Category: Shared Governance

Next Trustees’ Chair: An Advocate – or Attack Dog?

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Members of the UNC Board of Trustees, especially the board chair, should first and foremost be advocates and champions for the University.

But John Preyer, who expects to be elected soon as the next chair, has in recent weeks attacked the faculty and administration.

First, Preyer has said he does not believe the University’s faculty council represents the true views of the faculty.

Second, at the July 27 board meeting, he questioned and chastised the Chancellor for saying that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Students for Fair Admissions affirmative-action case was “not the outcome we would have hoped for.”

“Why did we do that?'” Preyer asked. “‘Was that the right thing to do … trying to litigate a position that was found to be in violation of the law?'”

Let’s take each issue in turn.

Faculty Council

Why doesn’t Preyer respect the voting process and representative democracy?

Every year, the Office of Faculty governance staff looks at the faculty census and apportions the number of slots for the 93-member faculty council based on the number of faculty members in each school; for example, the School of Medicine has more representatives than the Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

All voting faculty are asked in a survey how they want to participate in faculty governance. 

A committee of current committee chairs and at-large members nominates individuals to different committees and to faculty council – always with an eye to three things:

  • people who are willing to do the needed work,
  • faculty members who have expressed interest in a committee’s subject matter
  • a mix of people, some with experience in faculty governance and some who are new to it.

Two people are nominated for each open position, and a faculty-wide election is held. 

That’s pretty democratic and representative, if you ask us.

You might argue that not everyone participates, thus weakening the process.  That’s true. But that is equally true in any election.

Why doesn’t Preyer respect this democratic process?

Affirmative Action (Students for Fair Admissions Case)

The campus fought the lawsuit for nine years because we believed it was mission-critical. The lower courts all ruled in favor of our admissions procedures. The first pillar of our strategic plan speaks to the need for a diverse and welcoming campus. 

So, no, the court’s decision clearly was “not the outcome we would have hoped for”! 

What outcome did Preyer hope for? Did he hope for our campus admissions team, the office of university counsel, and everyone else who worked so hard on this case to lose? Doesn’t he respect their dedication and hard work?

North Carolina has citizens of all creeds, colors, genders, and places of national origin. Serving the state means finding a way to include people from every swath of North Carolina on our campus. That is a worthy mission, one we should continue to fight for, in accordance with the law.

UNC-Chapel Hill was right to fight the case, and we are right to be disappointed that we lost.

A Time for Respect

The Board of Trustees’ bylaws say the board, “shall promote the sound development of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill within the functions prescribed for it, helping it to serve the people of the State in a way that will complement the activities of the other institutions and aiding it to perform at a high level of excellence in every area of endeavor.”

Will the man who might be chair respect that charge? Or will he use his position to continue the partisan politics attacks that in recent years have put Carolina’s reputation for excellence at risk?

Unlike the Southern segregationists who defied the U.S. Supreme Court’s school-desegregation decision in the 1950s, we will respect the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action decision.

We don’t agree with it, we don’t think it’s right, and we’ll work to change the court and the decision. But we’ll comply with it.

Preyer should respect the elected representatives of the faculty. He should respect the administration and staff. He should respect the University for standing up for diversity, equality and inclusion.

Texas A&M Shares UNC’s Shame

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Dr. Mimi Chapman is a professor at UNC’s School of Social Work. She joined the faculty in 2001 and was Chair of the Faculty from 2020 to 2023. She is a co-founder of the Coalition for Carolina.

As a frequent flyer, I’m well-versed in the virtues of various airlines. I’m an expert packer, ready to fly on a dime. Before the pandemic, I was on a plane twice a month or more, sometimes heading a few states over and sometimes to the other side of the world. Our family portfolio includes airline stock, so I keep up with the industry’s ups and downs. 

But never, even if I flew my own plane, would I call the airlines and tell them how to hire, fire, recruit, promote, assign and evaluate their pilots.

Yet, that is exactly what is happening in public higher education. Now, Texas A&M has joined UNC in the academic hall of shame. Just like here two years ago, a Black female journalist was recruited, then given the bait-and-switch to a much less stable employment status.

In the summer of 2021, I was finishing the first year of a three-year term as Chair of the Faculty at UNC Chapel Hill.  Pockets of post-pandemic normalcy were springing up: small indoor dinner parties, an occasional in-person meeting.

