McCrory doesn’t like UNC president search bill

Margaret Spellings is a former secretary of education in the George W. Bush administration.

UNC System spokesperson Joni Worthington said in an e-mail that no candidate names will be disclosed at the meeting and the Board of Governors will not take action on any candidate. Ross, who had led the system since 2011, agreed to a one-year contract, and will be out of his position in January 2016.

The University of North Carolina’s governing board met Friday to discuss the search for the next president of the 17-campus system despite complaints the process is being rushed and calls by colleagues of the board’s chairman for him to step aside.

But McCrory spokesman Josh Ellis told The Associated Press the bill restricts the board from “determining the process of selecting the best qualified candidates” and that the voting members, all elected by the state House and Senate, “should have the autonomy to do the job for which they were appointed”.

The meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m.at SAS.

The General Assembly has been critical of the search and passed a law that would require the search committee to present three final candidates to the board rather than the top contender only. A dramatic change in the state’s political landscape since 2010 (with the legislative and executive branches in Republican hands for the first time since Reconstruction), along with self-inflicted wounds like a deeply damaging athletic academic scandal at the flagship Chapel Hill campus, brought about last winter’s ouster of UNC President Tom Ross without any explanation. Representatives from the left-leaning nonprofit organization, N.C. Policy Watch, reportedly spotted Spellings in the BOG meeting prior to the closed session before she was whisked away. “Any action or process undertaken by the board that goes against the will of the elected members of the General Assembly would not be viewed favorably and would undermine the trust the General Assembly has placed in the board”, Berger and Moore wrote.

While the bill has yet to be signed by Gov. Pat McCrory, the letter stated that calling an emergency meeting to discuss only one candidate could be seen as an attempt to circumvent the bill’s call for transparency.

But McCrory spokesman Josh Ellis said Friday night McCrory wouldn’t decide whether to make it law or veto it until October. 30. It is a bad process. They are also upset that an emergency meeting was called when a few members couldn’t attend and called to meet just one candidate.