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Charlotte's Erskine Bowles, who made millions in business and practically ran the country as chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, on Friday said that leading the UNC system "will always be the greatest privilege of my professional life."
He wasn't perfect, but it was an equal privilege for the people of North Carolina to have this competent man at the helm of our higher education system. He will be missed when he steps down before the end of this year, as he announced Friday he would.
He was the right person for the job, steeped in the progressive traditions of Terry Sanford and Bill Friday. He is a savvy businessman who has the respect of conservatives, moderates and liberals, and who clearly understands the nexus between a sound education, a thriving business atmosphere and a strong economic future. His work ethic is legendary, his organization impeccable.
He has served during difficult economic times, and brought his business acumen to the university's administration. He effectively walked the balance beam of ordering campuses and the administration to trim their budgets while also fighting to protect the system from too-deep cuts. He specifically called on chancellors to reduce senior and middle-management positions, part of his focus on protecting the heart of higher education: teaching students. He earned the appreciation of the legislature (and the taxpaying public) by doing so, and arguably preserved tens of millions of dollars that might have been part of a more damaging slash.
At the same time, appreciative of the state constitution's mandate to make higher education as close to free as possible, he worked to keep tuition hikes as low as was feasible in such times. And he pushed for universities to create better teachers for K-12 public schools, a rare but proper emphasis for someone in his position.
Bowles had his missteps. He supported the hiring of then-First Lady Mary Easley at N.C. State University, saying there was not a "shred of evidence" that political pressure had won her the job. He urged the Board of Governors to approve her 88 percent raise with a change in assignment, calling it "totally justified." And he was late to call for her resignation.
Similarly, he was too trusting of then-N.C. State Chancellor James Oblinger, who claimed that he did not remember helping Easley get the job. He called Oblinger a Boy Scout incapable of deception, but subsequent events suggest Bowles was indeed deceived.
Despite those and other problems, it is clear Bowles has the university's and the state's best interests in mind every day when he goes to work. We're all the better for it.