As someone who read The 1619 Project cover to cover when it first appeared in The New York Times Magazine, I was delighted to learn that Nikole Hannah-Jones would be joining our faculty.

In April, we heard that she would join us on a five-year, fixed-term contract. But in May, I learned that the situation was more complicated; she’d been approved by the faculty for tenure, but she couldn’t get a vote from our Board of Trustees, and therefore her offer had been changed from tenured to fixed-term.

Kathleen O. McElroy’s situation at Texas A&M is all too similar. A Black woman, a thought leader, a professor of journalism and media, writing in national publications about her views and scholarship, receives an offer inviting her to contribute to a program where she had come of age and launched her own career.

Student makes good, wants to give back to the place that gave them their start. An advancement officer’s dream. A feel-good story all around. Indeed, all of us get excited when thought leaders such as Hannah-Jones or Frank Bruni – who joined the university-that-shall-not-be-named down the road – join the academy.

I was more than a little starstruck thinking Hannah-Jones would be a colleague. Maybe we’d get to be friends? Gossip over drinks at the Carolina Inn? Would some stardust rub off?

But, behind the scenes, other actors were at work. Our trustees took the heat, but pressures came from interest groups, legislators and donors – all of whom believed they should have a say in how our campus does its work.

As I told our trustees at the time, the processes by which tenured or tenure-track faculty are hired are rigorous. They take hours of painstaking work. I calculated 170 hours for any one tenure decision, and that’s likely an undercount.

Reading of the trials of Professor McElroy, that difficult summer floods back: the hope, frustration and then disappointment. Students and faculty alike mobilized. The campus spoke with one voice. We moved the needle, and we were able to get Ms. Hannah-Jones the positive tenure vote she deserved. She chose not to accept it.

Seeing this again at Texas A&M fills me with sorrow. These women made plans. Resigned other positions. Prepared their homes for sale. Looked for new places to live. They were considering schools for children, saying good-bye to colleagues and friends in places they’d called home. They were excited about a new venture, a chance for a new kind of creativity in their work. Their partners or spouses were reorienting, supporting these smart, powerful women they love.

I wonder about people who demand that someone not be tenured or hired because their scholarship makes someone else uncomfortable. Do they stop to think of the human toll? Do they recognize that these women are not objects to grace the conference room table, but are accomplished people, with lives to manage and contributions to make?

Professor McElroy decided to return to her work at UT-Austin. She’s grateful, I’m sure, but perhaps also awkward. Do her colleagues at UT believe she no longer wants to be there? Will she feel at home again? What if UT hadn’t welcomed her back?

If the individuals who treated these women this way were treated the same way, I’ll bet that a river of grievance and head-rolling would roar down like a waterfall.

At UNC, the Hannah-Jones situation was not our first or last rodeo with outside political interference. They come fast and furious, sometimes bursting onto public view and always eroding campus morale.

We are hardly alone. Texas, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Georgia, Tennessee: the list of public higher education institutions under fire becomes longer by the day. But these controversies are not just headlines. The costs to the individuals involved – and to all of us – are steep.

The United States has the greatest university system in the world, responsible for scientific, artistic and economic advancement across generations. We know how to fly the plane, thank you. If you’re unhappy, let’s talk about it. If you don’t like the airline, choose a different one.

But unless you want me to pick your pilots, let faculty and administrators hire professors.

Dr. Mimi Chapman

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Related News:

In alarming and related news, Joy Alonzo, an expert on the opioid epidemic and a professor in Texas A&M University’s Department of Pharmacy Practice, was recently placed on administrative leave and investigated simply for raising questions about the political interference in higher education. 

Follow this link to read more about this incredibly chilling and horrific situation.

Who’s “Obsessed”?

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The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal has an obsession with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

In a July 10 post, the Center breathlessly declared, “Chapel Hill’s DEI Obsession Was Mandated at the Top: The Martin Center has uncovered a startling email from the chancellor’s office.”

In tones that echo UFO conspiracists, the post said DEI plans at UNC “may be traceable to an email sent on behalf of UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz in July 2020. The Martin Center obtained a copy of the email via a public records request last month and was startled to find an explicit directive that every Chapel Hill school or unit ‘submit measurable deliverables around diversity and inclusion initiatives’.”

