Erskine Bowles looks back

The Charlotte Observer
December 18, 2010
By Jack Betts
Associate Editor
After five years as president of the University of North Carolina's 17-campus system, Erskine Bowles steps down at the end of this month. He discussed his work at UNC in a telephone interview Thursday, calling UNC "a great university" ... and predicting that incoming system president Tom Ross would be the system's best chief executive since Bill Friday. Here's an edited transcript of that discussion:

As you wind up your years as the head of the system, what shape is the University of North Carolina in?

I inherited a great university. It's not like I inherited a fixer-upper. Bill Friday and Dick Spangler and Molly Broad all entrusted to me North Carolina's greatest treasure, and I've worked hard to make sure I could preserve this treasure and help enhance it. I think we are passing a great university on to Tom Ross.

What worries you the most about upcoming state budget cuts that are certain to affect the university ?

I'm positive we will have a significant cut in our funding, and we have prepared for that. We know they are going to have to make really hard choices and North Carolina is blessed that we have leaders who can make those tough choices. The university again will have to look at how we can operate even more efficiently after having cut over $600 million in costs from the administrative side. In this next round of cuts we will have to look harder at protecting the academic core, and it is really tough to do that.

Will that mean closing campuses?

I don't think we have to look at campus closure for this round of cuts, but if we have to look at it in the future, instead of lessening the quality of each campus we would have to look at lopping some of that off. But not in this next round. We need to consider such things as, do we need five film schools, or should we be looking at closing down one? Do we need five online history courses or should we look at having one or two? Those are the kinds of things we will have to look at. We will have to look at larger class sizes, fewer class offerings, and perhaps cutting as many as 2,000 positions, of which 1,000 could be faculty. But I am confident we can do it and protect our academic core.  Click here to read more.