UNC system Board of Governors chairman Peter Hans says the real lesson of the whole episode with Mary Easley is that universities must be cautious about hirings to begin with, also mentioning UNC-Chapel Hill's hiring in 2005 of former U.S. Sen. John Edwards.
"The lesson here," Hans said, "is that the university system should avoid entanglements. Whether it's this hiring, or the hiring of John Edwards, or possibly a Republican politician in the future."
N.C. State University has narrowed its list of candidates for job of provost to three people, including the current interim provost, Warwick Arden.
Arden is the dean of the NCSU’s highly-regarded College of Veterinary Medicine.
The provost is the university's loftiest academic job.
The other candidates are Robert T. McGrath who has held several positions at Battelle Memorial Institute and Cathryn R. Newton a professor of interdisciplinary sciences, professor of earth sciences, and dean emerita at Syracuse University.
Battelle is a private, non-profit science and technology company based in Columbus, Ohio.
The job has been vacant since Larry Nielsen stepped down in 2009 as part of a wave of resignations during a scandal over allegations of improper influence related to former state First Lady Mary Easley’s job at the university.
A committee of faculty, staff and students began work this summer on the search. More information on the candidates and interview schedule while each is on campus is available at: www.ncsu.edu/provostsearch/.
Here are the thumbnail profiles of each candidate that were included in the unviveristy's official news release, topped by the dates of their formal campus visits.
Robert T. McGrath, Nov. 8-10
Since 2008, McGrath has served in various roles with Battelle Memorial Institute and its affiliates, managing national laboratory acquisition, operations and university partnerships. From 2004 to 2008, he served as senior vice president for research, professor of materials science engineering, and professor of physics at Ohio State University. Prior to 2004, McGrath was associate vice president for research, director of strategic and interdisciplinary initiatives, and professor of engineering science at Penn State University. He received his Ph.D. in nuclear science and engineering from the University of Michigan and holds an M.A. in mathematics, M.S. in physics, and B.S. in engineering sciences from Penn State.
Warwick A. Arden, Nov. 10-12
Arden has served as interim provost and executive vice chancellor at NC State University since May 2009, following five years as dean of N.C. State’s College of Veterinary Medicine and professor of clinical sciences. Prior to joining NC State, Arden served as professor and head of the department of veterinary clinical medicine at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He held prior academic appointments at the University of Kentucky, Michigan State University, and the University of Sydney. He received his Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics from the University of Kentucky, an M.S. in physiology from Michigan State University, and B.V.Sc. in veterinary medicine from the University of Sydney. Arden recently served as president of the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges.
Cathryn R. Newton, Nov. 17-19
Newton is currently professor of interdisciplinary sciences, professor of earth sciences, and dean emerita at Syracuse University. Between 2000 and 2008, she led Syracuse University’s largest college, the College of Arts and Sciences. Previously, she was Jessie Page Heroy Professor of Geology and chair of the department of earth sciences from 1993 to 2000, and co-founding director of the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) at Syracuse from 1997-2001. Newton earned a Ph.D. in earth sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz, an M.S. in geology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.A. in geology from Duke University.
They are employees who have committed crimes on the job, won their positions through political connections or have received big salaries and plum positions over the years.
They work, or worked, in state and local public jobs. Taxpayers paid their salaries, but they aren't entitled to know the details of these employees' hiring, compensation over the years, or performance. North Carolina's personnel law virtually shuts down that information.
On Sunday, The News & Observer began a three-part series, Keeping Secrets, that looks at the personnel law, what it hides and how its secrecy compares with other states. Day One looked at employees who behave badly, while Day Two looked at patronage and cronyism. The series includes a survey of state lawmakers on the issue, as well as comments from top legislative leaders. The series concludes Tuesday with a look at compensation and employment histories.
Jim Oblinger, who resigned the chancellor's job at NC State in June, recently told The N&O's Eric Ferreri that he had learned from his mistakes. Among them, Oblinger said, was that he should have responded more quickly to reporters' questions in the months leading up to his resignation.
I and others had urged Oblinger to give a full explanation of his role in the hiring of former first lady Mary Easley at NC State. Click here to read a column on the matter.
