A standoff: UNC-CH faculty pushes back against trustees on conservative program | Opinion

The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees blindsided the university’s faculty last month with a resolution calling for a School of Civic Life and Leadership, an academic program that the board’s leaders say would be attractive to conservative faculty and students.

On Friday, the UNC-Chapel Hill Faculty Council pushed back by approving a resolution saying the faculty should decide whether the new school is created. It said in part: “The Faculty Council recommends no further action on this new school until such a time as a proposal from the faculty towards this school is developed and then properly discussed.”

The dueling resolutions amount to a standoff. The Board of Trustees wants to counter what it regards as a liberal academic culture that stifles conservative ideas and intimidates conservative students. Meanwhile, many faculty members feel insulted by that description and regard the board as trying to override the faculty’s role in overseeing academics.

David Boliek Jr., chairman of the Republican-dominated Board of Trustees, responded Friday with a statement suggesting that the board will continue to press for the new school.

“The current leadership of the Faculty Council is certainly free to take whatever position they want,” he said. “My sense is, however, that the current Board of Trustees will continue to strive to keep Carolina a national leader on many fronts. Ultimately, we are appointed to represent the 11 million people in North Carolina who own the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.”

The situation once again puts UNC-CH Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz in the difficult spot of trying to placate board members who want to take a direct role in university affairs while protecting the faculty’s control over academics. He appeared remotely at the council meeting and expressed confidence that the faculty will fairly evaluate the board’s idea within the traditional process.

“While the idea of a new offering at our university began outside of our typical process, we are bringing the proposal into line with how initiatives like this are evaluated and have always been evaluated and developed at our university. And we will follow that process in exploring and considering new ideas,” he said.

The chancellor added, “As I like to say often, we’re built for this. This is what we do as faculty, take interesting ideas and research them and deliberate and develop them. And that will never change if this is to move forward in any way.”

But it’s unlikely the faculty will accommodate the board, whose call for the new school has been applauded by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board and other conservative media.

Much of what the board says it’s trying to promote – exposing students to different political views and teaching the skills of civil and constructive debate – are already at the center of a recently adopted academic program, IDEAS in Action.

The board may try to browbeat the chancellor and faculty into creating an academic program with a conservative tilt. But the board members themselves have undermined the idea by not thinking through the complexities of hiring a proposed minimum of 20 faculty members to teach what sounds like redundant courses within the College of Arts and Sciences.

Art Padilla, a former UNC System vice president and a former N.C. State University administrator and professor, pointedly summarized the proposals weaknesses in a recent blog post . He wrote:

“Here’s the real problem: A nebulously defined conservative school, sponsored by a rotating lay board, with untenured teaching or adjunct professors residing at the bottom of the professorial pyramid and providing instruction in no discernible majors or disciplines, with uncertain job prospects for any graduates, and with anemic mainstream faculty support, could possibly be successful and could outlast the board members who promote it. But that’s not the way to bet. There must be better solutions.”

Referring to the former president of the University of California, Padilla concluded: “Clark Kerr’s wisdom seems eternally relevant: A board can be no better than its president, though it can be a good deal worse.”

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-829-4512, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com