CHAPEL HILL - UNC President Molly Broad announced her retirement Wednesday in a letter to Board of Governors Chair Brad Wilson. The announcement comes two days after a Senate GOP letter lobbied to name former Clinton Administration Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles the system’s next president.
Broad’s retirement is effective at the end of the 2005-06 school year or once a successor is named. An economist by training, Broad came to the UNC system in 1997 after serving as the executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer for four years with the California State University system.
Once her retirement is official, Broad will take a faculty position with the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government, a position that was created for her well before her retirement was announced Wednesday.
“Serving the people of North Carolina and their remarkable university will always be the greatest privilege of my professional life and an honor beyond any I might have imagined,” Broad wrote in the letter.
Broad became president after C.D. Spangler, Jr. Since then, UNC’s budget has grown by more than $1 billion in total spending, including both federal and state resources. The 1998 fiscal year budget was $2.32 billion, while the proposed budget for the 2007 fiscal year – currently under discussion in the North Carolina General Assembly – is $3.5 billion.
Also during Broad’s tenure with the UNC system, North Carolina voters approved a $3.1 billion bond package for capital improvement projects for community colleges and public universities. Broad said she wants to ensure that the bond program “enters the home stretch positioned for a strong finish” during her final months in office.
“The University of North Carolina is in a strong, healthy condition, and I am confident that it is well positioned for this coming transition,” Broad wrote.
During the latter years of her presidency, Broad faced criticism from conservatives in the General Assembly for requesting huge increases in spending, while UNC leaders claimed they could not face budget cuts.
In a Joint Appropriations Committee meeting earlier this year, Broad was questioned about the spending within the university system by Sen. Robert Pittenger, R-Mecklenburg. During the hearing, Pittenger pointed out that 45 percent of the money spent on higher education goes towards administrative costs.
“[Administrative costs] is a concern to a lot of us in this room,” Pittenger said at the time.
Pittenger penned the Senate GOP letter lobbying for Bowles to be the next president of the UNC system. Bowles, a Charlotte investment banker, lost in 2002 to Sen. Elizabeth Dole in the election to succeed former Sen. Jesse Helms. In 2004 Bowles lost to Sen. Richard Burr in the race to succeed former Sen. John Edwards.
The letter was not the first time Bowles’ name was mentioned as a possibility for Broad’s successor. The possibility was discussed following his 2004 election defeat.
Pittenger told The News and Observer that “[t]his underscored the need I feel that [UNC] have somebody with business acumen to run that institution.”
Bowles was recently named deputy special envoy for United Nation’s tsunami recovery efforts in Southeast Asia.
Shannon Blosser (sblosser@popecenter.org) is a staff writer with the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in Chapel Hill.