Our response: So what?

DEI initiatives promote fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups that have been underrepresented or discriminated against.

Thirty years ago, as President of Sara Lee Corporation, Paul Fulton – one of our coalition’s founders and Chair of Higher Ed Works – wrote:

“What does strategic diversity really mean? I believe it means creating an environment that is attractive to and embraces a culturally diverse work force. It requires a management and peer attitude that recognizes that each employee has the ability to contribute to the enterprise, and that each has different needs and will require different types of support to succeed.

“The real goal of managing for strategic diversity is to enable all members of the work force, no matter who they are, where they came from, or how different they might be, to perform to their full potential. At Sara Lee, we see this as a goal that is absolutely consistent with our financial goals, because we must have the participation of all of our people if we are to continue to be successful.”

The Martin Center continually attacks our university. We eagerly await the day they say something positive about one of North Carolina’s most valuable assets.

Chapel Hill’s DEI Obsession Was Mandated at the Top

Defending Carolina’s Priceless Gem – Part 2 of 3

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Part 2 – The History and Future of Academic Freedom at UNC

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the second installment of a three-part essay by Lloyd Kramer, a professor of history and former Chair of the Faculty Council at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he has been a faculty member since 1986. This piece was first published by Higher Ed Works.  We have been granted permission to republish it in entirety. If you missed part 1 you can follow this link to access it.

Over most of UNC’s history there were strict limits on academic freedom and free speech, but these limiting interventions often surged in response to the campaigns of Black North Carolinians to achieve freedom and equality.

The history of attacks on academic freedom at UNC

  • In 1829 the African American writer David Walker (who grew up in Wilmington, NC) published an anti-slavery book entitled Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. When copies of Walker’s book began to appear in North Carolina, the state legislature passed laws that criminalized the distribution of “seditious” abolitionist texts.

    No teacher or student could legally distribute abolitionist writings in the state’s schools and universities before the Civil War. There was no academic freedom for faculty or students to use anti-slavery texts at UNC.
  • In 1856 a UNC chemistry professor named Benjamin Hedrick stated in a letter to a local newspaper (not in his classes) that he supported the “Free-Soil” Republican candidate John Fremont in that year’s presidential election.  Both the faculty and Board of Trustees immediately voted to fire Hedrick from the university for his “political” statements about slavery, though another faculty member – the biologist Elisha Mitchell – had previously defended slavery in his public writings. 

    There was no tenure to defend academic freedom or free speech outside the university. Mitchell spoke publicly on the same issue as Hedrick, but Hedrick was fired, and Mitchell was honored. Mt. Mitchell carries his name, and we still have Mitchell Hall at UNC.
  • As Black citizens asserted their rights to vote and hold public office in the decades after the Civil War, the early 20th-century state legislature enacted Jim Crow segregation laws that effectively prevented African Americans from voting and blocked the enrollment of Black students at UNC-Chapel Hill.

    Until the late 1950s, no department could appoint Black faculty members or admit Black students.  There was no faculty control over this aspect of faculty hiring or student admissions.
  • When the Civil Rights Movement gathered strength in the early 1960s, members of the state legislature charged that it was a communist movement. 

    The General Assembly thus passed a speaker ban law which prohibited campus talks by anyone deemed to be a communist sympathizer (meaning also Civil Rights activists).  Academic freedom and free speech were again restricted.
  • In 2015, as some North Carolinians began to call for the removal of Confederate statues and the renaming of university buildings that honored enslavers or Klansmen, the state legislature banned the removal of such statues from public spaces; and the BOT (after renaming one building) passed a 16-year ban on renaming University buildings.

    Angry protestors eventually tore down the “Silent Sam” statue, and the BOT later rescinded its ban on changing the names of buildings, but there was still no legal way for faculty, administrators, or students to freely alter Confederate symbols on their own campuses.
  • In 2021, the faculty at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media recommended Nikole Hannah-Jones for a tenured faculty appointment, but the Board of Trustees stalled the faculty recommendation because of political opposition to her work on the 1619 Project.  Like David Walker in 1829, Hannah-Jones described historical patterns of systemic racism, and some legislators sought to ban her book (like Walker’s book after 1829) from North Carolina schools.

