To deal with diversity concerns, Cooper commission suggests changes for UNC System
Democratic state lawmakers would get some appointments to an expanded UNC Board of Governors under a proposal emerging from a commission created last year by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
The proposal is meant to increase diversity on the board, which sets policy for the state's public university system. The board is currently appointed by the General Assembly’s Republican leadership and has been criticized in recent years for being overly white, male and Republican.
Republican legislative leaders didn’t immediately comment on the proposal, but in the past they've expressed little interest in changes. The pitch is just a draft for now, and several commission members stressed during a Monday morning meeting that some things may change, but the governor got behind the basics in an early afternoon press conference.
"We have built the most amazing public university system in the country," Cooper said. "Yet it is obvious that erosion is occurring because of the make up of the UNC Board of Governors and boards of trustees that have become more political and have begun exercising more direct control in the administration of our campuses."
The commission draft recommends expanding the 24-member Board of Governors to 32 appointed members, plus several standing members. Appointed members would still be named by the General Assembly, but the draft would give the legislature’s minority party eight appointments and the majority party 24.
The draft also includes new rules to ensure geographic diversity, saying 16 members could be appointed from anywhere in the state, but the other 16 would have to come — two each — from eight different parts of the state.
Board member terms would increase from four years to eight, and members could only serve one term. Lobbyists and former General Assembly members, common Board of Governors appointees under the current system, would have to wait at least one year before joining the board.
The proposal would also add as non-voting members the state’s elected superintendent of public instruction and the community college system’s president. The board’s existing student representative would remain on the board, and the proposal suggests two new non-voting members: The chair of system’s faculty and staff assemblies.
The draft also recommends changes to individual campus boards of trustees, increasing them to 15 members each, plus non-voting members. Seven would be appointed by the Board of Governors, four by the governor and four by the legislature, in a process controlled by the body’s majority party.
North Carolina’s governor used to appoint some members to campus boards of trustees, but Republican lawmakers changed that after the 2016 elections, when Cooper beat Republican Gov. Pat McCrory.
Campus faculty and staff chairs would also serve on boards of trustees as non-voting members, according to the draft, and the cooling-off period would apply there as well.
Former UNC system President Margaret Spellings, a co-chairs on the commission, summed up the body’s thinking on the draft during Monday's meeting: “There’s some refining or perfecting that we can do … but I think what I’m hearing here is that we’ve got the architecture.”
Some members expressed concerns, though, that Republican leaders would immediately reject the proposal. That seems likely, and to take effect all of these proposals would have to be approved by the General Assembly, where Republicans hold supermajority control.
House Republican Leader John Bell was a member of the commission, but he never attended a meeting.
"It wasn't what I signed up for," Bell, R-Wayne, texted Monday. "Appointments and power grabs."
Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger, speaking to reporters at an unrelated press conference Monday, said he hadn't seen the proposal. But when asked about sharing appointments with Democratic lawmakers, the Rockingham Republican seemed unmoved.
“I don’t know that we would have any set asides for particular parties," he said.
Republican lawmakers have stripped the governor of appointments in recent years, and are now discussing bills to continue that trend, which has been frustrated in the past by repeated lawsuits over separation of powers rules laid out in the state constitution.
On Monday Republican senators rolled out a proposal to take the governors' ability to appoint the State Board of Elections.
The commission's draft also proposed a new “Center of Higher Education” at the UNC System, which would monitor the Board of Governors and keep a database of potential board appointees, with a focus on former faculty members and “individuals that are representative of the diversity of the state.”
A report that Cooper’s commission reviewed last year indicated that three of four Board of Governors members were men and three of four were white. The report said roughly 60% of campus trustees are white, and there are only two Hispanic trustees across the system.
The proposed new center would also “provide thought leadership on higher education governance,” according to the draft, and develop an orientation program for new Board of Governors and boards of trustees members. A bipartisan advisory board, appointed by the governor and legislature, would oversee the center.
One member of Cooper’s commission worried Monday morning that the center proposal would be seen as “big brother looking over your shoulder” and would be dead on arrival. Commission members generally agreed to tinker with this language before the proposal is final, and Spellings said it could be suggested as “a model, but others might work as well.”
Commission co-chair Tom Ross, also a former UNC System president, said he didn't have a staff size or budget in mind.
Cooper named this review commission last year, appointing has eight registered Democrats, six Republicans and one unaffiliated voter. If approved as-is, none of the commission's proposed changes would take effect until 2025, after the next gubernatorial election.
