UNC document shows School of Civic Life details, $5 million potential budget request
A document circulating among UNC-Chapel Hill faculty provides insight into potential funding requests for the controversial School of Civic Life and Leadership proposed by the university’s Board of Trustees last month.
The document, provided to The News & Observer by professor Michael Palm, shows that $5 million in recurring funds is being requested for the 2023-2024 fiscal year to create the proposed school.
A UNC spokesperson confirmed in an email Friday that the document is “a draft budget memo” developed by Provost Christopher Clemens in consultation with College of Arts and Sciences dean Jim White “and others across campus.” According to the document, the proposed School of Civic Life and Leadership would be housed in the college.
“The provost has referred to this draft in public comments and shared it with multiple stakeholders,” the UNC spokesperson said via email.
Among other responsibilities, the university provost is responsible for “major resource allocation decisions relative to state funding and overhead funds.”
“He prepares budget requests for academic and capital projects that are forwarded to UNC General Administration for review and approval,” an online description of the provost’s responsibilities reads.
Request asks for $5 million in recurring funds
The $5 million appropriation requested in the draft document for the 2023-2024 fiscal year would “be used to support development of the school, hiring of leadership, faculty, programming, staff, and expansion of the curricular work of the existing Program for Public Discourse,” the document reads.
The $5 million requested for that year “represents the full annualized amount of these needs,” the document reads.
The document includes a table of what appears to be anticipated expenses of the school for four consecutive years, through the 2026-2027 fiscal year. An expected $6 million “of additional needs” would be needed “to develop the school” in the 2025-2027 fiscal years, the document states.
The document says the university expects state-appropriated funds to the school will be “matched with private support.” Specific donors or sources of that financial support are not listed.
The requests are being made to fulfill objectives outlined in the university’s strategic plan, according to the document, “in light of the increased challenges of political polarization.”
Document includes details about possible degree programs
The document also includes information about potential degree programs in “civic studies” to be offered at the School of Civic Life and Leadership, referred to as “SCiLL” throughout the document.
“A new Civic Studies major and minor will prepare students to become active citizens and thoughtful leaders in corporations, government, and the academy in North Carolina and around the world by cultivating the capacities necessary to conduct good-faith dialogue with those with whom they disagree,” the document states.
The document outlines potential courses to be included in the degree programs, saying “introductory” and “foundational” classes would be “modeled after after nationally recognized courses,” such as those offered through the Civil Discourse Project at Duke University.
Other courses in the school would be “primarily thematic, providing the opportunity to bring into critical conversation different viewpoints from literature, art, science, and philosophy from around the globe in addition to the intellectual sources that shaped and continue to inspire the American political tradition,” the document states.
The document also mentions an “option of a residential academic experience” provided in the school’s curriculum for first- and second-year students.
“By living and learning alongside their classmates, students will build the ‘rapport,’ trust, and intellectual friendships necessary to have constructive disagreements in the classroom, thereby inspiring the ‘culture of listening, respect, and civil discussion for advancing democratic values and effectiveness in our campus community, North Carolina, and the world,’” the document states.
Consistent with the Board of Trustees’ resolution proposing the School of Civic Life and Leadership, which stated the school could be “potentially nested within an existing college or school,” the document states that the school would be housed within the university’s College of Arts and Sciences.
“The new school will operate as a division within the College, along with Fine Arts and Humanities, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Social Sciences and Global Programs,” the document states. “SCiLL will include the department of Civic Life and Leadership and the Program on Public Discourse, which will report to the director of SCiLL.”
Proposed school has been met with faculty pushback
The university Board of Trustees at its January meeting passed a resolution requesting university administration to “accelerate its development” of the school.
The item was not on the meeting agenda, but board chair David Boliek introduced the resolution toward the end of the meeting, saying he had “walked on” the resolution.
The proposed school has been described by the board and Clemens as a way to expand the university’s Program for Public Discourse, which officially launched in 2019 and was met in its planning stages with controversy over alleged conservative leanings, influences and funding sources.
Some discussion of the resolution and school has also involved UNC’s IDEAs in Action curriculum, which launched for first-year students last fall. The curriculum includes instruction in the area of oral communication, which university leadership and faculty have said necessitates increasing the university’s capacity to teach those skills.
Since passing the resolution, the board has come under fire by faculty at the university for skirting typical shared governance structures.
Faculty have said they were not aware of the proposed school prior to the board’s resolution, a contrast to how academic units have previously been proposed at the university, such as the School of Data Science and Society.
The data science school launched last fall, more than two years after the Board of Trustees endorsed a formal feasibility plan to establish it. The proposal for that school was developed over roughly a year, from May 2019 to February 2020, with input from more than 100 faculty, staff and students, and stemmed from previous data science initiatives at the university dating back to 2012.
“I think that’s part of the frustration here, is that everybody was completely surprised by this,” Palm told The N&O in a phone interview Friday.
This story was originally published February 10, 2023 at 2:48 PM.
