We have a ritual that’s formed in the Quad newsroom. Every few weeks we say, “You know, we’ve published a lot about UNC-Chapel Hill recently. We should prioritize other schools.” Then, without fail, some UNC-CH story develops that we can’t ignore.
This is one of those weeks.
I was already working through some intriguing public records before last week’s barnburner of a Board of Trustees meeting, then Erin got some of her own. And thus this week’s light-blue-tinged syllabus below.
This is all to say that when you have a prominent flagship institution in a purple state that graduated a sixth of the General Assembly, it’s going to take up a lot of oxygen. But we take our mandate to cover the full breadth of North Carolina’s colleges seriously, and that’s not changing. Send us tips about what we should be looking at in the rest of the state: highered@theassemblync.com.
— Matt Hartman
📚 Today’s Syllabus
1. Why UNC-CH considered opening a campus in Michigan
2. Roberts agreed to spring tenure delay, provost said. What have other states done?
3. Comings and goings across the state
4. Research fraud allegations at UNC Asheville and other reading
UNC at Chapel Hill at Flint, Michigan
The first thing I noticed while scrolling through a batch of documents I got for a story about UNC-CH a couple months ago was the name “Prometheus Task Force,” which is just the kind of high-falutin title to catch my attention. Then I noticed some data about Kettering University—which I admit I had to Google—and the phrase “UNC School of Engineering — Kettering Campus of Automotive Excellence.”
Once I slowed down, I realized I was reading a proposal for UNC-CH to purchase an engineering school in Michigan and run it as a satellite campus. The plan emerged last spring as a way for UNC-CH to meet a proposal in the General Assembly that the university open an engineering school. Talks were serious enough that Chapel Hill officials were in touch with Kettering’s president, the documents show.
UNC-CH says the plan is dead now. But the fact that it was seriously considered speaks to the shifting economics of higher ed, as university officials try to develop programs that will meet workforce needs. And it offers a little insight into how UNC-CH officials are trying to avoid their new engineering school competing with N.C. State’s program.
🔥
— Matt Hartman
Correction: A previous version of this item said the General Assembly required UNC-CH to open an engineering school. That proposal didn’t become law.
Thanks for reading The Quad, a higher education newsletter written by Matt Hartman and Erin Gretzinger and edited by Emily Stephenson. Reach us with tips or ideas at highered@theassemblync.com.
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Tenuous Tenure
Last Friday, The Assembly obtained emails via a public records request in which UNC-CH Provost Chris Clemens said Chancellor Lee Roberts agreed with the Board of Trustees’ controversial move to delay tenure votes this spring.
“The trustees have decided that they are going to address a pending financial crisis by holding up votes on awarding tenure to faculty,” Clemens wrote in a May 3 email. “The Chancellor has agreed to this strategy based on a net present cost evaluation of the faculty who receive permanent tenure.”
Net present cost is an accounting method used to analyze the lifetime cost of an investment, which Clemens told Roberts was the wrong way to think about tenure. “With all due respect, this argument is incorrect,” Clemens wrote, arguing that it neglected the value faculty generated over time.
We received the records just two days after the board had a heated discussion on the value of tenure. While Roberts told The Assembly that tenure isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, the tenure system has come under scrutiny in other states and in the North Carolina legislature.
At least 11 states have in recent years proposed bills that would roll back academic tenure, with some lawmakers calling for banning the 110-year old system. All the bills have been pushed under Republican-led legislatures, except in Hawaii, where it was introduced by a Democrat.
In Texas, though a legislative proposal to end tenure didn’t become law, the state tightened the faculty review process and handed power to governing boards to fire tenured professors. In Ohio, the threat to tenure came in a bill that will subject tenured faculty to annual student evaluations, including on questions about ideological bias in the classroom, and they can be fired for poor reviews.
North Carolina saw similar debates in 2023, when a group of Republicans introduced House Bill 715, which would have eliminated tenure across the UNC System. The bill would have also entrusted boards of trustees with “regularly evaluating and eliminating unnecessary or redundant expenses, personnel, and areas of study.”
Though the legislation did not pass, the UNC System’s Board of Governors called for a more rigorous and uniform faculty review procedure a few months after HB 715 was filed. In January 2024, the system adopted a post-tenure review policy that recognizes faculty when they exceed expectations and sanctions faculty who don’t.
While the boards of trustees at each UNC school are involved in the process to approve tenure cases and set eligibility requirements at the institution level, the Board of Governors has the chief authority over general tenure policy and procedures that each university and board must follow. The UNC System did not respond to The Assembly’s request for comment on the recent tenure discussions at UNC-CH and the future of tenure across the system.
With more universities looking to tighten their belts, we’re keeping an eye out to see if other schools besides UNC-CH scrutinize tenure’s financial obligations and make changes. Duke University School of Medicine, for example, has proposed plans to impose faculty productivity guidelines that would tie tenured faculty salaries to a minimum expectation for external grant funding.
— Lucas Lin
Class Introductions
Jeff Cox, the president of the North Carolina Community College System, announced he will retire in June 2026. Cox, who many saw as stabilizing the system after a lot of turnover, is the seventh president to leave the system in the last decade.
Diana Lawrence, the associate vice president for communications at Dartmouth College, was named UNC Greensboro’s vice chancellor for strategic communications.
Donna Curtis McClatchey, the treasurer of the Curtis Foundation of Raleigh, and Kristin Baker, a former state Republican representative who recently retired, were nominated to the UNC Health System board of directors.
Kecia Williams Smith and Radiah Corn Minor were named interim deans at N.C. A&T University’s schools for business and agriculture, respectively.
Porter Durham, a Charlotte-based lawyer, was nominated to the UNC Press Board of Governors.
Sarah Soule, the CEO of the marketing and technology company Home Solutions, was nominated to the Project Kitty Hawk board of directors.
Assigned Reading
Friends in High Places: In 2008, Emily wrote for The Daily Tar Heel about her then-roommate, Zena Cardman, who had participated in a Mars simulation as a sophomore at UNC-CH. “The experience was also a preview of her dream career as a NASA astronaut,” Emily wrote. Last week, Cardman arrived at the International Space Station as commander of the SpaceX Crew-11 mission. Read more here.
Data Watchdogs: When a UNC Asheville researcher began to suspect that a state-funded research project was falsifying data, he raised the issue with the project leaders. Then he was fired. The researcher, Aidan Settman, filed a lawsuit contesting the dismissal, which he lost on the grounds that he was an independent contractor and not covered by whistleblower protections. Settman filed an appeal last month, and the Asheville Watchdog has all the details.
Community College Clashes: In The New York Times’ look at how President Donald Trump’s war on higher ed has hurt community colleges prominently features Durham Tech and President JB Buxton. One of Durham Tech’s programs that helped prepare women and nonbinary people for work in construction had its federal grant pulled.
Leaving an Echo: Our partners at INDY highlight the lasting impact of Bruce dePyssler, the longtime editor of the CampusEcho, North Carolina Central University’s student newspaper, who retired this summer after two decades at the school.
Let us know what’s on your radar at highered@theassemblync.com.