UNC Wilmington is closing in on selecting its next chancellor, and predictably, the search has been tight-lipped.

As is the custom when public universities in this state search for chancellors, those doing the searching are sworn to secrecy. Passwords, secret meetings and everything aside from Cold War-era spy techniques are employed to throw reporters off the scent to maintain the anonymity of candidates.

This is done, university officials always say, to insure that the institution gets the best possible applicants, since some top candidates are scared off if they know their interest will be made public.

As the Wilmington Star News reports today, UNCW faculty, staff and students involved in the process have signed confidentiality agreements. That's not unusual.

The search committee at N.C. Central University that sought a replacement for departed James Ammons did so and communicated partly in code.

UNCW is looking for a replacement for Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo, who is retiring.

UNC Wilmington is closing in on selecting its next chancellor, and predictably, the search has been tight-lipped.

As is the custom when public universities in this state search for chancellors, those doing the searching are sworn to secrecy. Passwords, secret meetings and everything aside from Cold War-era spy techniques are employed to throw reporters off the scent to maintain the anonymity of candidates.

This is done, university officials always say, to insure that the institution gets the best possible applicants, since some top candidates are scared off if they know their interest will be made public.

As the Wilmington Star News reports today, UNCW faculty, staff and students involved in the process have signed confidentiality agreements. That's not unusual.

The search committee at N.C. Central University that sought a replacement for departed James Ammons did so and communicated partly in code.

UNCW is looking for a replacement for Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo, who is retiring.

UNC Wilmington Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo will retire next June.

DePaolo, who has led the UNC system campus for the last seven years, announced today she will step down June 30, 2011.

“When a whole phase of a university’s renewal is complete, when the institution has not only redefined itself but grown into that definition, then it’s time for the chancellor who led that renewal to ask whether the time has come for new leadership, for a new vision—to take the university to its next level of potential,” DePaolo said.

DePaolo will not accept a retreat package or return to the university’s faculty, and  announced her plans eight months before her actual retirement date in order to give UNC President Erskine Bowles, his successor Thomas Ross, and the UNCW Board of Trustees adequate time to convene a search committee and appoint her replacement, according to a university news release.

“I want to leave my successor a clean and unencumbered sheet for any new ideas or vision he, or she, wants to bring to the position of UNCW chancellor,” she said.
 

The state budget that the N.C. House initially approved today was so disturbing to UNC-Wilmington Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo that she made an unscheduled appearance at what had been a highly regimented and efficiently run, on-time-to-the-minute freshman-parent orientation to urge parents to call their legislators and protest.

She said that the budget that passed would mean a 5 percent cut on top of what had already been a 2 percent cut. The university has had to cut $22 million over the past two years as it is.

"There's nothing left to cut," she said gravely, except to cut classes or sections of classes, which would make it more difficult for students to graduate within four years. UNCW is one of the lowest-funded schools in the UNC system, she said, but it has the next-to-highest graduation and retention rates, second only to UNC-Chapel Hill.  

"It will be worse a lot longer if we don't help the university help the state recover," she said. A parent with an older child at UNC-Greensboro told DePaolo that the
chancellor of that school made a similar speech today.

The House budget also calls for a significant cut to financial aid, which will only perpetuate the horrendous economic downturn, DePaolo said, by keeping more people out of college, which in turn keeps more people from participating in the state's economic recovery. "It doesn't make sense to damage the educated populace in the work force," she said.

UNCW is scheduled to open a beautiful, new School of Nursing this fall, but the House budget would cut out the money required to actually operate the school, she said.

New buildings but no money to open them? Cuts to education that keep people out when we clearly need more people in? We can only hope that the coming budget negotiations between the Senate and House end with these cuts nowhere to be found.

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.