Trustees back administration plan for new faculty-approved curriculum

By Ramsey White 

Ramsey White is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. White worked in the development departments at the Morehead-Cain Foundation and at the University of North Carolina. She is now an active volunteer focused specifically on children’s causes, both with her children’s schools and her community broadly. She has co-chaired the chief fundraising event at Landon School, Durham Academy and University Presbyterian Preschool, two times each in the last decade. Currently, she is an active volunteer at Landon School and Holton-Arms School in various roles.

This January the Board of Trustees urged the University administration to accelerate the creation of a new School of Civic Life and Leadership, endorsing a curriculum six years in the making in conjunction with faculty who previously approved the pro-democracy concept.

Unfortunately, numerous news media outlets and well-funded political organizations have mischaracterized the origins of the proposed school. As a proud graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, I am pleased to clarify the facts.

First things first: the trustees did not introduce the idea for the school. As University administrators explained during our January board meeting and at a subsequent meeting of the Faculty Council – both of which were public – the proposed new school is an outgrowth of the University’s Program for Public Discourse and its IDEAs in Action curriculum, arising from campus discussions dating back to 2017. In tandem with Carolina Next Strategic Initiative 5, “Promote Democracy,” their aims are to promote open, civil debate on campus and to equip students for success in our diverse nation and world. 

The Program for Public Discourse was presented to the faculty several years ago, after senior administrators and faculty explored similar programs elsewhere. The Faculty Council discussed the proposal twice, in September and October of 2019, and voted in favor of it both times.

The program is known for its speaker series, but it was always envisioned to include a curricular component to promote free and open democracy. The faculty discussed the concept, and how their teaching experiences might contribute to it, in three roundtables in the fall of 2019.

Learning from other models 

As the program here was taking shape, Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and Provost Chris Clemens (then in other campus administrative roles), joined by then-Faculty Chair Leslie Parise and then-Provost Bob Blouin, visited Arizona State University to learn about a similar initiative there. The group also received a briefing on a kindred program at Princeton University.

The Covid-19 pandemic soon intervened, however, and the curriculum’s development was put on hold. Then last fall, Jim White, the University’s new Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, requested funds to finally move the full program forward as originally envisioned.

In November, the Board of Trustees attended an off-site gathering to discuss campus issues, including the University of North Carolina System’s 2022 study of Free Expression and Constructive Dialogue at public universities across the state, which had been presented at our July meeting. We discussed possibilities to help address the polarization the study found, as well as the initiatives previously researched at Arizona State University and Princeton University.

In December, University administrators prepared a draft $5 million state budget request for the long-awaited new school and an outline of its curricular program, including the hiring of faculty. They then shared their budget memo with trustees, since part of our role is to advocate for greater University funding by the state’s taxpayers.

More than a month later, our bipartisan board endorsed the concept without objection and urged the administration to work with the faculty to accelerate plans for the school. Although the endorsement resolution might have taken some by surprise, the school proposal did not.

Trustees’ legal authority 

UNC-CH belongs to all of North Carolina’s almost 11 million people, who represent a wide array of diversity of all kinds – including not just age, race, gender, and religion, but also philosophical perspective and political ideology. We trustees were appointed to represent them all.

Some have questioned the board’s authority to adopt its resolution endorsing the school. For those who might not be aware, here are the relevant laws and policies that govern the board:

• North Carolina’s Constitution directs the elected General Assembly to provide higher education to the state’s citizens.

• The elected legislature established a Board of Governors to supervise the statewide university system and empowered Boards of Trustees to oversee individual campuses, including ours in Chapel Hill.

• By law, campus trustees are to “serve as advisor[s] to the chancellor concerning the management and development of the institution.”

• The chancellor, in turn, “shall be responsible for carrying out policies of the Board of Governors and of the board of trustees.”

• The chancellor also is charged under the statute with recommending educational programs and personnel, again subject to BOG and BOT policies.

• At the campus level, trustees help shape and approve the University’s budget, pursuant to system BOG authority.

• Per the BOG’s Policy on Academic Program Planning, adopted in 2009 under former system President Erskine Bowles, the system administration, local campus administrators, and faculty are to work together to develop academic program planning and procedures that are “nimble, efficient, and responsive to … the needs of the people of North Carolina.” This is not the domain of the faculty alone, nor has it ever been.

• Under the same BOG policy, “a major consideration in the planning and evaluation of new degree program proposals [is] student demand for the program.” We know from recent surveys of UNC-CH students that many of them clamor for more and better opportunities to engage thoughtfully and respectfully with peers of wide-ranging perspectives and divergent opinions on the important issues of the day – a capacity that will serve them well as adult citizens in our diverse and complex world.

• Pursuant to SACSCOC Accreditation Principle 4.2.b., UNC-CH should “ensure a clear and appropriate distinction between the policy-making function of the board and the responsibility of the administration and faculty to administer and implement policy.”

This is exactly what we are doing: setting important University policy on behalf of the people of North Carolina. The upshot is our bipartisan UNC-CH Board of Trustees is exercising its duties and responsibilities in full compliance with the authority granted to it by longstanding state law and clear university system policy, consistent with its accreditation requirements. Claims to the contrary are incorrect.

Meanwhile, caustic criticisms of the six-year-old school proposal and its supporters, while accepted in the spirit of open intellectual inquiry, have misstated key facts and omitted others. This has been a regrettable disservice to our beloved University and its diverse student body.