Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM 16 UCW MARCH 31-APRIL 6, 2021 EDUCATION Deciding who leads a university can get complicated by D.G. MARTIN Distribution Driver Needed For Wednesday distribution route Must have vehicle, valid driver's license and insurance Email a brief work history & contact information to: laurel@upandcomingweekly.com CONTACT: Laurel Handforth Distribution Manager 910.484.6200 D.G. MARTIN, Host of UNC's Book Watch. COMMENTS? Editor@upand- comingweekly.com. 910-484-6200. with trade-in with trade-in BEST DEALS FOR EVERYONE Call AT&T sales rep for details. For trade-in instructions visit tradein.att.com/oer-details Limited time oer. All products and services are oered, supplied and performed by AT&T Services, Inc. ("AT&T"). AT&T is not an aliate of or endorsed by Sam's Club. AT&T is solely responsible for the products and services advertised. Sam's Club has no obligation to perform any responsibilities of AT&T, and Sam's Club does not guarantee the performance of AT&T's obligations. iPhone 12 mini ® for as low as Ask how to get the Iv Support Holdings LLC (844) 402-9906 Find out how to get our most popular phones, call now! Darrell Allison Who runs the university? What university are you asking about? Well, for example, Fayetteville State University, one of the 17 institutions that are part of the University of North Carolina, now known as the UNC System. Clearly, the recently appointed chancellor of FSU, Darrell Allison, is the leader of that institution. But oth- ers share his authority. Allison reports to FSU's board of trustees, a group of 13 that includes the student body president and other members appointed by the legis- lature and the UNC System's board of governors. But Allison reports directly and primarily to the president of the UNC System who has the power, subject to concur- rence from the board of governors, to fire the chancellor. If Allison has a single boss, it is the university presi- dent. But if you ask any chancellor he or she will tell you multiple people and groups must be pleased or the chancellor's job is in jeopardy. He or she must also work with the institution's trustees. It is complicated enough already, but other con- stituents must be pleased. Near the top of the list is the institution's faculty. Unhappy students can also bring a chancellor down. So can passionate fans of the univer- sity's athletic teams. Donors and alumni groups can feel that the chancellor is their employee and should listen to their directions. All these interests and groups present potential problems for every new chancellor. Wise ones will un- derstand that while you cannot always please everyone, you must always take care to minimize friction and consider different opinions that relate to the university. What is really tragic is for the situation to be poisoned from the begin- ning, but that is what has happened to Chancellor Allison. From the time his appointment was an- nounced, opposition and concerns about his lack of experience in higher edu- cation and the process of his appointment arose from the faculty senate, the school's alumni association, and the student government association's president. Previously, Allison served as a trustee at his alma ma- ter, North Carolina Central University, and as a member of the system's Board of Governors where he chaired its committee on Historically Minority-Serving Institu- tions. In 2018, Allison became the national director of State Teams and Political Strategy for the American Federation for Children, an organization that promotes school choice and was once led by Betsy DeVos. From the beginning of the UNC System in the early 1970s, chancellors' selection followed this procedure, taken from a UNC-Chapel Hill document describing the process: e chair of the university's Board of Trustees, will oversee the search committee to find the new chan- cellor. Committee members represent the University's Board of Trustees, faculty, staff, students and alumni. Community members will be able to provide input throughout the process. e committee will make rec- ommendations to the full Board of Trustees, which will vote on candidates to recommend to the UNC System president who will then recommend a candidate to the UNC Board of Governors, which will elect the new chancellor. is traditional process assured that every constitu- ency would have some voice in the selection process even though it would be the president who made the final recommendation to the system's board. is process was changed last year essentially to provide the president with the power to ignore the campus search process unilaterally and select any person to recom- mend to the Board of Governors. e university president has every reason to seek a chancellor who will be a good partner. But it is a mis- take not to bring into the selection process representa- tives of other groups the chancellor must serve. As almost 50 years of university history has shown, a collaborative search process can find a person who will be the president's strong partner without inflaming the kind of opposition that now faces Chancellor Allison.