    Although a small majority of the BOT finally approved her appointment, there was strong outside opposition to a faculty recommendation for hiring and tenure, and Hannah-Jones accepted an appointment at another university.

This history of restrictions on academic freedom and faculty control over academic policies (and I have noted only a few salient examples) suggests why the recent faculty letter condemned four proposed or enacted interventions in the sphere of faculty autonomy and expertise. UNC’s long history shows that such actions are now reviving past patterns of legislative interventions, which have always claimed to represent or protect the views of most state citizens outside the university.

Today’s faculty therefore honor the struggles of past generations when they reaffirm the long-developing principles of academic freedom and the hard-earned expertise of academic scholarship.

Current Threats to Academic Freedom and Faculty Expertise

UNC Faculty who signed the recent public letter have good reasons to believe that the University’s national reputation, evolving diversity, and future ability to recruit faculty and graduate students will be adversely affected by new legislative and Board proposals.

We are now regularly losing faculty to private universities because our colleagues (especially faculty of color) are deciding that the struggle to flourish at UNC is not worth the price in their professional and personal lives. 

My own department has lost two valued colleagues to private institutions over the past two years, and our departmental experience is not unusual. People leave for many reasons, but faculty of color feel especially drawn to other places during these times at UNC. 

Recruiting new faculty colleagues will be difficult, however, when job candidates ask about tenure policies at UNC or ask about the university’s future commitment to diversity or ask why the BOT is mandating a new School that was proposed outside the usual academic processes of faculty governance. 

The national standing of UNC is thus threatened in the academic world, so professors are responding with explanations for why they oppose top-down interventions that increasingly affect their professional and intellectual work.

Future Faculty and Students at UNC

We can’t know the issues or concerns that faculty and students will face in future decades, but we can safely assume that the struggle for democracy – and the struggle for academic freedom that helps to sustain democratic societies – will remain important components of their intellectual communities and public lives.

I appreciate the ways in which our academic predecessors challenged recurring attacks on academic freedom by establishing tenure policies, securing faculty control over the curriculum and professional hiring policies, and defending their expertise as scholars and teachers.

We stand on the shoulders of those who built the great system of public universities in the United States, but how can we be sure that these achievements and traditions will endure?

Future generations will look back at our own era to find historical patterns of hostility for university cultures and to look for reassurance in the power of enduring academic values. They will face similar or new challenges in their own time, but they will also be protecting an intellectual baton that was carried in different ways during earlier centuries (even in 2023).

All of us make mistakes, and we cannot easily see the problematic aspects of our own actions or cultures which future generations will recognize and criticize. But choices must be made, and we should take public actions whenever we can – though we never know where our actions may lead or how others may view what we have done.

It seems unlikely that the recent faculty letter will have much immediate impact on policymakers who are trying to transform UNC because they believe it is hostile to conservatism or to their own political ideas.

Some version of a well-funded, new UNC School of Civil Life and Leadership seems to be emerging, whereas academic tenure may well survive for an ever-declining percentage of future university professors. The recent faculty letter thus responded to present-day issues with a defense of long-term principles, but these enduring principles should remain influential in shaping institutional values, memories, and identities.  

By Lloyd Kramer – Professor of History, UNC Chapel Hill

If you missed part 1 you can follow this link to access it.

Guskiewicz on SCOTUS Affirmative Action Ruling

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UNC Chapel Hill shared this response to the June 29th SCOTUS ruling that struck down UNC-Chapel Hill admissions affirmative action practices.

Dear Carolina Community,

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et. al., our case about race-conscious admissions. While not the outcome we hoped for, we respect the Supreme Court’s decision and will follow its guidance.

Carolina is committed to bringing together talented students with different perspectives and life experiences and to making an affordable, high-quality education accessible to the people of North Carolina and beyond. We are passionately public, and that will always be true. Our strategic plan’s first initiative is to “Build our Community Together.” We will build that community with you and work to provide a campus environment where all of our students know they belong and can thrive.

I know that this decision may raise questions about our future and how we fulfill our mission and live out our values. But Carolina is built for this, and we have been preparing for any outcome. Our leadership team will need time to thoroughly review the details of this outcome and its potential impact before determining specifically how we will comply with this decision. In the coming weeks, we will communicate our plans with the campus community.

