UNC Boards should look more like North Carolina

A bipartisan commission appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper made recommendations this week to increase representation on the University of North Carolina System’s governing boards.

Cooper told reporters the UNC System has distinguished North Carolina and made a difference for its people – but its governing boards need more diversity of political thought, race, geography and gender.

“We have built the most amazing public university system in the country. Yet it is obvious that erosion is occurring because of the makeup of the UNC Board of Governors and Boards of Trustees that has become more political, and has begun exercising more direct control in the administration of our campuses,” the governor said.

“It’s clear that university leaders should reflect more of who we are as North Carolinians, and that the appointed leadership should be focused on broad strategy and vision.”

COMMISSION MEMBERS received data in February that even though nearly 60% of students in the UNC System are women, for example, women make up only 25% of the Board of Governors and one-third of Board of Trustees members.¹ 

“Our recommendations are focused in significant part on ensuring the voices of all North Carolinians are reflected and represented on the governing boards of our universities,” said Tom Ross, Commission Co-Chair and former UNC System President from 2011-16.²

Co-Chair Margaret Spellings, the System President from 2016-19, said representation on the Board of Governors suffered after the board was reduced from 32 to 24 members.

“When you look at a board like NC State, where there are no women represented and the majority of the student population and the population I believe of the state as well is majority female, it kind of makes you scratch your head and ask questions,” Spellings said.

The Board of Governors is appointed by the General Assembly, and campus Boards of Trustees are appointed by both the legislature and the Board of Governors.

Under the commission’s recommendations, said Cooper, legislative leaders “would not lose a single appointment.” 

Any change allowing the governor to again appoint members of campus Boards of Trustees – power the General Assembly took away soon after Cooper was elected governor in 2016 –  wouldn’t take effect until January 2025, after Cooper leaves office.

“These recommendations are not designed to fix anything that’s happening right now,” said Ross. “It’s designed for the long-term governance of the university.”

Cooper also noted that the Commission consists of 8 Democrats, 6 Republicans and 1 unaffiliated voter.

The Commission’s recommendations:

• Increase the size of the Board of Governors from 24 to 32-36 members. To ensure geographic diversity, the board should include two members from each of the state’s eight Prosperity Zones. The commission would also make the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and President of the NC Community College System or their designees non-voting, ex officio members to increase collaboration.

• Let the majority party in the House and Senate appoint 12 BOG members, and the minority party in each chamber four members. The BOG currently has just two Democrats; the idea here – supported by Republican member John Fraley – is to make the board more bipartisan.

• Increase the size of each campus Board of Trustees to 15 members, with 7 members chosen by the BOG, 4 by the General Assembly, and 4 by the governor. This would restore the governor’s appointment authority that legislators removed in late 2016.

• Increase the length of terms of members of the Board of Governors and Board of Trustees from 4 years to 8 years, and limit each member to one full term. Board of Governors members apparently spend a lot of time worrying about reappointment by legislative leaders. “By removing the opportunity for reappointment, single terms may help provide immediate insulation from and lessen the perception of political influence over members by their appointing authority,” the draft recommendation says.

• Livestream and record all meetings of the Board of Governors and Boards of Trustees.

• Require a one-year “cooling-off” period before lobbyists or former members of the General Assembly can be appointed to a governing board. Because lobbyists depend on the legislators who appoint them for their livelihoods, critics have pointed to the appointment of several lobbyists to the Board of Governors in recent years as a conflict of interest. Several former legislators have also been named to the board.

• The Board of Governors should create a new Center of Higher Education Governance to be housed either at a UNC System campus or the System Office. The center could act as a national thought leader on education governance, said Ross. It could provide orientation and continuing education for governing board members – including clarification of the roles of board members – and develop a database of potential appointees to governing boards.³

WILL LAWMAKERS take the recommendations seriously? 

Legislative leaders made dismissive comments about the commission as soon as Cooper announced its creation last November.⁴

More recently, they have moved to take appointment powers away from the governor, including appointments to the State Board of Community Colleges and local community college boards.⁵

Spellings repeatedly noted that the commission was careful not to recommend removal of any appointment authority from the legislature.

But the state constitution places responsibility for university governance in the legislature’s hands. And Senate leader Phil Berger appeared to throw cold water on at least one of the recommendations on Monday.

“As long as any recommendations are consistent with what the (NC) constitution sees as the role of the General Assembly in managing the state’s higher education infrastructure, we’ll look at that,” Berger told reporters.

But as for restoring appointments by the governor to campus Boards of Trustees, he said, “The constitution places that responsibility in the General Assembly. I do not see us going back to the way things were.”

¹ https://www.higheredworks.org/2023/02/chapel-hill-board-antics-catch-accreditors-eye/. 
² https://governor.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2023/06/12/governors-commission-public-university-governance-releases-recommendations-strengthening-public. 
³ https://governor.nc.gov/unc-governance-recommendationsdraft61223pdf-0/open. 
⁴ https://ncnewsline.com/2022/11/03/gov-coopers-new-commission-will-study-how-the-unc-system-is-governed-but-change-is-unlikely/; https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article268132417.html.
⁵ https://www.witn.com/2023/04/19/north-carolina-gop-seeks-revamps-community-college-boards/; https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article276317926.html.