​A warning from UNC

In the United States, North Carolina’s public university system is a flagship of state school systems. Last month, its Board of Governors named former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings as the successor of Tom Ross, the current system president who was forced to resign in January. Many have speculated the removal of Ross, whose tenure has been widely regarded as successful, is a political move by a Board of Governors controlled by Republican members. His resignation in January was followed closely by the similarly suspect closing of three major system research centers, including the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill. And again, the Board of Governors is being put on the stand for naming Spellings. The selection process lacked transparency and sufficient engagement of relevant stakeholders—including faculty, students and the residents of North Carolina—and her qualifications and beliefs have been called into question.

Most disconcerting is the pattern that emerged over the last year, one where process failures seemed to be ignored and compounded rather than remedied. Given the shifting political composition of the Board of Governors and state and without compelling evidence to suggest otherwise, it is hard to see this process as anything but political.

There are many questions to be raised about the appointment of Spellings. Her legacy as secretary of education is closely associated with the No Child Left Behind Act, an overhaul she has previously suggested as a model for higher education reform. She has since served on the Board of Directors for the Apollo Group, parent company for the University of Phoenix, a private higher-education institution criticized often for placing profit motives over student interests. There are further questions to ask about the efficacy of a policy maker without previous ties to the consortium serving as system president. These qualms are important and better left to public debate about the former secretary’s merits.

We are fundamentally concerned with the process that unfolded behind closed doors for the Board’s decision-making and what it says about the influence of politics in higher education. The shutting out of relevant stakeholders within the university system and broader North Carolina in this major decision reveals a broad set of concerns of which this is one example. Earlier this year, Wisconsin’s state legislature attempted to change their university system’s mission statement as part of a political maneuver. The proposal eliminated the characterization of the “search for truth” as “basic to every purpose of the system” and asserted the “mission” of the system as the development of “human resources to meet the state’s workforce needs.” The Board of Governors' tactics seem yet another attempt at the instrumentalization of public higher education to craft a workforce for economic purpose rather than the pursuit of broader societal and public good. This is a fundamental and inescapable debate about the future of higher education and its role in society and one that should not simply be outsourced to a few politicians or political appointees.

The process should not just draw our ire, but it also should trigger introspection at Duke. We should not think ourselves immune from the broader trends in higher education as a private institution. There is, and has been, a division between the financial and intellectual management of the University. When the lines blur—as with the Board of Governors for UNC—the intellectual mission of a university is vulnerable to the imposition of politicians and businessmen. The many parts of administration should not and cannot be totally mutually exclusive, but the University cannot afford to have one side overpower the other as it steers itself into the future.