For more information about this Supreme Court case, you can visit admissionslawsuit.unc.edu.

Sincerely,

Kevin M. Guskiewicz
Chancellor

Coalition Survey Results

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We wanted to know what you think about what’s going on at the University of North Carolina. So, we asked you.

Almost 500 of you – 486, to be exact – responded to our online survey last month. Here is what you told us:

  • You see an inherent value in pursuing higher education, and you are extremely positive toward UNC.
  • You have deep-seated belief that the state legislature is having a negative impact on the UNC system.
  • You believe that professors, faculty, and administration – not politicians – should have the greater role in deciding public university curriculum.
  • You are paying attention to recent debates involving UNC, and you recognize the importance of our coalition.
  • A significant number of you are willing to take action in support of our university and our coalition.

We were struck by your high degree of interest and concern. The poll was lengthy – 33 questions, many with multiple parts. Despite the length, nearly every person who started the survey completed all the questions.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll share more insights from the survey with you.

Important Accreditation Webinar Recording

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If you missed our webinar on accreditation you missed a really great discussion. The recording is now available and you can access it here: Coalition for Carolina Accreditation Webinar Recording

The bill to force an accreditation change is now moving through the NC House. Please contact your NC House Representatives and let them know whether you want to force this dangerous and costly process of continuous disruption in the accrediting process on North Carolina colleges.  Here is the link to who the house representatives are: https://www.ncleg.gov/Members/MemberList/H Please copy and paste this link into your browser.

It will only take you one hour to view the recording, but if you want to get a sense of what was discussed, Joe Killian does an excellent job summarizing the discussion in a piece published in NC Newsline.  Here is an excerpt of what Killian writes:

“A bill that would compel UNC System universities and community colleges to change accreditors flew under the radar in the recent flurry of higher education legislation at the General Assembly. But as Senate Bill 680 clears legislative hurdles on the way to becoming law, the public should pay attention to the “in the weeds” issue of accreditation, a panel of experts said Wednesday.

Accreditation has become a hot-button issue among conservative lawmakers and their political appointees. But the potential harms of making seismic changes to the long-established process are important to understand, the experts agreed.

“Quite frankly, I don’t think anybody’s paid much attention to it,” said Sallie Shuping-Russell, a former member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, of the bill during the Wednesday panel organized by the non-profit Coalition for Carolina.

“Who the heck understands accreditation?” she said.But the issue is “really vitally important,” said Shuping-Russell, who also served two years as a public representative on the board of

Carolina First

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In the 18 months since the Coalition for Carolina was formed, more than 22,000 people have joined our email and social media networks.

We are alumni, friends, family, faculty, students, staff and supporters of the University. Many of us live in North Carolina, and others live in Utah, Maine, Florida, New York, other states, and overseas.

Check out a partial list of our supporters here: https://coalitionforcarolinafoundation.org/

We are Republicans, Independents and Democrats.

We want what is best for Carolina.

Yet, one member of the UNC Board of Trustees continues to attack us on Twitter, on Facebook and in paid newspaper ads.

He claims that our coalition’s “sole purpose is to try to convince North Carolinians that Republican-appointed trustees are hell-bent on destroying the university.”

He is wrong.

What we want is for members of the Board of Trustees – whatever their party or ideology – to put Carolina first.

We want the trustees to embrace and work within the shared governance model that has served Carolina for decades.

We want trustees to advocate for adequate faculty compensation and badly needed repairs and renovations.

We want the trustees to protect tenure – and academic freedom.

We want the trustees to protect Carolina’s accreditation.

We want the trustees – and politicians in Raleigh – to stop meddling in the University’s day-to-day workings.

We want the trustees to stop ambushing the Chancellor and faculty with poorly conceived, ideologically driven new departments and schools.

We want good governance and a spirit of cooperation among trustees, the administration, faculty, students and, yes, alumni.

That spirit is the Carolina Way.

It serves the University far better than shrill partisanship.

Let’s put partisan politics last and Carolina first.

