Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Sept. 4, 2001, edition 1 / Page 11
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®lf? laily ®ar Hppl Perspectives on Chancellor James Moeser's First Year at UNC's Helm IflKßm&a Iwfc iMBBrMBIf vllSt N /Sffl wmm .^fegßas^.vi vjt #J\:. jJ / pg. y? y~. J |Va J J/ N^fev??S?? vOv ? f 3P>._ §Ww i MS WKrmt/h&\jSE3HmmT i grg 1 c>\ Oi Faculty, Moeser Begin to See Eye to Eye This has been an excep tionally challenging year for anew admin istration. Chancellor James Moeser gets high marks from many faculty for the new leaders he has brought to campus - the provost and two vice chancellors. They have faced rapid fire tests - the bond referen dum, a sagging state econo my and budget problems in the legislature, and planning for unfathomable construction and growth on campus along with absorb ing enrollment growth when resources are scarce. Also, a decidedly testy rela tionship with the town of Chapel Hill. The town/gown situation has caused some unease among the faculty, as has the proposed venture with the country of Qatar. In both cases, the chancellor has been open to opposing or skeptical points of view. Yet we do not know yet how influential these will be in the end. Chancellor Moeser’s zealous advo cacy and obvious pride in the campus - faculty, students, and staff - are appreciated by many of us. His plea- SBP Calls on Chancellor to Boost Visibility I t’s the start of Chancellor James Moeser’s sopho ,more year, and he’s already involved in enough extracurricular activities to put us all to shame. In his freshman year, he dealt with a lot of tough issues, such as the expand ing the University and our strange relations with the town of Chapel Hill over University development. In addition he’s been out on the front raising money for the University, which has left some won dering what our chancellor’s priorities are. Do you remember your first year here at Carolina? There were a lot of opportunities, a lot of new challenges, a lot of work and a lot of fun. You never really knew how you were going to get involved, but you did discover many new things. Now imagine back to that first year sure with his job and this place is infectious. He has been a champion in the area of employment benefits, and he has been receptive to almost every initiative that Faculty Council has pro posed. Chancellor Moeser and I started our respective jobs at about the same time, so this first year has been a learning process for both of us - learning the nuances, names SUE ESTROFF GUEST COLUMNIST and no-nos necessary to the very differ ent roles we play, and constructing ways to work together. The latter has been the easiest part; the issues and the pace with which they emerge have been more challenging. Moeser is learning the traditions and expectations of faculty governance at Chapel Hill, and we are learning how to communicate our views and con cerns to him rapidly and forcefully enough to have an influence on his decisions. Chancellor Moeser has a sense of humor and an ability to change his mind or modify his position when pre- and imagine having to run the University - that’s how the chancellor feels. After his first year, many have been printing up his one-year report card through editorials and retro spective interviews about his experience thus far. The central theme in each of those articles have been active involvement outside the University yet not enough involvement jUSTIN YOUNG GUEST COLUMNIST within the Carolina community. Aside from that issue, the chancellor has shown a very strong commitment to making the University better on many levels. With all that pressure to succeed it’s hard to find his Carolina niche. There’s not much of a learning curve when you come into a position like this - you just hit the ground running and learn as you go. The chancellor still has a lot to Moeser's Mark sented with a persuasive argument. These are essential qualities for some one in his position. As Faculty Council chairwoman, I am constantly trying to find ways to convey the diverse views of a diverse faculty to the chancellor. Even when he does not agree with us, he listens and engages in sometimes spirited debate. Most of us wish for more debate and discussion with him about matters of import - we thrive on debate and dis cussion. He sometimes moves more rapidly than we would prefer, but if he waited for consensus on every matter, little progress would ensue. We are developing ways to work with this inherent tension. We continue to press for more consultation and con sideration of faculty perspectives. We have not yet taken the full mea sure of this chancellor. His enthusiastic embrace of Carolina will take some time to be reciprocated. We are per haps quick to question and slow to be convinced. Yet, that is the faculty’s inquiring, deliberative nature. The con fidence and trust of the faculty is a renewable resource - this he under stands well. learn, but there are many in the University community that can show him the ropes. One group in particular, the student body, has a large wealth of knowledge. Here is the opportunity for the chan cellor to actively interact with us to help make Carolina better. Chancellor Moeser - student opin ions are abundant on this campus. In order to find them read The Daily Tar Heel or just walk out your front door to the quad. Come hangout in the Pit, have lunch in Lenoir, stop by a Sangam meeting or bust a move at a Great Hall party. We’d love to see you out and about. The University is undergoing some incredible changes that will make it better suited for the future, and Chancellor Moeser is at the forefront The students, faculty and staff want to play a major role in making the plans for the future. Visibility and access are two impor Viewpoints Chancellor Assesses Ist Year After a year at Carolina, now is the right time to share my thoughts with the University community about both our progress in the past year and the future chal lenges we all will face together. That, in short, is why all of you - students, faculty and staff - are invited to attend