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Fresh off a contentious battle to force a tenure vote for Nikole Hannah-Jones, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty members are fending off a possible effort to oust the campus’s chancellor.
At an emergency meeting of the Faculty Council on Wednesday, Mimi V. Chapman, chair of the faculty, laid out what she described as multi-sourced evidence of a push to remove Kevin M. Guskiewicz from the flagship’s top post. Chapman said she had been contacted by an unnamed source “who was alarmed about a meeting they had been a part of in which names were being solicited for an interim chancellor.”
“The tenor of the meeting was not if this would be the case; it was when this would be the case,” Chapman said.
With the threat of a leadership change in the air, the council on Wednesday passed a resolution affirming its “confidence” in Guskiewicz and strongly opposing a “deeply destabilizing” change in chancellors.
Concerned about what she was hearing, Chapman said she had contacted Guskiewicz and Robert A. Blouin, the provost, on Sunday. “By that time, they were hearing the same information from different yet similarly situated sources.”
In recent weeks, Guskiewicz has been embroiled in a controversy over Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was hired without tenure as Knight chair in race and investigative journalism. The protracted battle to force the campus’s Board of Trustees to vote on her tenure case concluded last month with a split vote in Hannah-Jones’s favor, but she decided against going to Chapel Hill.
In his public statements about Hannah-Jones, Guskiewicz walked a fine line. While saying he wanted Hannah-Jones to join the faculty, Guskiewicz has not criticized the campus’s Board of Trustees for delaying a vote on her tenure application. Hannah-Jones’s appointment and tenure were controversial in part because she is the lead author of “The 1619 Project,” a series about race and slavery in The New York Times Magazine that has drawn attacks from conservatives.
In a statement provided to The Chronicle on Wednesday, Guskiewicz said, “I am focused on leading UNC-Chapel Hill, not on rumors. I’m committed to working with our trustees and continuing to build a strong partnership to best serve the state of North Carolina.”
Chapman’s source, whom she did not identify, told her that two names were being floated as possible interim chancellors: Clayton Somers and John Hood. Somers, who is Chapel Hill’s vice chancellor for public affairs and secretary of the university, is a former chief of staff to Tim Moore, the Republican speaker of the North Carolina House. Hood is president of the John William Pope Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Hood, in an email to The Chronicle, said, “Professor Chapman’s allegation came as a complete surprise to me.”
Somers did not immediately respond on Wednesday to an email requesting comment.
Citing further possible evidence of a move to oust Guskiewicz, Chapman said she had spoken on Wednesday with another faculty member “close to particular trustees,” who had heard directly from trustees that the chancellor’s “performance would be evaluated in the coming days.” (Chapman did not identify the faculty member or the trustees.)
Chapman attached additional significance to the fact that the campus’s board had met on Wednesday without a live stream of its meeting, and that new trustees had spoken publicly about their desire for extensive discussions about tenure.
“That is a lot of smoke, in my estimation, for there to be no fire,” Chapman said. “It is my strong belief that this is not a time for a leadership change on our campus.”
Cracks in Support
The UNC system’s Board of Governors, whose members are appointed by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature, has the authority to remove chancellors of its own accord or upon the recommendation of the system’s president, according to the university’s policy manual. The board would be required to consult with Chapel Hill’s board, whose members are appointed by the system board and the legislature.
Peter Hans, president of the university system, said in a statement to The News & Observer that people should focus on the university’s mission and “not chase conspiracy theories.” (System officials on Wednesday did not provide further comment.)
Guskiewicz, a former dean of the campus’s College of Arts & Sciences, was named permanent chancellor in December 2019, after having served 10 months as interim chancellor. He was at the helm during Chapel Hill’s failed effort to resume in-person instruction last fall semester. His tenure has overlapped, too, with a national reckoning over race that has been felt acutely at Chapel Hill. Debates over the fate of a Confederate monument that once stood on campus continue to reverberate at Chapel Hill, and the crisis surrounding Hannah-Jones, who is Black, has exacerbated concerns over racial equity.
As the Faculty Council deliberated on its resolution, several professors expressed concern that a full-throated expression of support for Guskiewicz would paper over the mixed and negative feelings some professors have about his leadership, particularly in the wake of the Hannah-Jones case. No one voted against the resolution, but about a dozen members abstained. The council includes dozens of elected members from each school on campus and its libraries.
Recognizing the uneven support for Guskiewicz, the resolution acknowledges that a “chancellor must make decisions that not all agree with, and that there have been disagreements among the faculty about the best course of action.”
“Our chancellor is not perfect,” Chapman said. “There are things that we may have wanted to see or hear him do differently, and yet he is someone we know, many of us have served with him for many years, and he could not have assumed his post at a more difficult moment.”
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