Roger Perry Responds to Trustee’s Attack

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Marty Kotis of Greensboro, a current trustee of UNC-Chapel Hill, last week published an attack on me, the Coalition for Carolina and the University itself. You can read it here.  https://nsjonline.com/article/2023/04/kotis-the-hypocrisy-of-the-coalition-for-carolina/

When I had the honor of serving on the Board of Trustees (2003-2011), trustees put party, politics and personalities aside. We put the University first. Times certainly have changed.

I feel compelled to correct statements Marty made that aren’t true. Marty said I am a Democrat. No, I have been a registered unaffiliated voter for a number of years.

He said our coalition is a partisan vehicle. No, we are Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

He said the University, its administration and former trustees mismanaged finances and failed students and the State of North Carolina. No, that is demonstrably false.

He is correct that when I was a trustee and board chair (2007-2009), Carolina faced severe budget challenges. That’s because the legislature imposed draconian budget cuts on all universities after the 2008 recession. We overcame that challenge. Carolina became one of the nation’s top five university recipients of federal research dollars, $2 billion in revenues. We attracted faculty members who do groundbreaking research that fights AIDS, Covid, genetic diseases like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and other diseases. 

We worked across party lines to secure permanent funding for the Lineberger Cancer Center, which has saved countless lives of North Carolinians and their families. We funded the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), which brings together researchers, government, and industry to develop and deploy advanced technologies that enable research discoveries and practical innovations.

Applications for admission to UNC have soared in the last two decades. Over 57,000 students applied for 4,800 slots in the Class of 2026. These students and their parents don’t think Carolina is failing.

The bipartisanship – truly, the nonpartisanship – behind that success is jeopardized by partisan attacks like Marty’s.

His is part of a national pattern of far-right political attacks on public universities, led by Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Greg Abbott of Texas. Marty’s essay ran in the North State Journal, a conservative publication with close ties to the public relations firm that he and the trustees hired, apparently to attack our Coalition.

They won’t stop us from shining a light on what several of the current trustees are doing. Instead of supporting and advancing the University, they are sowing disruption and disrespect.

Our audience includes thousands of people – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – who are concerned about political interference at Carolina. One example: The legislature has taken away the power of the Governor of North Carolina to appoint any trustees at any university. Why? Because he’s a Democrat. Elected officials certainly should have a voice in the University. But legislators represent 170 separate districts. The governor, Democrat or Republican, represents the whole state.

Historically, UNC has been served well by shared governance: trustees, administration, faculty and student leaders working together. Today, we see pure politics, not good governance.

Our Coalition will stand up to political attacks. We will stand up for the University’s independence and academic integrity. We will stand up for the light that is the University of North Carolina.

Roger Perry

Politicizing College Accreditation

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The legislature, specifically the NC Senate, appears to be trying to make college and community college accreditation a political issue, which it never should be. Accreditation is a highly focused, disciplined process for all schools that receive certain federal contracts as well as those whose students receive certain scholarships, particularly Pell grants – federal needs-based scholarships that fund full-time and part-time college and vocational school students. The proposed Senate bill ( use this link if you get an error as they sometimes block referrals from our website https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2023/S680) may sound innocuous, but it isn’t. Its key tenets are:

  • It requires UNC system schools and community colleges to change accreditors every accreditation cycle (about every 10 years).
  • It requires that the new accreditor to be chosen from “a preferred list” that is compiled by the Board of Governors.  
  • It allows one party to sue a person who raises an accreditation issue that leads to a college being found to be “out of compliance” for accreditation if that person is determined to have made a false statement (a reasonable sounding process that in past instances has chilled whistleblowers who fear that their truth will be labeled lies).

It is always risky to change accreditors, but when politicians are trying to drive an accreditor change and dictate the list from which a new creditor can be chosen, it becomes dangerous.  

