The job title "associate vice chancellor" sounds prestigious enough. But at UNC Chapel Hill, it surely isn't rare.

At UNC-CH, there were 10 such administrators a decade ago. Now, 19.

We're not picking on Carolina here; this is just an example of the sort of growth in administration that campus and UNC system leaders are now honing in on now as the university enters a new era of efficiency and budget cutting.

In today's News & Observer, we take a look at how these administrative positions - that bring with them pretty good salaries - have grown in recent years.

Here's the story.

To the Chapel Hill campus's credit, its leaders were ahead of the curve a bit, commissioning a study last year that examined the institution's financial structure and organizational charts. It found some bloat and has made plenty of recommendations. You can read more about that here.

Former N.C. State University Chancellor James Oblinger just got a pay cut.

Oblinger, who resigned in early June amid revelations over his role in the hiring of former First Lady Mary Easley, had until today [Friday] been earning his full administrative salary - $420,000 annually, or $35,000 a month.

Under an agreement he forged with UNC system President Erskine Bowles when he resigned, he was to receive that full salary for six months before returning to the faculty at a lower wage.

But the UNC system's Board of Governors voted Friday to scale his pay back immediately. He will now earn $173,000 annually, a salary commensurate with other members of the NCSU faculty. He will teach food science.

"This is absolutely an appropriate salary, and after such a careful process I am completely comfortable with it," said James Woodward, NCSU's interim chancellor.

The UNC system board's vote was split, with 17 members voting for the change and 10 voting against it. Many who opposed the change said they did so in support of Bowles' decision.

The change in salary over the four months that Oblinger would have received his full pay amounts to about $82,000.

"I think the board acknowledged [Oblinger's] enormous contributions but felt there needed to be consequences for some things that went terribly wrong," said Hannah Gage, the UNC system board's chairwoman. "I think everyone is glad to put this behind us."

Oblinger resigned as chancellor in early June after admitting to Bowles that he had played a role in the university's hiring of former state First Lady Mary Easley in 2005.

Oblinger had long maintained that he wasn't involved, and in his resignation letter wrote that he had simply forgotten his involvement and hadn't intentionally done anything wrong.

Oblinger could not be reached Friday.

For more on this story, read Saturday's News & Observer.

A UNC system policy guaranteeing chancellors a one-year leave at full pay when they leave the top job plays a key role in recruiting top talent, the leaders of five of North Carolina’s public universities said Thursday.

This group of campus chancellors, which included UNC Chapel Hill’s Holden Thorp and N.C. Central University’s Charlie Nelms, spoke today at a workshop for members of the UNC system’s Board of Governors, which is likely to scale back the four-year-old “retreat rights” policy in the coming months.

The current policy allows a university president or chancellor retiring after at least five years of service a one-year “retreat” at full administrative pay, followed by a return to the faculty. Their salary then would be 60 percent of what they earned as chancellor or president.

Rosemary DePaolo, now in her seventh year as chancellor at UNC Wilmington, said the retreat rights policy, while difficult for those outside academia to digest, is a critical piece of the compensation package for people considering a leadership post at a public university. These are difficult, stressful jobs, so potential chancellors want to know they’ll be taken care of it they become unpopular on their campus.

“We do need a cushion upon which to fall back, because falling back is all too likely,” said DePaolo, who is the second longest-tenured chancellor in the UNC system, behind only John Bardo, Western Carolina’s leader since 1995. “These are high-risk jobs with high turnover. You might not like [retreat rights] philosophically, but this is a business and we have to compete.”

The "retreats right" policy has been employed broadly at North Carolina's 16 public universities, UNC records show. Over the past five years, taxpayers have paid about $8 million to 117 administrators who either returned to the faculty or left the university. In 24 cases, the payouts were for $100,000 or more.

A recent News & Observer review found that these agreements, along with other transitional payments, offered sizable sums of money with few or no strings attached, in at least three cases violated UNC system policies and in some cases rewarded administrators with as much as a year's salary for a job poorly done.

For more on this story, read Friday's News & Observer.

The UNC system's governing board will have a lot to talk about when it reconvenes Thursday after its summer break.

 The recent passage of the state budget will surely be on the minds of some campus leaders.

And a Thursday workshop discussing the controversial "retreat rights" issue should be interesting as well. 

In case you missed it - UNC system leaders are expected this week to curtail a policy that offers university higher-ups a tidy perk upon their retirement - full pay for up to a year to spend re-tooling to prepare to go back to teaching.

Here's a link to our coverage of that issue.

And the board may make a significant change to its health insurance policy for students. 

As we reported earlier this year,  health insurance offerings for students differ from campus to campus, and leaders want to standardize it to get better rates. The proposal would require all students to health insurance unless they can prove they already have it.

Click the attachmen t below for a memo on the issue.

The board meets Thursday and Friday. It will discuss the health insurance issue at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, with a workshop on the retreat rights issue to follow at noon.

Documents:

 As an undergrad at N.C. Central University half a century ago, Timothy McIntosh had an entire campus counting on him.

McIntosh was the campus bell-ringer. Five times a day, seven days a week, for four years, McIntosh would pull the rope on the old bell that stands in the center of campus, signaling to students that it was time to wake, eat, or go to class.

For that, he earned sixty bucks a month.

“It was a good job; it got me through college,” McIntosh quipped Tuesday. “That was my main source of income.”

McIntosh came to NCCU from Wilson, where he grew up. He studied mathematics and went on to a career doing civilian financial work for the Army.

