CHAPEL HILL (February 21, 2023) – Kevin Guskiewicz is walking a tightrope.
With the surprise adoption last month by the Board of Trustees at UNC-Chapel Hill of a resolution asking the university to “accelerate” creation of a School of Civic Life and Leadership1 – followed by a “flabbergasted” response from bewildered faculty2 – UNC’s Chancellor finds himself between an activist board and an activist faculty.
That’s not a comfortable position.
The local UNC-CH Board of Trustees can’t fire Guskiewicz – only UNC System President Peter Hans and the UNC Board of Governors can.3
But thus far, Guskiewicz has tried to accommodate both sides.
“I appreciate the encouragement of our Board to build on the work we have done and I share the ideal that our students are served by learning to listen, engage, and seek different perspectives that contribute to robust public discourse,” he said in a campus-wide message the day after the board’s action.
Guskiewicz is fond of quoting Clark Kerr, who led the University of California during a tumultuous period in the 1960s: “The university is so many things to so many different people that it must, of necessity, be partially at war with itself,” Kerr wrote.4
BUT WHEN IT COMES to shaping the university’s curriculum, Guskiewicz clearly views it as a job for the faculty.
“Any proposed degree program or school will be developed and led by our faculty, deans, and provost. Our faculty are the marketplace of ideas and they will build the curriculum and determine who will teach it,” Guskiewicz said in his campus message.
“I will be working with our faculty to study the feasibility of such a school and the ways we can most effectively accomplish our goal of promoting democracy in our world today,” the Chancellor wrote.
He made similar remarks Friday to the UNC Faculty Council, which voted to recommend no further action on the proposed school until it is developed and fully discussed by the faculty.
“I have no doubt about our faculty’s ability to lead this process and to continue to foster an environment of rigorous debate and scholarship,” Guskiewicz said. “As I like to say often, we’re built for this. This is what we do as faculty – take interesting ideas and research them, deliberate and develop them, and that will never change if this is to move forward in any way.”5
Even in his initial message to the Carolina community about the conflict, the Chancellor acknowledged the tensions – and responsibilities – of the university.
“As the nation’s first public university, we have a responsibility to be a place that brings together people of diverse backgrounds, experiences and viewpoints to debate the issues of our day. We are working to support a culture of respect, debate, and discovery. It won’t be easy and will often feel simply uncomfortable. Yet these are the skills our students, and we as citizens, need to be stewards of our democracy,” he wrote.
Unlike certain trustees, Guskiewicz continues to emphasize academic – rather than political – principles.
And UNC is lucky to have him.
1 https://bot.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/160/2023/01/Resolution-in-Support-of-School-of-Civic-Life-and-Leadership_Final.pdf.
2 https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2023/01/university-unc-leaders-blindsided-trustees-decision-professional-school.
3 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article252778983.html.
4 https://hew.aveltsagency.com/2021/09/guskiewicz-the-virtue-of-raucous-debate/.
5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeogHe7-ZS4.
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Mark Rodin says
Agreed. Watch for more political pushing as the 2024 elections get closer and if you value higher education, please vote the Republican majority in the NC General Assembly out.