In addition to the fundamental actions imposed by the bill, cited above, let’s delineate a few more concerns raised with inadequate accreditation:

  1. Potential loss of $1.5 billion in federal financial aid funds: this is the amount Carolina alone receives in federal financial aid funds; the total system received much more. This does not include research funding of other institutional grants which may rely on a recipient being accredited.  
  • The process becomes politicized when politicians are the driving force behind changing accreditors.  Lack of political influence is a core piece of all significant accrediting agencies so this alone would pose a problem to most reputable and highly quality accreditors.
  • Threats to Academic STANDARDS:  Accreditation helps ensure a certain academic quality across different colleges and universities; and therefore, protects students, faculty and the value of degrees for those who have already graduated. If politicians force colleges to change accreditors without a valid reason or sufficient evidence, it threatens academic quality and undermines the integrity of the institution.
  • Impact on Reputation:  Changing accreditors can create a perception that an institution has failed to meet the standards of its previous accreditor, which can have a negative impact on its reputation. This will not only effect enrolled students, but past graduates.
  • Loss of Institutional Knowledge: Accreditation requires a deep understanding of a college or university’s operations, policies, and procedures. When an institution changes accreditors, it loses that institutional knowledge and expertise that it has built up over many years.  New agencies would take much longer and place a much more significant burden on administrators when they have to acquaint new accreditors with their policies and practices.   This adds administrative costs to the schools.
  • Students who transfer to another institution or who seek additional educational degrees risk not being accepted if their degree comes from a school that has a lower standard of accreditation.   

According to the Urban Institute, “The accreditation system in American higher education began in the late 1800s and early 1900s as a way for colleges and universities with high academic standards to distinguish themselves from institutions that claimed to be colleges but had curricula similar to many high schools (Harcleroad 1980).”  Accreditation is intended to be an objective process that evaluates academic quality based on agreed-upon standards. One concern of all accreditors is that the institutions not have undue influence by political decision-makers or influencers as politicization undermines objectivity and credibility in the scholarly process and erodes academic freedom.

What happens when an accrediting agency has a concern regarding the actions or activities of a member institution? The accrediting agency contacts the institution and asks for clarification, initially in the form of a relatively standard letter.   This is what happened when UNC’s accrediting agency, SACSCOC, sent a letter to Chancellor Guskiewicz earlier this year asking for more information about the recent action by Carolina’s trustees regarding the proposed School of Civic Life and Leadership.   Chancellor Guskiewicz responded, providing detail about how the university intended to assess and, if approved by the faculty, create the new program.   That satisfied, and therefore concluded, the SACSCOC query here.

When the institution responds the agency decides whether the answer was sufficient to satisfy the question. If it is sufficient, there is no further action — as was the recent case with Carolina.   If it is not sufficient, there will be further conversations between the accrediting agency and the school.  Sometimes additional information is needed and at times penalties are imposed.  It is everyone’s goal – the accreditor and the school – for the accreditation to stand.

Chancellor Guskiewicz’s response to the recent SACSCOC letter satisfied the agency that proper processes were being followed at this time.  However, that did not satisfy our legislature.  Almost as soon as Senator Berger learned that SACSCOC intended “to send a letter” asking for clarification about the proposed new program – standard procedure when an accreditor has a question – he introduced bill 680, (Revise Higher Ed Accreditation Processes). This was his reaction to a presentation by the head of SACSCOC to the Governor’s Commission on the Governance of Public Universities in North Carolina. 

Recall Chief Justice Felix Frankfurter’s four essential freedoms of a college or university in deciding Sweezy vs New Hampshire: Universities have the right (1) to determine who may teach; (2) what can be taught; (3) how it is taught; and (4) who will be admitted.  Pushing changes in accreditation harms these essential institutional freedoms.  Further, Carolina is currently accredited by the highest level and quality of external accreditation.  Changing accreditors from an accreditor like SACSCOC would likely result in a lower quality accreditation of our programs, which would damage past, present, and future generations.   

Because of the serious consequences noted above, we’ve decided to host a webinar with a panel to discuss the potential ramifications of Senate Bill 680.  We’ll send out invitations to the webinar once the logistics are complete.  In the meantime, we want to point out that this draft bill sponsored by Senator Berger also raises alarms and concerns because it seems eerily similar to the extremist action that Ron DeSantis took in Florida against their college accreditor, but with an even more severe twist given its allowance of litigation.

It is critical that we not stand still here.   Contact representatives and alert your neighbors to the threats this bill proposes.  The vast majority of colleges and universities in the southeast are accredited by SACSCOC.  If the North Carolina university system and community colleges seek a lessor accreditor we all stand to lose.

We’ve posted images of the entire draft bill on our website.  Follow this link to read the draft bill.

Please attend and give input at the Governor’s Commission meetings.  You can participate in person or virtually.  Follow this link for the schedule.