Former UNC-CH Provost Bernadette Gray-Little has her hands full.

Gray-Little left Chapel Hill last year for the chancellor at the University of Kansas. This week, she's facing a stiff early test.

Her university has revealed a shocking ticket-scalping scheme in which a handful of now-former university employees diverted basketball and football tickets valued at more than $1 million to sell for personal profit.

_{(Photo: Kansas City Star)}

Yikes.

According to published reports, five members of the KU athletics staff, along with a consultant, sold or used nearly 20,000 game tickets over about five years.

“There were many victims of this activity: Our fans, donors, alumni, Kansas Athletics and the university as a whole,” Gray-Little was quoted as saying. “We sincerely regret the distress that this situation has caused our loyal fans and any loss of confidence that may have resulted.”

Athletics officials at KU say they don't anticipate NCAA sanctions over this scandal, but it's an ugly incident nonetheless.

Meanwhile, another former UNC-CH provost running a major public university is also extra-busy these days.

Robert Shelton, who preceded Gray-Little as Carolina's chief academic officer, is now president of the University of Arizona. As such, he's knee-deep in the controversy surrounding that state's controversial new immigration law.

He said recently that some promising incoming students from other states had decided to go elsewhere out of concerns about racial profiling.

You may recall a blog post in this space a while back lamenting a lack of access to the surveys area chancellors completed for U.S. News & World Report, which each year publishes a popular issue on college rankings.

The short of it: university leaders each year fill out surveys in which they are asked to grade themselves and their peer institutions.

But those surveys, which at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State should have been public records, could not be found, and U.S. News declined to cough up copies, citing confidentiality.

Well, it turns out that at UNC-CH, Provost Bernadette Gray-Little completed a survey as well earlier this year, and the university was able to locate a copy of it. 

The survey, which a UNC-CH spokeswoman confirmed was completed on April 15, asks administrators to rate the undergraduate programs of universities across the country on a 1-to-5 scale, 1 being "marginal" and 5 being "distinguished."

Gray-Little, who on August 15 becomes the chancellor at the University of Kansas, gave Carolina top marks - a"5" in the survey.

It was the only "5" among universities in North Carolina.

Go ahead, connect those dots.

RIght. That means she gave a lower ranking to Duke University, which routinely rates higher than UNC-CH in rankings of national universities. 

She ranked Duke in the "4", or "strong" category, one notch below Carolina but in the same league as Wake Forest and N.C. State. 

The relevance? These surveys came to light earlier this year when a Clemson University administrator revealed at an academic conference that, in her view, university leaders used these surveys to pump up the image of their own universities while taking a bit of a shot at competitors.

As for the university Gray-Little will soon lead?

She gave Kansas a "3," or "good" rating - the same as its in-state rival, Kansas State.

UNC Chapel Hill is turning once again to a search consultant for help finding a top administrator.

William Funk, whose Dallas-based search firm was paid more than $100,000 to lead last year's chancellor search that resulted in the hiring of home-grown Holden Thorp, will earn $72,800 plus expenses to find the university's next provost.

The university will pay Funk with private sources, not state money.

Funk knows Carolina well. Along with running last year's chancellor search, he advised the University of Kansas during its recent search for a new president. The result? The hiring of Bernadette Gray-Little, the UNC-CH provost whose departure now necessitated the new Carolina search.

Of course, a campus search committee has been assembled as well. Its task will be to evaluate candidates Funk brings to them. Shelton Earp, who directs the university's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, will chair the committee.

Bruce Carney, a professor of physics and astronomy, will serve as interim provost. Carney is apparently the university's go-to interim guy; most recently, he served as interim dean of the university's College of Arts & Sciences, a post left vacant when Thorp was elevated to chancellor.

It is not unusual for a university to employ a consultant to run this sort of search.

Funk is well-known in education circles. He has conducted searches for about 300 university presidents or chancellors and, according to his website, is responsible for placing about 70 current university leaders in their jobs. He was once dubbed "the matchmaker" by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here's that story, though you may need a password to access it.

"He knows everybody in higher education," said Roger Perry, chairman of UNC-CH's Board of Trustees. "He knows who all the prospects are and he really knows how to check them out. When you get interested in somebody, he really knows how to vet that person as far as strengths and weaknesses."

 Bernadette Gray-Little is the second straight UNC Chapel Hill provost to leave Carolina for the top job at another major public university.

Gray-Little, who was just tapped for the chancellorship at the University of Kansas, has served as provost at UNC-CH since 2006. She succeeded Robert Shelton, who left the post to take the presidency of the University of Arizona.

For UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp, the vacancy is an opportunity to put his stamp on his executive cabinet. And as he says in this open letter regarding Gray-Little's impending departure, the provost's job is a big one. The provost is the university's chief academic officer, overseeing 13 schools, the College of Arts and Sciences, the university libraries and assorted other academic units.

The local newspaper out in Kansas sent a reporter to profile Gray-Little. You can read that story here.