The vanishing power of the UNC Board of Governors

by David Mildenberg, Business North Carolina, October 16, 2015

Being a member of the University of North Carolina System’s Board of Governors has long been among the most sought-after appointed positions in the state. You learn what’s happening across the state, you get access to good sports tickets and most important, you get to pick the system president, probably the most influential job in the state. The board historically has done an outstanding job on the latter point, recruiting UNC champions including Erskine Bowles and C.D. “Dick” Spangler for the post.

But one doubts a board of governors’ seat has much appeal anymore to independent-minded North Carolinians given the overreach by state lawmakers, who have over-politicized the board and now are unnecessarily intervening in the current presidential search process. They don’t want to let the board do its job.

Most of the media heat is on Chairman John Fennebresque, the lawyer known in Charlotte’s business community as a straight-talking, suffer-no-fools guy whose passions include cigars, golf, the Queen City, UNC, North Carolina and Bank of America, where he had close ties to former CEOs Hugh McColl Jr. and Ken Lewis and many other senior bankers. John creates waves, feels strongly about his viewpoints and isn’t always interested in opposing views.

But isn’t that the kind of connected, engaged, results-oriented person needed on the state’s most important board? Or do we prefer governors such as Thom Goolsby, a former state senator from Wilmington whose financial-advisory license was revoked by the state in May 2014. He resigned the senate earlier this year and then started a lobbying practice that represents the sweepstakes' industry, the News & Observer reported. In March he was appointed to the board of governors, a nominee of the N.C. Senate. Goolsby is among the board members now asking for Fennebresque's resignation.

The irony is that many in North Carolina blame Fennebresque and the board for not adequately explaining why they asked President Tom Ross to exit his post next year. The reasons are easy to understand for anyone who has paid attention:

1) UNC presidents have had a tradition of five-year tenures, abided by Spangler and Bowles. Ross is in his fifth year.

2) Republicans who run North Carolina government want a UNC leader more in step with their philosophies. Why wouldn’t they want their own choice instead of someone like Ross, who was hired and favored by former Democratic leaders such as Marc Basnight, Mike Easley and Beverly Perdue?

3) Ross was executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, a Winston-Salem-based group that funds many fine causes, along with some controversial ones, including progressive-oriented organizations that are anathema to conservatives. Would Democratic leaders approve of a UNC president who had worked for an Art Pope-funded group?

4) In a debate raging in many states, conservatives want educators who may more quickly embrace changes sweeping higher education than traditionalists such as Ross. Those changes threaten higher education’s status quo, for better or worse.

With Ross gone, the task of finding his successor fell to Fennebresque and the board. It is a difficult task to find someone to fill such an important position, so perhaps it was inevitable that a rift formed between Fennebresque as he showed some independence from the state’s dominant lawmakers. Senate Pro Tem Phil Berger and other senators such as Bob Rucho and Tom Apodaca have proven they can run over Gov. McCrory when needed. By comparison, Fennebresque may be small potatoes.

The nastiness intensified when Fennebresque and his supporters decided former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was a solid choice for the president’s post. She is a classic boardroom, moderate Republican, having served under George W. Bush when he was governor in Texas and president in Washington D.C. Those credentials enrage conservative Republicans who felt burned by Bush’s education policies.

What's hilarious is that the lawmakers are criticizing Fennebresque for a lack of transparency in the hiring. These folks run a legislature that passes bills on key issues after midnight, with little or no public debate.

There’s very little chance Fennebresque will come out ahead in this scrap. Spellings may get the job, but I wouldn't bet on it. Berger and his cronies have decades of experience spinning the media and influencing public debate. It’s common in North Carolina for Charlotte businesspeople to get squashed when they become involved in a state political culture dominated by small-town lawyers and small-business owners.

So it's a sad spectacle — almost certain to damage our state's reputation as a leader in higher education — when political leaders run roughshod over a board of appointed leaders, many of whom bring so much to the table. Those governors' seats no longer mean much, do they?

http://www.businessnc.com/blog/2015/10/16/blog/the-vanishing-power-of-the-unc-board-of-governors/