NCCU meeting piques media

Chancellor search kept mostly secret

DURHAM -- A recent meeting at which N.C. Central University's Board of Trustees discussed candidates for the university's top job may have been conducted illegally.

Amanda Martin, general counsel for the N.C. Press Association, has questioned a May 12 meeting where trustees discussed potential successors for James Ammons, who will step down in June.

Unless an emergency arises, public bodies are required to give 48 hours notice prior to meeting; the May 12 meeting was held less than 24 hours after it was announced. NCCU officials say it was an emergency meeting -- or a "special call" meeting in university parlance.

But Martin said the meeting didn't rise to the level of an emergency. Rather, the meeting was an expected, predictable part of the search process, she said.

"There's nothing unexpected in a chancellor search -- you know the assignment, and you know the timetable," she said. "It does not sound like they're complying with the law."

NCCU officials say they announced the time and location of the meeting as soon as they were given the details. The emergency stemmed from the need for the university to remain on its planned timeline so UNC system President Erskine Bowles would have three finalists to choose from in June, said Rosalind Fuse-Hall, assistant to Ammons.

"In my mind, it's an equivalent to an emergency meeting," Fuse-Hall said. "It wasn't a regular meeting."

Leslie Winner, general counsel for the UNC system, disagreed with NCCU's view on the meeting but defended the university's intentions.

"I think I would have reached a different conclusion," she said. "But I don't see where they were acting in bad faith."

The trustee board met again Friday and ran into another legal question. Though the meeting was held via conference call and largely in closed session, media members were not allowed to listen to the public portion. NCCU officials subsequently acknowledged the oversight and are now trying to determine whether they were legally required to provide that access.

Ann Lemmon, a UNC system administrator who works closely with campuses during chancellor searches, said NCCU officials gave notice for search committee and trustee meetings just as they have in the past.

"There was no intent to do anything differently," Lemmon said.

NCCU officials did not divulge the identities of the three unranked finalists.

Last week, students and faculty members expressed concerns over the handling of the search, which, they said, has proceeded too rapidly and without adequate community participation. One gaffe in particular has drawn ire: Diverse, a magazine in which NCCU's job opening was advertised, erroneously put an N.C. State University logo atop the ad. It was later corrected.