But Oblinger typically recoiled from talking with us this spring, even as new information emerged. I believe Oblinger received some bad advice from within NC State, urging him not to explain himself to The N&O; in the end, of course, a chancellor makes his own decisions about what he is and isn't going to do.
Oblinger now is one of five finalists for the presidency at New Mexico State University. Some faculty members there are unhappy that Oblinger, given the circumstances of his leaving the top job at NC State, is a finalist there. That's up to the New Mexico State board to decide. In many ways, Oblinger was a successful chancellor at NC State. We wish him the best of luck in his next endeavor, whether at New Mexico State, NC State or elsewhere.
--John Drescher
At some point in the next year or two, Erskine Bowles will most likely step down from his post as UNC system president.
He took office Jan. 1, 2006, and he turns 65 - the traditional retirement age - next August.
But in a wide-ranging chat Tuesday with reporters and editors at the News & Observer, he made clear he doesn't want to leave the job until he cleans up some of the messes facing him right now.
Controversies over a retreat rights policy that for five years has paid top administrators boatloads of money after they leave their jobs; a bloated payroll filled with administrative jobs and associated costs Bowles is now pledging to reduce; and of course, the state's economic woes, which have led to more than $170 million in UNC system budget cuts this year.
Bowles has a lot to say on these issues and others. You can read our coverage here and watch a video of the interview here.
And click here for today's main News & Observer editorial, which lauds Bowles for his attention to shaving administrative costs.
Some other tidbits from the Tuesday conversation:
On the Mary Easley situation: Bowles said that when revelations about the former First Lady's pay hike - of more than 80 percent - first emerged, he was skeptical.
"I just grossly underestimated how long that matter would be before the people of the state," he said. "I honestly thought that, really, the hiring of her before I got here, that she was a big star and you all would look at it and there would be no "there" there. I just underestimated, grossly, the whole depth of the situation."
On the growth over time of administrative costs, which he now pledges to cut back.
"I think we've made some progress, but facts are facts. My hope is that at this time next year you'll see incredible progress."
and...
"Universities aren't businesses. When given a new task, since everybody is busy, the first thought is to bring someone else on to handle the task."
Bowles, a former White House Chief of Staff, has also managed in large and small business settings and led the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
But education, he said, is the most challenging field in which to manage.
"Education is more resistant to change," he said. "And it's more difficult to manage in than any of those other businesses."
On the hiring of chancellors: Bowles was asked whether he thought universities ought to be more open to hiring people like himself, "non-traditional" candidates with business backgrounds, to lead public university campuses.
"I think it's invaluable to have the breadth and experience for my job," he said. "But for the chancellor job, I really think you need a significant amount of experience on a campus. I didn't think that before I had a chance to manage in this field. [But] Having credibility with the faculty, and understanding the business, is not something that comes naturally to someone like myself."
Erskine Bowles, president of the University of North Carolina, talks with News and Observer reporters about the hiring and firing of Mary Easley ... more
A planned trip by the N.C. State University Marching Band to Ireland has fallen victim to the balky economy and budget constraints, even though the trip was not going to be publicly funded.
NCSU officials pulled the plug on the trip, citing the bad image it would have projected given how tight the state budget is now.
The ongoing Mary Easley saga played a role in the decision as well, band director Paul Garcia said recently in an e-mail to band members.
Here's the story.
The board of trustees at N.C. State University is now formally looking into the Mary Easley situation.
The board, under new leader S. Lawrence Davenport, created a committee Tuesday to examine Easley's hiring and work. The committee will examine the Easley scandal with an eye towards creating policy to prevent a similar situation in the future.
Jay Price has the story here.
Federal investigators want to know precisely what Mary Easley was doing while at work at N.C. State.
A new federal subpoena issued to NCSU this week requests more detail on Easley's role at NCSU as well as more details about deleted emails from one of former Chancellor James Oblinger's email accounts.
Read it here.
The latest micro-twist in the Mary Easley/NCSU saga: The university has issued its formal response to Easley's Monday letter in which she indicated her intention to appeal her firing.
NCSU's letter, which you can read by clicking the document attached to this blog post, simply lays out the procedure Easley is to follow.
Just yesterday, NCSU Interim Chancellor James Woodward indicated that the university is not at all likely to negotiate a settlement with Easley.
