Dean’s List: UNC grad students want representation in chancellor search. Will they get it?
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We’ll soon know who will be tasked with finding the 13th chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill.
UNC System President Peter Hans told The News & Observer following a Board of Governors meeting last week that he expects to name the search committee for UNC’s next chancellor by “late January or early February” — with the latter being a more likely timeline.
“I think it’ll probably be early February,” Hans said. “Everything at Carolina is more complicated.”
Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts is leading the university following the departure of Kevin Guskiewicz, who in March will become president of Michigan State University.
Hans said he has “a strong sense” of who he’ll tap to serve on the committee, indicating he’d turn to Faculty Chair Beth Moracco, Employee Forum Chair Katie Musgrove and Student Body President and UNC senior Christopher Everett to represent their respective constituencies.
Graduate students at the university are asking for a place at the table, too. But will they get it?
Welcome to Dean’s List, a weekly roundup of higher education news in the Triangle and across North Carolina from The News & Observer and myself, Korie Dean.
This week’s edition includes more information on the upcoming search for UNC’s next chancellor, the newly named committee tasked with finding the next chancellor for NC Central University and more.
Let’s dive in.
Who will be on UNC chancellor search committee?
Student government at UNC is divided into an undergraduate student government, of which Everett is president, and the Graduate and Professional Student Government (GPSG).
At a campus Board of Trustees meeting Jan. 18, GPSG President Lauren Hawkinson read to the board a letter from the GPSG Senate asking that the chancellor search committee include two students — one representing undergraduate students and one representing graduate and professional students.
“Students’ needs, like those of faculty and staff, are tantamount to institutional needs,” Hawkinson said. “And we feel that our proposal is the only course of action that will ensure that both recognized student constituencies receive adequate representation in this process.”
Hawkinson noted that when UNC last searched for a chancellor in 2019, resulting in Guskiewicz’s selection as the university’s 12th chancellor, the search committee included the then-GPSG president.
But that committee, at 20 members, was considerably larger than what UNC System policy now allows.
Current systemwide policy on chancellor searches requires that the committees tasked with searching for a new chancellor be made up of no more than 13 voting members. The system president appoints the committee in consultation with the chair of the searching university’s Board of Trustees.
The policy outlines that the members should include:
The system president or a designee
Members of the campus Board of Trustees
The chair of the system Board of Governors or a designee
The Board of Governors member who serves as a liaison to the searching university
A sitting or retired UNC System chancellor
Representatives of the university’s alumni, staff, faculty and students
The committee could meet those requirements and still include a graduate student, but Hans indicated it’s unlikely.
“The numbers don’t necessarily allow for addressing everyone’s interest in serving,” Hans said.
But Hans said he has “absolutely pledged” to gather graduate students’ input in the search process by holding a “listening forum specifically with graduate and professional students [so] that we can hear what they’re looking for in the next chancellor and issues of great concern to them.”
Hans said he is “quite sympathetic” to the concerns of many graduate students, particularly about the stipends they are paid to assist with research and teaching while completing their studies. Graduate students have said for years the stipend rates have not kept pace with inflation and the cost of living.
“We rely on those students to do a lot of teaching,” Hans said. “And it’s not clear to me how they make ends meet all the time, given the demands on them.”
NC Central chancellor search committee named
While we wait to see the full list of search committee members at UNC, we do know who will search for the next chancellor at NC Central University in Durham. (For those keeping score at home, there are four UNC System schools searching for new chancellors.)
Chancellor Johnson Akinleye, who has held the role for about seven years, announced Jan. 12 that he would retire at the end of the academic year.
Hans last week announced that the following people will serve on the committee tasked with finding Akinleye’s successor:
James H. Johnson Jr., a graduate of NC Central and UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School faculty member, who will chair the committee.
Keith Chadwell, member of the NCCU Board of Trustees.
Sean Colbert-Lewis, an NCCU graduate and NCCU Faculty Senate chair.
Emily Dickens, a three-time NCCU graduate and member of the Board of Trustees.
Cameron Emery, NCCU Student Government Association president and Board of Trustees member.
Kevin Holloway, an NCCU graduate and chair of the Board of Trustees.
Alex Mitchell, UNC System Board of Governors liaison to NCCU.
Wendy Murphy, vice chair of the Board of Governors, who will serve in place of Board of Governors Chair Randy Ramsey.
Raymond Pierce, former dean of the NCCU School of Law.
Todd Roberts, chancellor of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.
Shun Robertson, UNC System vice president for access and success strategy, who will serve in place of Hans.
DeAndres Royal, an NCCU graduate and NCCU Staff Assembly chair.
Kimberly Williams, an NCCU graduate and member of the NCCU Board of Visitors.
The committee will also work with Tomeika Bowden, chair of the NCCU Alumni Association, to involve alumni in the process, Hans’ announcement said.
UNCG provost recommends additional program cut
Following UNC Greensboro Chancellor Franklin Gilliam’s Jan. 16 announcement of nearly 20 academic programs that could be discontinued following a sweeping “academic portfolio review,” the university’s provost has added another to the list.
Provost Debbie Storrs announced Jan. 22 that she is recommending the PhD in Computational Mathematics be discontinued. The university’s deans had previously recommended all concentrations of master’s degrees in math be discontinued, per Gilliam’s announcement, which Storrs identified as a factor in her decision.
“This is the only additional recommendation I plan to make for this APR process,” Storrs wrote.
Gilliam is expected to announce his final recommendations for program cuts Thursday.
Higher ed news I’m reading
UNC-Chapel Hill was one of just a handful of flagship public universities nationwide that saw the share of in-state students in their first-year classes increase from 2002 to 2022, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. Nearly every other flagship saw increases in their shares of out-of-state students.
The University of California system is considering a policy to bar academic units and departments from making statements containing “personal or collective opinions,” Inside Higher Ed reports.
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That’s all for this week’s roundup of North Carolina higher education news. I hope you’ll stay tuned for more.
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