The University of the People
A Brief History of the University of North Carolina
Brian Sopp
January 2006
Read About UNC-System President Erskine Bowles's Nomination
The original North Carolina state constitution directed that “all useful learning shall be duly encouraged and promoted in one or more universities.” The General Assembly of 1789 responded to this directive by establishing the University of North Carolina on a tract of land in southern Orange County. In 1800 the University of North Carolina comprised one university with a 40-member board of trustees and four buildings.
Today UNC comprises 16 universities totaling more than 190,000 students, the North Carolina School of the Arts, UNC Hospitals, UNC Press, and UNC-TV. It receives an annual appropriation from the General Assembly of more than $2 billion. The 32 members of the Board of Governors, who serve staggered four-year terms, and the system president govern the University.
As Erskine Bowles begins his tenure as the president of the University system, it is important to ask how the UNC system went from a single college in the late 18th century to a multibillion-dollar, multi-campus system. Understanding the history of higher education in North Carolina can help anyone concerned about education in the state assess where Bowles will take the University in the future.
At the turn of the 19th century, the University of North Carolina still comprised one university. In 1929 Gov. O. Max Gardner asked the Brookings Institution, a public policy think tank in Washington DC, to make a survey of North Carolina state government. One of Brookings’ suggestions was consolidating the universities in the state.
In 1931 the General Assembly combined North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering and the North Carolina College for Women (at Greensboro) with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This consolidation abolished the schools’ individual boards of trustees and created a single 100-member board of trustees to govern the three schools.
By the 1950s nine other four-year colleges were established in North Carolina. So, in 1955 the General Assembly established the North Carolina Board of Higher Education to have general planning and coordinating authority over higher education in the state and to bring cooperation to the nine universities outside of the University of North Carolina system.
In 1963 the General Assembly established the North Carolina School of the Arts and transformed the junior colleges at Asheville, Charlotte, and Wilmington into four-year institutions. By 1969 the colleges at Asheville, Charlotte, and Wilmington all joined the University of North Carolina system. These changes brought the total number of colleges in North Carolina to 16 and the total number of schools in the UNC system to six.
In 1970 North Carolina drew up a new constitution, which emphasized higher education more than the 1776 or 1868 constitutions had done. It read: “The General Assembly shall maintain a public system of higher education, comprising the University of North Carolina and such other institutions of higher education as the General Assembly may deem wise.”
Gov. Robert W. Scott began pressuring the General Assembly to restructure higher education in the state in 1970 leading in 1971 to the Higher Education Reorganization Act. Under the Act, the ten universities outside the University of North Carolina system would become part of the University of North Carolina. A 32-member Board of Governors would govern the restructured system. The 10 new members of the system would retain their boards of trustees and the six current members of the system would now be allowed to have local boards of trustees. However, the boards would only have the powers that the Board of Governors saw fit to delegate to the individual institutions. Under the Act, North Carolina Memorial Hospital was made part of the system. And in 1985, the General Assembly added the North Carolina School of Science and Math as well.
According to John L. Sanders, former member of the Board of Governors and professor emeritus of the UNC Institute of Government, “one stated objective of restructuring was to extend the benefits of the successful, unified, multicampus University of North Carolina as it had operated for forty years.”
Sanders points out in his essay in the summer 2001 edition of “Popular Government,” the journal of the UNC Institute of Government, that “in 1971 its six institutions enrolled 56 percent of the students in public senior institutions and had faculties and facilities even larger in proportion to those of the other ten institutions that were about to join the University.”
Today, multi-campus university systems exist in at least three-quarters of the states of the United States. Sanders points out however, that in recent years “a counter trend has become evident. Several states—notably New Jersey, West Virginia, and Florida—have effectively devolved much of the power formerly vested in their central higher education governing boards to newly established campus governing boards.” Why are they doing this?
“The justification is that with their own boards, institutions are better able to respond to local program needs and pressures for broader or improved service,” Sanders writes.
Some of the discontent with centralized university systems has spread to North Carolina in recent years. During the writing of the 2006 state budget, the General Assembly considered allowing UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State more autonomy in setting tuition rates. And in June of 2005, the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy released a report written by Phyllis Palmiero of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni criticizing the University of North Carolina system.
In the study, entitled “Governance in the Public Interest: A Case Study of the University of North Carolina system,” Palmiero argues that governance of the University is not as effective as it could be.
First, Palmiero believes that the governor should appoint members to the UNC Board of Governors instead of the General Assembly.
“Right now, with legislators selecting every member on the UNC Board of Governors, often with more regard to local consideration than statewide needs, there is no comprehensive vision, no statewide leadership, no clear accountability,” Palmerio writes.
Additionally, Palmiero is concerned that in the current configuration, most of the Board’s work is done in the committees with board members rubber-stamping the decisions during the full board meeting. He suggests reducing the size of the Board from 32 members to 15.
“An oversized board diffuses responsibility and makes meaningful discussion difficult,” Palmerio writes.
Despite the controversy over central versus local board authority, the University of North Carolina is growing in assets and students. Sanders asserts in the aforementioned article that by establishing a central board along with individual boards of trustees “North Carolina successfully dealt with this issue thirty years ago.” It appears that state politicians largely agree with this conclusion and that no major changes will be made to the governance of the system in the near future.
Thus, for the next few years, Erskine Bowles will be in charge of not only a multibillion-dollar institution, but also the education of thousands of North Carolina’s future leaders. Centuries of legislation have led to a great centralization of power into a single man’s hands. Let’s hope he wields it wisely.