The wrong way to oppose the BoG 2015 centers and institutes sham review

We might also call this: Academic Freedom and the Self-Subversion of Good intentions

In 2014 the UNC Board of Governors -- at the behest of overbearing General Assembly radicals -- undertook a review of UNC Centers and Institutes, and in February 2015 the BoG voted to shut down 3 research centers and institutes. The reaction was firm: the decision was met with vociferous protests.

Many letters and comment from Chapel Hill faculty, and students, demanding that Chancellor Folt refuse to close the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity (led by Professor Nichol) were wonderfully refreshing for their commitment to academic freedom and institutional autonomy. 

They were also disappointingly ill-informed, politically naive, and completely devoid of any useful strategic insight. Sadly, Chapel Hill has once again proved to sister campuses around the state that the Flagship Community can indeed lead the system in paving the road to hell with good intentions.

The political logic here is very simple -- and it demonstrates why knowing where you stand is critical to using the faculty's voice with maximum effect. Here is the strategic syllogism: 

First, contrary to (for example) Misters Polich and Longest's Feb 24 letter to the Daily Tar Heel, the Chancellor does not have the authority to refuse directives from the Board of Governors. NC General Statutes Chapter 116, and the provisions of the University Code, vests all authority for the governance of the University in the hands of the Board. All other authority in the University (of the President, the Boards of Trustees, the Chancellors, and others) -- and that includes the authority to establish, maintain and terminate Centers, is derivative from the policy provisions that are established by the Board itself. 

Second, among the prerogative powers of the Board is the authority to hire and remove senior administrators -- at will.

Third, this Board was moving to reform the Chancellor search policy to allow ex officio participation of Board members (and that policy has now been approved). As many of the Board members suggested, this gives the board 'greater oversight' of the selection process.

Now that you have all of the relevant premises, you can do the reasoning. Start with "Chancellor Folt refuses to shutter the Poverty Center," and what you end up with is a paradox of destructive self-righteousness: Chapel Hill moralizers enjoy the (self-subverting) pleasure of forcing the Chancellor to resist the Board, the Board orders President Tom Ross to fire Folt, Ross refuses to do the deed, the Board moves to remove Ross for insubordination, and then orders their new (minion, er) President to bag the Chancellor. Thus: in a brilliant example of shooting oneself in the face, Chapel Hill loses the Center, it loses the Chancellor (who will be replaced by one more to the Board's liking), and it loses a President who has been trying to insulate the campuses from Board over-reach (and who will also be replaced by a creature more to the Board's liking). 

Meanwhile, there is snickering among the critics of the University: Chapel Hill has handed them the "legal" opportunity to have Chapel Hill hoisted on its own petard. 

It is then fortunate indeed that Folt took the heat from her community and saved them from their own misjudgment. Whatever Folt's faults, understanding how system power works apparently isn't among them. 

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But the issue here is not Carol Folt -- it is faculty folly. It is beyond baffling that faculty and students would think that the Chancellor and the Provost at UNCCH would not defend academic freedom. That defies logic, and it shows that faculty and students will sometimes let their feelings run ahead of their intelligence. Chapel Hill is an R1 institution of higher learning with a long and strong tradition of defending academic freedom! 

More: why would faculty and students think the only way administrators can prove their bona fides is by refusing to do what they must. This is just wrong, and it is based on a badly conceptualized model of governance in contemporary public higher education.

The fact of the matter is that the most powerful voice in these struggles are those for whom the Board of Governors (and the President, and the Chancellors, and the Provosts)  work -- and that is the faculty, the students, and the citizenry of North Carolina. They are most insulated from the wrath of the governing bodies. Gene Nichol certainly knows this, and the small group of brave students who have recently and regularly stood up for the University know this, just as the students, staff and faculty who helped Bill Friday turn back the Speaker Ban knew this. Why would faculty want the Chancellor to sacrifice herself to do the work they should be doing themselves?

Perhaps this is yet another instance of the changed character of faculty participation in shared governance in the "corporate" university (an issue addressed elsewhere in this blog): Rather than engaging their duties seriously and effectively, faculty have become dependent on Presidents, Chancellors, Provosts, administrators, to do the hard work of governance. It is always worth remembering the warning of our early modern predecessors -- let us take heed not to call for monarchs to deliver us from tyrants. 

Chapel Hill makes tremendous contributions to the mission of public higher education in North Carolina. Thankfully the faculty there only rarely diminish those contributions by acts of folly and farce. In this instance it is a good thing they did not get what they wanted. Indeed, it turned out that the University's commitment to the study and alleviation of poverty may have been strengthened rather than diminished by the Chancellor's clever end-run around the BoG's imperious and ill-advised actions.