File photo of UNC Board of Governors Chairman Harry Smith and UNC system President Margaret Spellings. The UNC Board of Governors, which oversees North Carolina's public universities, has voted to changed the way chancellor searches are conducted.
The UNC Board of Governors, which oversees North Carolina's public universities, has voted to changed the way chancellor searches are conducted. The new policy includes a section on confidentiality mandating that candidates' identities not be disclosed to the public.
The change comes after a lone member of the board hired an outside firm to run a background check on a finalist for the chancellor job at Western Carolina University. That finalist dropped out of the search soon afterwards and the process fell apart.
At the time, 10 former board members from both sides of the political aisle signed onto an editorial criticizing the current board, which is almost entirely Republican, for "clearly bad governance." Current board chair Harry Smith addressed the criticism after the board's vote yesterday.
“I did not make it a press platform to go out and talk about all the things that this board has decided to tackle, and I’m not going to do that,” he said.
As a result of the new chancellor hiring policy, members of the Board of Governors will have more time to review finalists, but will not sit on campus search committees.
Ten former members of the UNC Board of Governors have accused the sitting board of practicing bad governance.
Tensions on the UNC Board of Governors remain high, a month after the board's chairman wrote an op-ed calling for the board to be united.
Updated Dec. 15 | 3:53 p.m.
On Friday the University of North Carolina Board of Governors heard from a conservative scholar advocating against 'campus illiberalism,' and also voted to approve a controversial free speech policy.