Bain & Co. inexperience in high education might not matter but more openness on the process is needed
Faculty staff and students should be able to trust University officials' judgement in the administration's dealings with consulting firm Bain & Co.
But right now many don't.
And it's because University administrators are not proactively communicating with the University community about how Bain & Co. — a company hired to give UNC advice about how to weather budget cuts — is operating.
But both the Employee Forum and the American Association of University Professors have expressed concern over a lack of transparency with the University's dealings with Bain & Co. and the firm's lack of experience in the dealing with universities.
We agree that the University should be more transparent but Bain & Co.'s lack of experience might prove beneficial.
Chancellor Holden Thorp has responded saying Bain & Co.'s lack of experience with universities enables it to provide a fresh perspective for the University.
They might be able to see inefficiencies that those already living in the University environment cannot.
And much of the angst the University community is expressing could be mitigated if administrators were more up front about what's going on.
Thorp has responded to several requests for information about the Bain & Co. process.
But we need more communication.
It's difficult to find information pertaining to the Bain & Co. deal. We found the University's budget Web site extremely difficult to navigate and search.
We want to see the type of openness in the University's dealings with Bain & Co. that we have seen with budget cuts: campuswide e-mails messages from Thorp and easily searchable documents.
The University's implementation of Bain & Co.'s recommendations might have a significant impact on the University community and painful cuts will have to be made.
So community members need be assured that administrators and Bain & Co. aren't hiding anything.
The only way to have that assurance is to have easy access to information.
While the University community should let Bain & Co. do its work administrators should take further steps to foster trust in this difficult time.
