President Obama has touted the administration’s efforts to shake up higher education by seeking to create measureable goals for higher education in areas such as affordability, value, and student outcomes. The push for quantifiable goals mirrors longtime critiques from business and industry leaders that universities should “run like a business.”
In reality, the opposite is true.
One of my biggest disappointments in sports is never getting to see Dean Smith coach in person at North Carolina. Just two months after I arrived in Chapel Hill as an undergraduate in the fall of 1997, Coach Smith announced his retirement. It is hard for me to believe he hasn’t been on the sideline for nearly 18 years. While I was never able to witness Smith’s greatness staging a comeback thanks to those hoarded timeouts or raising four fingers, I feel fortunate to have grown up in Dean Smith’s Chapel Hill. Dean Smith’s legacy illustrates everything right about intercollegiate athletics.
Dean Smith passed away at the age of 83 over the weekend. Coach Smith’s tenure in Chapel Hill spanned parts of four decades. When you think about everything that occurred from the 1960s to the 1990s, it is surprising that Smith was able to adapt to the changes in students, universities, sport, and society.
As I discussed a few months ago, I’m currently conducting a study with my research assistant on the causes of why college presidents are fired or forced to resign. There was tremendous press around this issue particularly with Holden Thorp leaving UNC following the academic and athletic crisis there. This past weekend, Barry Jacobs, a sports columnist for the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News and Observer wrote a thoughtful column that I want to repost and share here. Jacobs references our study about the causes for presidential involuntary turnover. I thought his take and the comparison between Holden Thorp and Paul Hardin was particularly salient. The athletics pressures on college presidents aren’t new and remain a significant problem for many universities.
There’s no surefire way to prepare, no tutorial or textbook laying out the pitfalls and pressure points. University presidents and chancellors, the NCAA’s putative leaders, reportedly don’t even like to discuss athletics among themselves. Most will survive averting their gaze – “involuntary transitions” due to athletics scandal are surprisingly uncommon, according to a yet-to-be-published working paper on turnover among university presidents.
“The struggles with athletics may be the most prominent, but I don’t know that it’s the most threatening to a presidency, by and large,” says Michael Harris, the Southern Methodist University professor who co-authored the study. Firings and resignations, particularly at public universities, are more likely due to “loss of board confidence” and “financial improprieties.”
The Board of Governors refuses to say why they are forcing out Tom Ross as UNC system president. The Board clearly has the right and prerogative to ask Ross to step down. No one is questioning this. However, we should all be questioning the Board’s judgment. Board of Governors Chair John Fennebresque refused to state the need for change. He said the board simply felt there should be a transition to a new president. Unfortunately, President Ross’ transition isn’t the only one occurring here. The most obvious interpretation of removing Ross is that the move signals a newfound sense of activism on the part of the UNC Board of Governors.
With Republican majorities taking over in the state capital, nearly the entire membership of the Board of Governors has turned over in recent years.
At the same time, board activism in higher education has increased across the country with grave long-term consequences.
Healthy boards are responsible for the financial strength of the university, hire the president, and serve as a resource. Activist boards micromanage universities and undermine institutional leaders.
Yet, the conservative-leaning American Council of Trustees and Alumni has called on university board members to speak up as institutional watchdogs. The group wants boards to carefully track expenses and boldly confront campus leaders on academic policy.
What’s wrong with board members ensuring the wise spending of state funds or reforming academic policies?
There are many examples from other states where activist boards have harmed their universities.
The reality is that activist boards follow a narrow ideology. This leads to excessive and unproductive conflicts with university leaders.
Activist boards often believe colleges and universities are like businesses and can be reengineered, downsized, bought, sold, and consolidated. They show little patience in waiting for administrators to institute reforms. They fail to consider the perspective of faculty.
The irony, of course, is that corporate boards wouldn’t act this way. These boards give CEOs wide latitude to focus on the core business, mission, and strategy execution.
Instead, activist boards follow partisan politics and encourage excessive budget cuts. They exhibit an open hostility to shared governance between trustees, administrators, faculty, and students.
If the Board of Governors continues along this path, they will intensify conflict between themselves and university leaders. Moreover, an activist strategy will further inject partisanship and politics into the university. No one wins with an increasingly politicized environment for higher education.
Today, the UNC system faces enormous challenges. Tuition has increased and state support has fallen. Students and families are struggling with how to pay for college. Demographic changes will confront university leaders for the next generation.
By 2018, the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce estimates that 59% of North Carolina jobs will require some form of higher education. The UNC system has a critical role to play in preparing the state for this economy.
These are big issues that demand a sustained commitment from state leaders, board members, administrators, and faculty.
An activist and micromanaging Board of Governors makes solving these challenges harder.
Simply put, North Carolina can’t afford an activist Board of Governors.
The long term prosperity of North Carolina’s people and economy depend too much on a healthy, vibrant, and innovative system of higher education.
I had the privilege this week to speak with the Kathleen Dunn Show on Wisconsin Public Radio about athletics spending and the future of higher education. Our discussion covered a wide range of issues related to intercollegiate athletics as well as higher education more generally. The callers added great perspective and I enjoyed the opportunity. If you’re interested in these issues, I recommend you listen to the show or download the podcast version. In today’s post, I want to mention a couple of points that were raised in our discussion that are worthy of highlighting. Athletics presents a challenge to institutional leaders and all of those worried about the future of higher education.
