that process, if it becomes law.

The amendment to House Bill 149, a bill that largely deals with remote and virtual charter schools, would require presidents of the state’s community college system to be approved by the General Assembly.

With that amendment, HB 149 would require the State Board of Community Colleges to choose a president from among at least three finalists. The candidate with the most votes would serve as interim president until the House and the Senate adopts a joint resolution confirming the appointment.

If the General Assembly fails to confirm the person 30 days after either chamber receives the name of the candidate selected, the candidate’s appointment would be considered denied.

“We’ve had inconsistency in our president of our state Community College System for several years now, and it’s been a revolving door,” said Sen. Tom McInnis, a Republican from Cumberland County who added the amendment. “We have some of the largest industrial corporations in the world that are coming to North Carolina. They’re expecting an educated and prepared workforce.”

Democrats saw the move differently.

“It has nothing to do with this bill [HB 149], and we haven’t seen it until right now,” said Sen. Natasha Marcus, a Democrat from Mecklenburg County, during debate on the amendment Tuesday. “And it’s yet another power grab over education and is very disturbing to me.”

Hiring and appointments in higher education have been part of ongoing partisan tensions and gamesmanship in North Carolina for many years.

In 2015 Republican appointees on the UNC Board of Governors pushed out then UNC System President Tom Ross, a prominent Democrat. The move preceded a purging of registered Democrats from the system’s top governing board that lasted years. The GOP-dominated board hired Margaret Spellings, a former U.S. Secretary of Education under Republican President George W. Bush, to replace Ross. Spellings also found tension with board members and activists who found her insufficiently conservative as the system navigated culture war issues, leaving the job after three years.

In 2016, when Republican Gov. Pat McCrory lost to Cooper, the GOP legislature stripped the governor’s office of a number of powers and prerogatives before Cooper – a Democrat – could take office. Among them was the ability to appoint trustees at individual UNC system campuses, putting that power solely in the hands of the GOP majority in the legislature.

Today, the only campuses whose boards have more Democratic trustees than Republican are the system’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

Last year, prompted by a series of political fights and scandals in the UNC System and on its 17 campuses, Cooper established a commission to examine how the system is governed. Its co-chairs: Ross and Spellings, a Democrat and Republican respectively, who have first-hand experience with political tensions in governing and leadership hires within the system.