UNC's Tom Ross resigns from BCBSNC board

UNC President-elect Tom Ross is leaving the corporate board governing Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina.

Ross, chosen late last month to head the 17-campus public university system, had joined the BCBSNC board earlier this year. Under the organization's bylaws, board members who change jobs must offer to step down, and the board then decides whether to accept the resignation.

But Ross has made clear he plans to leave the board.

(photo courtesy Davidson College)

In a letter to Jeffrey Houpt. the former UNC-Chapel Hill med school dean and current chair of the BCBSNC board, Ross writes in part that membership on corporate boards doesn't make sense for him right now.

"I know that I have much to learn in my new position, and that I will have many demands on my time, particularly during the first year of my service," wrote Ross, the current president at Davidson College. "Thus I have concluded that at this early stage of my work at the university it is not in my best interest or that of the university for me to devote the time necessary to properly fulfill the duties of a corporate board member."

His resignation will be effective Oct. 15.

Ross succeeds Erskine Bowles as UNC's president on Jan. 1. He has been lauded as a builder of consensus throughout a long career largely in the public sector.

The Blue Cross board has a distinct UNC system influence. The organization's CEO, Brad Wilson, is a former chairman of the UNC system's Board of Governors and still an emeritus member. He was also a member of the search committee that interviewed Ross for the UNC post, creating a conflict of interest. So, he sat out that interview, he told the News & Observer.

A News & Observer editorial today pushes Ross to leave the BCBSNC post, saying his new job with UNC requires his full attention.