The Board of Governors, the governing body of the UNC System, discussed manners to enhance the importance of service at its 16 institutions at its October meeting Friday at the Spangler Center in Chapel Hill.

Much of Friday’s meeting was spent recognizing the 2009 recipient of the Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Public Service. James R. Cook, associate professor of psychology at UNC Charlotte, received the honor for his commitment to improving the lives of disadvantaged people in his community and for encouraging his students to value community service.

The BOG also discussed revising the mission statements of each school to better reflect a commitment to public service on behalf of the faculty and staff.

Chancellor Jim Woodward said the award and the discussion over revision of the mission statements “strongly emphasize the direction the Board of Governors is trying to take in regards to community involvement.”

“N.C. State has already shown a commitment to public service, and is leading the other universities of our system in making our campuses more involved in their communities,” Woodward said.

The board also voted to adopt a University Sustainability Policy, which applies to all universities in the system.  The policy states that the UNC System “shall establish sustainable development and resource management, or ‘sustainability,’ as a core value of institutional operations, planning, capital construction and purchasing practices.”

“This shows another priority of the UNC School System, to make all our campuses more sustainable,” Woodward said. “NC State has already taken steps to make our campus environmentally-friendly, so we are leading the System in this goal as well.”

On Thursday the five committees of the BOG met to review and finalize decisions to be voted on in Friday’s meeting by the entire board. The committees include Audit, Budget and Finance, Education Planning, Personnel and Tenure, and Governance.

Greg Doucette, N.C. Central Law School student, served as N.C. State’s Student Senate president in 2007 and 2008 and is now the president of the UNC Association of Student Governments. This gives him an automatic spot on the UNC BOG to serve as a representative of the students of the UNC System.

Doucette serves on the Budget and Finance Committee, which passed an authorization for work to be done on the Dan Allen parking deck.

“The board is also discussing the retreat rights of faculty that serve in administrative positions and are going back to their regular jobs,” Doucette said. “The common practice is to give six months to a year of leave time in order for administrators to reacquaint themselves with their previous teaching jobs. Nothing was decided yet but the board will continue discussing the current retreat rights system in the November meeting.”

The Board of Governors will meet next Nov. 13.