Forums nixed for UNC chancellor search, reversing plans to get feedback in fall
UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, staff and alumni will not have the chance to offer input this fall on the ongoing search for the university’s 13th chancellor — marking a clear reversal from a previous promise.
Original plans for a second round of public listening sessions were nixed, chancellor search committee chair Cristy Page told reporters last week after a committee meeting. The committee received enough public input from the forums it held in the spring and its online survey, she said.
“Based on the number of people who participated in the survey and the listening sessions, and the quality of the information that we got from those sessions, and then the quality of what we got from this last round of surveys, we don’t think there’s necessarily added value to do that again,” Page said.
The switch comes a few months after UNC System President Peter Hans’ chief of staff Norma Houston said during the committee’s first meeting on March 21 that plans were in the works to hold more listening session during the fall semester.
“What Anita and I have discussed is setting up a second round of listening sessions in the fall semester that the search firm would facilitate so that we really get input in two phases,” Houston said in that meeting, referring to Anita Brown-Graham, who serves as a special adviser to the committee.
In addition to gathering input via survey, the committee held five listening sessions in the spring, one for each stakeholder group: faculty, staff, graduate students, undergraduate students and alumni. Most were held in April, with the alumni forum taking place in June. The committee’s website with information about the open forums states, “additional sessions will be scheduled in the future.”
Page said the committee was surprised by how much guidance the UNC community provided the committee. The responses to the survey were “hundreds of pages” long and were used when the committee created the candidate profile describing qualities the group would like to see in the next chancellor.
‘What’s happening behind closed doors’
Alexander Denza, a senior at UNC and organizer with student groups Southern Student Action Coalition and TransparUNCy, said he thinks the decision is an excuse to avoid rising tensions in the fall after a spring semester marked by protests.
He also thinks there’s a deeper reason the committee cut the second round of public feedback sessions.
To Denza, the committee has already selected interim Chancellor Lee Roberts to remain in the post permanently. He is confident the resources and time allocated for the search for UNC’s next chancellor are to “make it look fair.”
“They selected the chancellor the day that he was appointed interim chancellor,” Denza said.
More than 500 students signed a letter published in The Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s independent student newspaper, that expressed outrage that there were only one or two committee members present at the forums for undergraduate and graduate students. The student authors, including Denza, called the listening sessions “a gross disregard to our right to voice our considerations to the search advisory committee” in the spring.
“My biggest concerns are about what’s happening behind closed doors,” he said.
At a meeting of the Faculty Executive Committee this month, Sue Estroff, a social medicine professor at UNC, expressed a similar concern.
“I fear that the chancellor search is already over, and I don’t have a lot of confidence in the process,” she said.
A six- to nine-month timeline
At its July 17 meeting, the search committee spent the majority of its time in closed session. As the ambitious goal of naming a chancellor by the end of 2024 nears, Laurie Wilder, president of Parker Executive Search, the firm leading the search effort, said the timing between identifying and naming a candidate must be quick to ensure complete confidentiality.
More than 2,500 members of the UNC community responded to the online survey launched by the chancellor, providing feedback about characteristics they want to see in the university’s next leader. In a meeting in June, the committee reviewed the survey results. Responses included that the university should improve in recruiting and supporting faculty and staff and creating a sense of belonging for all.
Hans told reporters after the meeting that chancellor searches usually take six to nine months, though “everything is more complicated in Chapel Hill.”
“Thanks to Dr. Page’s leadership and wonderful engagement from the campus community, we were able to wrap up a little bit earlier than expected in terms of engagements in the listening sessions,” Hans said.
The search committee must recruit and interview candidates for the position and present a list of finalists to the UNC Board of Trustees. Based on that information, the Board of Trustees will select at least three finalists to submit to Hans. Hans can interview the finalists and then choose one nominee to submit to the UNC System Board of Governors for a vote, or return the list to the Board of Trustees.
The Board of Governors then votes on Hans’ nominee, including details like salary.
While chancellor searches are confidential in the UNC System, the final vote to hire the chancellor will occur in a public meeting. The identities of candidates may not be released publicly, according to system policy, meaning the public won’t know who is recruited for the position until the Board of Governors votes on the nominee.
The search committee did not announce a date for its next meeting. Updates on future meetings will be available at chancellorsearch.unc.edu.
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This story was originally published July 24, 2024 at 11:24 AM.
