TO THE EDITOR:
Your March 2 editorial, “UNC needs a general,” rightly recognizes some of the inherent challenges faced by leaders of public institutions. What your editorial fails to point out, however, is the full scope of the litany of challenges Chancellor Carol Folt has faced since coming to Carolina — as well as the strength and principled approach she has employed in facing each.
Our University has encountered some of its most difficult issues in recent decades. Still, Chancellor Folt knowingly and enthusiastically inherited these issues when she became chancellor in July 2013. She has worked hard to address each with thoughtfulness, dignity and courage — and with a voice about which this university can be proud.
It was Chancellor Folt who, with President Tom Ross, commissioned the Wainstein report, which resulted in a final reconciliation and account of the academic fraud that occurred within our University. It was Chancellor Folt who has become recognized as a national voice on how colleges can enhance sexual assault policies and create change on campuses. It is Chancellor Folt who is speaking on critical national panels about the future of higher education. It was Chancellor Folt who restructured the University’s leadership team and implemented much-needed administrative processes to improve operating efficiencies. And it has been Chancellor Folt who has stood on principled grounds in the face of mounting, unprecedented and complex legal challenges, all of which stem from issues that preceded her arrival at UNC.
What’s also lost in the conversation is that while Chancellor Folt is managing these tough issues, she’s also overseeing a university where remarkable work happens each and every day, on every corner of this campus.
Carolina has many constituents, from its campus community, alumni and governing bodies, to the countless others in our state who want to have a voice in what happens here. As a leading public research university, we know that what happens at our University matters.
We do not need Chancellor Folt to take sides. We need our chancellor to have solid working relationships with all of Carolina’s constituents as she strategically navigates challenges and opportunities and leads Carolina forward. That is what Chancellor Folt is doing, and that is what the Board of Trustees wants her to do.
Dr. W. Lowry Caudill, Chairman
UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees
