I’ve got an idea. How about Tom Ross stays president of the University of North Carolina and the whole UNC Board of Governors resigns? After all, they freely admit that Ross has done nothing wrong and yet they clearly have. We need a functioning board, not a new president. The only people incompetent here are the members of the BOG. They, not Ross, are the ones who need to go.
Not only have they embarrassed the state and scared off anybody of Tom Ross’ stature to run our university system, they’ve sat silently by while the legislature passes budgets that hurt the university. North Carolina is one of only eight states that cut higher education last year. Pat McCrory and the legislature have cut per pupil spending at the university by 25%.
During that same period, tuition has increased by 34%. The GOP is starving schools while making students, many from families still suffering from the effects of the recession, pay more. At the same time that the GOP is telling schools to cut their budgets and students to fork over more money, they’re squandering the surplus they bragged about on tax cuts for the rich.
You would think we would hear a howl of protest from Board members. Not a peep. Instead, we hear all these platitudes about how much they love the university. But they don’t. They may love their stature as board members of a prestigious university. They may truly love their basketball and football tickets. They may even have fond memories of their time in college, at least the ones smart enough to go. But they don’t love the university system. If they did, they would stand up to defend it. If they can’t do that, then they should step down for the good of the system and call on all of their colleagues to follow suit because they’ve made an utter mess of things.
The legislature has done long term damage to the university and I doubt they are finished. The Board of Governors has added to that injury in their firing of Tom Ross and their buffoonish attempt to replace him. It’s their job to stand up for the university, not roll over for the legislature. They’ve failed miserably. If we could really run government like a business, everybody on the BOG would be fired.
So for once, BOG members, do something right. Step down now, if not in shame and embarrassment, then in protest. You’ve clearly failed to protect the integrity of the university and refused to defend it against legislative abuse. You look like fools and tools. Walk away.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
The Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina, themselves mostly GOP political appointees, today appointed another Republican’t political hack, Margaret Spellings, as president of the UNC system, replacing the highly respected Dr. Tom Ross, who was fired because he is a Democrat.
Spellings, who has no graduate degrees, currently is president of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, the former president’s library and museum.
Spellings apparently did go to high school and reportedly has an undergraduate degree from that bastion of high educational achievement, the University of Houston. U.S. News & World Report has ranked the University of Houston as the 187th best university in the country and the 11th best in Texas. Spellings was the political director for George W. Bush’s first gubernatorial campaign in 1994 and later became a senior advisor to Bush during his term as Texas governor from 1995 to 2000. She served in the Bush presidential administration as political advisor. W nominated Spellings as Secretary of Education in 2005, where she served until 2009, supporting the unpopular “No Child Left Behind” program and other illiteracy programs.
Her greatest achievement seems to be appearing on “Celebrity Jeopardy” in 2006. She didn’t win.
NC Gov. Pat “Fat Cat” McCrory failed to sign an NC Legislature bill on his desk that would have required the Board of Governors to nominate at least three candidates, so Spellings was the only candidate. Under McCrory, per-student funding for the university system has been reduced by 25% and tuition has been increased by 34%.
Good suggestion….
Another reason to vote Democratic.
Voting in an election means nothing if there is no guarantee your vote is accurately tabulated and counted for the candidate for whom you intended it; without electronic voting machine ‘paper trails’ neither of these prerequisites can be assured. As far as the article is concerned, Mr. Mills is right on the money and the people ought to rise-up and demand the resignation of the entire BOG, the NC. legislature be damned!
Nothing and I mean nothing is going to change until the governor and then enough General Assembly member are voted out of office in order to have a non-veto proof GA. If you care about NC in general and the UNC system in particular, get mad, get organized and for God’s sake go the polls. We are continuing to reap the results of the 2010 election. How many whiners today actually voted in the election?
Brad’s on the right track.
You realize that board members are appointed by legislators, right?
Yes. That’s why I counselled running candidates and getting out the vote. Admittedly, the analogy was somewhat loose; but it does not take a genius to make the connection.
2 things:
1. In the corporate world, somebody would execute a HOSTILE TAKEOVER, ruthlessly picking off Board Members seat but seat until competent leadership was restored. We know how to do this: Run candidates, volunteer, get out the vote, and win. Show no mercy!
2. The main purpose of winning is to stand up for working people, many of whom ended their formal schooling in high school or at community colleges. Insulting people who did not attend four-year universities as “not smart enough” is inappropriate behavior for an egalitarian party. Many such people are smart, shrewd and hard-working, and did not attend “college” because they’d rather go straight to the workforce (or did not have the money). For the record, I myself am not one of them.