Former NCSU leaders James Oblinger and Larry Nielsen are back at work.
Both have returned to their faculty positions following unceremonious departures related to the controversial hiring of former First Lady Mary Easley.
Oblinger, the former provost, is at work on the new research campus in Kannapolis.
Jay Price has the details here.
N.C. State is set to name Purdue's provost as its next chancellor.
NCSU and UNC system President Erskine Bowles this week zeroed in on William "Randy" Woodson, the provost at Purdue University in central Indiana.
Like NCSU, Purdue is a large, public, land-grant university and Woodson has a long background in horticulture.
The UNC system's Board of Governors is expected to approve Woodson's hiring Friday morning.
Here's the story.
N.C. State University will soon learn the identity of its new leader.
A search committee has forwarded the names of three finalists for the chancellorship to UNC system President Erskine Bowles, who will conduct interviews and make the final recommendation to the UNC system's governing board.
A decision will most likely come at one of the board's next two meetings, Jan. 8 or Feb. 12, Jay Price reports in today's News & Observer.
Naturally, the search process and the identities of the finalists have been cloaked in secrecy. This has long been standard operating procedure for the state's public university system, where leaders have insisted that top candidates won't apply if they know their names will become public.
It can be a rather cloak-and-dagger enterprise. When N.C. Central University officials were looking for a new chancellor in 2007, members of the search committee took a secrecy oath. To review resumes of candidates, they had to use a secret password to key into a secure website. A consultant hired to help with the search communicated using code words rather than the actual names of candidates.
NCSU is looking for a successor to James Oblinger, the embattled former chancellor who stepped down earlier this year amid questions over his role in the controversial hiring of former First Lady Mary Easley.
Upon resigning his post, Oblinger brokered a severance deal with Bowles that the UNC system's governing board later modified, a move that led to subsequent conversations about the level of authority a university system president should have in negotiating with campus leaders.
Following his resignation, Oblinger was a finalist for the presidency of New Mexico State University. He spoke then about some regrets he had about how his tenure as NCSU chancellor ended. He also said then that if he didn't end up in New Mexico, he's remain on the NCSU faculty.
He didn't get the New Mexico State job.
James Oblinger won't be leaving N.C. State for the presidency of New Mexico State University.
Oblinger, who left the NCSU chancellorship earlier this year amid questions over his handling of the Mary Easley affair, was a finalist for the presidency in New Mexico.
But that university selected another candidate, Barbara Couture.
In an interview last month with the News & Observer, Oblinger indicated that he still has the bug for academic administration and felt the New Mexico State job would have been a good fit for him.
At the time, he added that he hadn't been pursuing any other jobs and planned to return to the NCSU faculty if he didn't end up in New Mexico.
The UNC Board of Governors plans to take up the issue of paid leaves for administrators at its meetings Thursday and Friday, addressing concerns that the often six-figure payments to campus officials have gotten out of hand.
The leaves are intended to help administrators prepare for a return to teaching, but The News & Observer reported in August that paid leaves had been given to campus administrators who then retired, got jobs elsewhere or were shown the door. Some leave deals also violated UNC system policies.
Here's more from staff writer Eric Ferreri's Campus Notes blog.
There was a week earlier this year when all James Oblinger wanted to do was celebrate success. For the N.C. State Chancellor, there were three groundbreakings that week marking the start of significant new construction project on campus, each of which would eventually yield something good for NCSU.
Yet those ceremonial events all took place as the heat around Oblinger grew. He now calls it "the swirl," a frenzy of media activity surrounding the actions he and others took in hiring former First Lady Mary Easley for a job that didn't exist before she was placed in it.
It was during that week that Oblinger realized he had to step down.
"I never got a question about how great it was for the university," he said of the groundbreakings that week. "The only questions were about the situation. That meant I was overshadowing a lot of great work. I had never planned on anything other than retiring as chancellor at N.C. State University."
Since resigning June 9, Oblinger has stayed largely out of the public eye. But he's now in the running for a new job - the presidency of New Mexico State University - and he knows he'll be facing some tough questions there.
He already has, in fact, and the folks doing the interviews seem pleased with what they've heard. He'll be down there in November for campus interviews, and the university expects to make a decision Nov. 19.
"We're aware of the situation that happened at N.C. State," Del Archuleta, who is chairing the New Mexico State search, told me this morning. "But he's extremely experienced, very professional. He appeared a very sincere man and very qualified. It looks to us like an unfortunate set of circumstances. He told us mistakes were made and things were learned from it."
In an interview Wednesday, Oblinger spoke at length about how he's spent the last four months since resigning the chancellorship. He has been on leave, and thus has had time to both reflect on his actions and to re-tool and prepare for his next venture, as an NCSU faculty member.
But when the New Mexico State job came up, it sounded to him like a good fit.
Here's today's story from that interview.
James Oblinger, the former N.C. State chancellor who resigned earlier this year amid questions over his handling of the hiring of former First lady Mary Easley and other issues, is a finalist for another top university gig.
Oblinger is one of five finalists for the presidency of the New Mexico State University system.
Oblinger's departure at NCSU was an ugly one. He resigned as questions mounted over his handling of Easley's hiring and of the departure package he okayed for Provost Larry Nielsen.
Months after his resignation, the UNC system's Board of Governors even reduced the amount of pay he received in his own settlement.
And yet, he's not the New Mexico State candidate with the freshest wounds. That would be another of the five announced finalists, Richard Herman.
Herman resigned as chancellor of the University of Illinois just last week, embroiled in a scandal related to his university's admissions process.
How much information should be made public as N.C. State searches for its next chancellor?
All of it, argues John Drescher, the News & Observer's executive editor.
Writing over the weekend, Drescher argues that the ongoing chancellor search should be an open process and the identities of finalists should be announced before any decision is made.
Generally, universities are reluctant to publicly identify candidates for top positions like the NCSU chancellorship. The basic argument is that high-quality candidates will be reluctant to even apply if they know their interest will be broadcast to the masses. After all, what happens to them at their current job if their bosses find out they're shopping around?
But Drescher argues that NCSU would be best served with an open process in part because public scrutiny - by media and others - could shake out a significant blemish on a candidate's resume, thus helping the university avoid an embarrassment down the line.
What do you think?
Erskine Bowles, president of the University of North Carolina, talks with News and Observer reporters about the hiring and firing of Mary Easley ... more
If you have an opinion about who the next chancellor should be at N.C. State, today would be a good day to head to campus.
NCSU is holding a series of forums today to gather input on the chancellor search. The university is seeking a replacement for James Oblinger, who as you may recall, stepped down earlier this summer as questions arose over his involvement in the hiring of former First Lady Mary Easley.
Forums for faculty, students and staff will be held starting at 12:30 today at Stewart Theatre.
An evening forum for alums and other folks interested in the process will be held at 6 p.m. at the McKimmon Center.
Here's more information.