a State of the University speech at 3 p.m. tomor row in the Great Hall of the Student Union. It will be a speech about our values as a university community as well as our '£,a A ‘kkMmry ' v viwr', Jy chancellor at the ✓'university of Nebraska- Lincoln, I found it useful to communicate directly with A mT T % Vi v/ ice to Carolina. These remarks represent an opportu- nity for me to share a progress report. A lot has happened since I spoke on University Day last year. The bond referendum passed, thanks to the voters of North Carolina who overwhelmingly showed their sup port in all 100 counties. I remain particularly grateful to the students who demonstrated superb leader ship in securing the early voting sta tion in the Morehead Building. We are just beginning to see the To the extent that we forge ahead with continued collaboration and part nership, success all around becomes more attainable. Our futures are bound together, and happily, they look seduc tively promising. It is a good beginning. Some signifi cant tests lie ahead. How we allocate the inevitable budget reductions, how we resolve our differences with the town, how we evaluate faculty for pro motion and tenure and how we reform the honor system. We will also decide whether to create anew campus in the Middle East, what place corporate interests have in the academy, what limits, if any, are placed on athletics - and basically, how we make decisions in general. The future character and profile of the University is fluid. We want to have a hand in shaping that future, and we want to know more about the chancel lor’s vision, hopes, and dreams for that future. Sue E. Estroff is a professor of social medicine and the chairwoman of the Faculty Council. She can be reached at Sue_Estroff@med.unc.edu. tant things for any leader to keep in mind. Let this be a reminder that the chancellor’s door is open, and all we have to do is knock. Likewise, Chancellor Moeser, if you have a ques tion for us, I’m sure you will easily find an answer. The Carolina community must come together, and it is my goal to help the chancellor and the campus to do it. If you see me walking around with someone who looks like an older upperclassman in a suit, it’s probably my buddy Jim. Don’t hesitate to come up and introduce yourself - he doesn’t bite. If you want to talk about this and other issues stop and see me at 6 p.m. today in the Union Auditorium for the student government open house. Hey, maybe even the chancellor will stop by! Justin Young is student body president. Reach him at jcyoung@ email.unc.edu. positive impact of a nearly SSOO million infu sion of con struction and renovation funding that will make a dramatic dif ference in our classrooms and academic spaces. Last spring, we launched a genome sciences initiative that is bringing a vast array of expertise and resources from across campus together. We also saw the research funding generated by this amazing faculty soar yet again to new, remarkable record-breaking levels. Our trustees unanimously approved a visionary Master Plan, a blueprint for controlled, responsible growth over the next several decades. Earnest discussions began about the long-term possibilities for devel oping the Horace Williams tract. The student body and staff demon strated their continued excellence in the classroom as well as the work place. And our collective communi ty remained the kind of committed, dedicated public servants that we have all come to expect from each other as part of this wonderful Carolina family’s culture. The summer months have brought both uncertainty and anxi ety about the state’s continuing com mitment to education. The state’s fiscal crisis raises ques tions that trouble us all. This situa tion underscores precisely why it is so important for the University to take more responsibility for its own destiny by pursuing new revenue sources. Private fund-raising efforts will be critical in that equation and in ulti mately determining the level of excellence Carolina can offer in the future. After years of planning and hard work, the university will launch the public phase of a major v vision, Xboth of if J which j j define j who we ' are and what we 'stand for. When I was the university communi- Sty at the beginning of each academic X year to outline an agenda and !v ' i Jr IV the major \ issues fac j ing the 'university IK V / for the com / ing year. The feedback was so / positive that I want ed to bring this prac- Two Men, Two Styles: A Study in Contrasts He dared us to think big." That was Chancellor James Moeser’s assessment of the chief accomplishment of his pre decessor, Michael Hooker, when Moeser was officially installed as the University’s ninth chancellor on Oct. 12, 2000. On that day, Moeser praised the late Hooker for his determination to strengthen the intellectual climate at UNC, his efforts to strengthen ties with other parts of the state and his belief that the University could be the greatest public university in the nation. Yet since he took office, Moeser has revealed him self to be very different from Hooker in several key respects. Intellectual Climate When Hooker arrived at UNC in 1995, he set plans in place to promote a higher level of intellectual discourse on campus and improve the nature of classroom instruction. The linchpin of his plan was the 1997 report of the Task Force on Intellectual Climate. That unflinching assessment of intellec tual life became Hooker’s blueprint for change. Its suggestions indirectly led to the formation of the Carolina Computing Initiative, which required all freshmen to own computers by fall 2000. Moeser said CCI was well under way when he arrived. “(CCI) would have happened without me because the leadership was in place,” he recent ly said. The implementation of CCI has not gone as smoothly as Moeser suggested. Last spring, rice chancellor for informational technology Marian Moore revealed that CCI officials weren’t encouraging faculty to incor porate laptops into their lesson plans. That attitude ran contrary to Hooker’s vision of a technologically integrated curriculum. