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The Daily Tar Heel

Board defers retreat decision

Requests more data before deciding

The UNC-system Board of Governors has deferred all decisions on a controversial administrative policy for another month, citing a lack of adequate information despite several months of discussion on the topic.

The board’s personnel and tenure committee intended Thursday to recommend changes to the retreat rights policy, but decided they needed to see an actual policy first.

They also requested that they see comparative data on salaries and compensation and benefits packages for administrators at public and private peer universities.

“They don’t want to do it in isolation,” said Chairwoman Hannah Gage after the meeting.

The key issues in retreat rights policy are limits on paid leave — compensated time off for administrators before they return to teach — and the salaries the former administrators receive when they rejoin the faculty ranks.

The system’s policy is generous in comparison with most public universities and lacks necessary accountability and specificity, UNC-system President Erskine Bowles said in a memorandum released last week.

The board has already spent two months discussing the generalities of the issue, which first came to light in summer 2009, and Gage expected to discuss concrete policy changes at Thursday’s committee meeting.

However, some board members still seemed confused about the basics of the policy.

Prior to the meeting, they were given several explanatory documents, including one outlining Bowles’ recommended changes to the retreat rights policy. One of the complaints was that the information was not specific enough.

“It was a starting point,” Gage said after the meeting. “We’ve drifted beyond that.”

What they need, several board members said, is enough data to accurately gauge whether scaling back retreat rights, as Bowles recommended, would allow the UNC system to remain competitive.

Bowles recommended shortening the length of paid leave and decreasing the amount of administrative salary retained by retreating faculty.

Many chancellors and other senior administrators argue that retreat rights need to remain close to their current level because they compensate for a less competitive benefits package when recruiting.

The other key concern Thursday was that Bowles’ recommendations didn’t differentiate enough between chancellors and presidents and other senior administrators. The former need greater retreat rights than the latter, several board members said.



Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.

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