McIntosh, now 69, retired and living in Maryland, was among scores of proud NCCU alums who returned to campus Tuesday to commemorate their alma mater’s Charter Day, the 100th anniversary of its incorporation.

McIntosh kicked off Tuesday’s event — and a year of planned activities celebrating NCCU’s centennial — with one more ring of the bell.

“At six in the morning, he was none too popular with the folks in the residence halls nearest the bell,” quipped NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms, who presided over Tuesday’s events and spoke at length of the importance that bell played in the life of the campus.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles spoke as well. He spoke of NCCU's long legacy as a partner to the Durham community.
"Looking back and reliving such historic moments helps reconnect each of us to this university, and this university to its roots," Bowles said.

He spoke of the pride felt by alums; at least twice, he mentioned Ben Ruffin, the proud NCCU alumnus who would become the first African-American chairman of the UNC system's Board of Governors before dying unexpectedly in 2006.

And he spoke quite well of Nelms, the chancellor Bowles hired in 2007 to replace James Ammons.

He said Nelms [pictured, left] has set high standards for faculty, staff and students alike - through initiatives like a customer service initiative and the raising of academic minimum standards.

"Charlie Nelms has that same kind of vision and that same kind of courage shown by NCCU founder James Shepard," Bowles told a packed house at the B.N. Duke Auditorium.

One N.C. State University student says the situation with Mary
Easley's job and the resignations of the chancellor and provost is all the more galling because of how the state's budget cuts are affecting the students. Find more letters about NCSU under the letters tab above or click here.

The lates N.C. House budget proposal has higher education officials in North Carolina breathing a cautious sigh of relief.

The plan calls for spending cuts at a lower rate than previously anticipated. Here's what the leaders of the UNC system and the state's community colleges say.

Erskine Bowles, president, UNC system:

"We are extremely grateful that House members made the very difficult decision to recommend a modest revenue package to help balance the State budget and thereby lessen deep cuts to education and other critical State services. The revenue package added to the House budget today would restore about $75 million of the cuts that had previously been assigned to the University in the first year of the biennium. As a result, our proposed net funding reduction for 2009-10 under the House plan would drop from $338 million (11.2%) to $263 million (8.7%). Across our 17 campuses, this partial restoration of funding would save 600 jobs and enable us to teach 1,300 more class sections, helping our students get the courses they need to graduate on time. This vital funding would be applied directly to the University’s academic core.

At Appalachian State University, for example, these additional dollars would save about 40 jobs—more than half of them faculty—and restore 175 class sections. Western Carolina would save another 30 jobs in an economically distressed region of the state. Elsewhere, NC Central University would save more than 20 faculty and staff jobs and 75 class sections; East Carolina University would save 75 jobs, including nursing faculty; and UNC Wilmington would save another 50 jobs and 120 course sections. Restored funds would also help soften the impact of budget cuts on critical academic and counseling services and campus safety.

While this revenue package is an important step in the right direction, we remain gravely concerned that the remaining $263 million of cuts proposed by the House would have a severe and lasting negative impact on student access and the quality of education our universities can offer our students.

This reduced cut is still greater than the current state appropriations of our six smallest campuses _combined._ If cuts of that magnitude are implemented, students on every UNC campus can still expect to see 1) larger classes; 2) less student advising and counseling; 3) higher student/faculty ratios; 4) lower retention and graduation rates; 5) delayed classroom upgrades and laboratory renovations; 6) fewer security personnel; 7) reductions in library services; and 8) reductions in maintenance. The House budget also proposes to cap our 2010-11 enrollment at current levels, resulting in thousands of North Carolina students from every walk of life being denied admission to a UNC campus.

Education is the key to North Carolina’s economic recovery. We therefore ask and encourage our legislative leaders to consider all reasonable options for further increasing State revenues."

And Scott Ralls, president of the community college system:

“Education has historically led North Carolina out of economic hardship, and House leaders have recognized the immediate, critical needs of all levels of education by developing a revenue package that restores some vital funding to K-12, community colleges and
universities. For our community colleges, these additional dollars will certainly not erase the full impact of the larger proposed cuts, but they do provide access to 3,700 more community college students and the
ability to save as many as 215 faculty and staff positions at a time when record numbers of North Carolinians are turning to their community
colleges. Additionally, restored tuition waivers allow our colleges to continue free training for designated groups including North Carolina’s essential public service professionals including local fire department, law enforcement and rescue and life-saving personnel.

“Our state’s leaders have the opportunity to carry on North Carolina’s tradition as the ‘Education State’ and to ensure that, especially in these difficult economic times, our community colleges will be able to meet the unprecedented demand for education and
retraining. All across our state, dislocated workers, new high school graduates and more are turning to our community colleges for hope and opportunity. North Carolina can’t afford for them to be turned
away.”

Lots of letters this week on the situation at N.C. State. Here are several online-only comments. Look for more letters on the subject on tomorrow's editorial
page and in Sunday Forum this week.

The situation involving former Gov. Mike Easley, wife Mary Easley, NCSU Provost Larry Nielsen, NCSU Trustees chairman McQueen Campbell, NCSU Chancellor James Oblinger and UNC System President Erskine Bowles has so many overlapping angles, opinion writers and drawers should have plenty of fodder for a while.

Here's a look at Charlotte Observer cartoonist Kevin Siers' take on the tangle. Following is N&O cartoonist Dwane Powell's toon from Sunday, May 17.