Biting the hand that feeds you
Have you ever heard so much whining from people who make six figures a year and work — maybe — 12 hours per week? THAT is the liberal majority on the University of North Carolina faculty: 
A UNC system faculty group has told a major higher education accrediting body that actions by North Carolina’s legislature and the UNC Board of Governors could put state public universities’ accreditation at risk.
The UNC system’s Faculty Assembly, made up of representatives from the 17 public campuses, sent a memo Saturday to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. The Atlanta-based organization monitors financial, governance and academic standards for colleges and universities in the region, and has the power to sanction them.
The memo included a copy of a January resolution by the Faculty Assembly that expressed “serious concerns about the implications of the actions” of the legislature and the Board of Governors.[…]
*You’re idiots, and you’re ruining our fun. Now, shut up and give us more money!* (Where else but in government could you get away with something like t
his?)
MORE:
[…] Gabriel Lugo, chairman of the Faculty Assembly and a professor at UNC Wilmington, said sending the memo to the commission was a difficult decision. Lugo worked intensely on the last accreditation review at his campus, which he said UNCW passed with flying colors. Faculty generally want a rock solid accreditation, which signals academic quality and ensures access to federal dollars.
Accreditation standards are rooted in integrity, Lugo said, and faculty felt duty bound to raise concerns. He said he hoped the legislature and the UNC board would take seriously the issues raised, before the threat of any accreditation sanctions.
“That would be an extreme thing, and I am hoping it doesn’t get there,” Lugo said. “I am hoping that this is basically a wake-up call, that there are many things that are being done that may be damaging to the reputation of the university.”[…]
Oh, like the cr
onyism and other assorted nonsense at Appalachian State? The harassment of the token conservative professor at UNCW? The B.S. African-American Studies program at Chapel Hill? The Queer Studies program at Chapel Hill? The threats of violence — and actual violence –against conservative speakers and students at the Chapel Hill campus? ANY OF THAT STUFF DAMAGING?
Yes, folks. We had a historic opportunity to reform and remake the UNC system during the McCrory era — and BLEW IT. It was apparently more important to stack the governing boards with high-dollar seat-warmers and ignore the disparity of conservative faculty on UNC campuses.
If there are any cojones left on Jones Street, Margaret Spellings — at budget time — needs to go on the record defending the necessity of, say, Comparative Queer Politics and Gene Nichol’s continued employment.
Great post, Brant. You are so right on point. Did the GOP ever blow an historic opportunity to reform our system of higher education. The radical left is now in total control of the UNC system and has actually strengthened its stranglehold since the Republicans took power in 2010. Margaret Spellings is simply a placeholder drawing an obscene salary for doing nothing. The Board of Governors is beyond rescue at this point. The ballgame is effectively over–and Gene Nichols and his pals won. Sadly, I don’t think the GOP leadership in NC even cares anymore.
Those issues in the article are just stupid political posturing. Whaaa we may not get all the money we want! Whaaa the people that authorize our system want to have their people running the system!
The quote by Kotis is right on: ” the UNC system is owned by the taxpayers, not the current batch of students or faculty.”
Yes, the UNC system is owned by the taxpayers, but the GOP legislature operates the system for and on behalf of the taxpayers. Sadly, the GOP legislature has demonstrated total incompetence in its oversight of the UNC system. Most of its appointees to the Board of Governors have been clueless RINO dingbats or RINOs actually hostile to conservative reform of the leftist UNC system. The GOP’s choice of Margaret Spellings to run the UNC system is now seen as a disastrous BOG decision by virtually all the GOP legislators in Raleigh—but, alas, she is their girl and they’re stuck with her, at least until they can’t tolerate her any longer.