On March 23, UNC-Chapel Hill and the Hunt Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy severed their ties.
The official statement claims that under the new Board of Governors regulations, the institute would have to make drastic changes to align more closely with the university’s interests, even though the recent UNC campus review praised the Hunt Institute’s accomplishments.
The institute was founded by former governor of North Carolina James B. Hunt Jr. and officially became part of UNC-CH in 2008. The Hunt Institute has worked toward improvements in state public education and has national recognition as an institute where state leaders convene to learn about educational policy issues.
The Hunt Institute’s goals certainly seem to align with the UNC System’s mission, which is “to discover, create, transmit and apply knowledge to address the needs of individuals and society.”
This mission also, as directly quoted from the BOG’s website, is to “impart the skills necessary for individuals to lead responsible, productive, and personally satisfying lives; through research, scholarship, and creative activities, which advance knowledge and enhance the educational process; and through public service, which contributes to the solution of societal problems and enriches the quality of life in the State.”
Additionally, while reading the strategic planning brochure, which summarizes goals through the year 2018, I saw that the BOG wants to create a system of great North Carolina schools, from providing excellent secondary education to putting highly trained teachers back into the public school system. If this is truly the case, the BOG logically should be investing more into educational leadership and policy instead of illogically insisting that the Hunt Institute’s interests are not in harmony with UNC.
Following the highly politicized appointment of Margaret Spellings, president of the BOG, earlier this year and the elimination of three centers for poverty, biodiversity and voter engagement last year, it has become clear to me that the UNC System is losing sight of its mission.
Of course, ideological disputes are to blame. Many are quick to claim the severance of these centers is due to their association with liberal leaders — first Jim Hunt, a well-known democrat, and Gene Nichol, the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity director, who was outspoken against the BOG’s hardline Republican leadership.
Leaders have been quick to condemn the political attempts to reshape the university system to fit a more conservative image.
In response to the elimination of funding to the poverty center at UNC-CH, Adrienne Harreveld, a research coordinator at the center, stated in the Duke Chronicle, “I’m terrified for what this means for academic freedom. It seems to me that the state is sending a message that academic freedom is only meant for the private sphere. This is entirely contradictory to the purpose of higher education.”
Nichol wrote, “An ill wind blows across the UNC System. Its chill does not go unnoticed, as faculty members alter their research agendas and temper their investigations. The members of the Board of Governors have demonstrated unfitness for their high office. Their actions represent a profound, partisan, and breathtakingly shortsighted abuse of power.”
Jarvis Hall, director of the recently shut down Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change, stated that these decisions go against the Board’s own policies and cited the UNC Policy Manual 400.5[R], which invests each individual campus with the authority to “authorize establishment and discontinuation of institutional centers and institutes.”
Reading through the Board’s policy manual myself, I found even more incriminating evidence that the BOG is failing to respect its own policies. Policy 200.1 states, “The Board of Governors seeks at all times to be fair and impartial in carrying out its responsibilities and tries to avoid even the appearance of partiality or undue influence.”
The partiality at play in the political battles at the top of the UNC System is extraordinarily transparent. The fact that centers have done good work and research for important causes doesn’t seem to matter, nor do the policies that are meant to police the power of the BOG and support the mission of our system of universities.
Petty politics deserve no place in higher learning. The censorship of ideas is counterproductive to the purpose of education. The BOG needs to respect the rights of universities to make decisions about the centers and institutes affiliated with them.
While the Hunt Institute will carry on independently and with a more ambitious agenda, our university system would be stronger affiliated with the Hunt Institute. The BOG has not been consistent with its mission and needs to stop short-changing the students, faculty and even the state that it directly affects.
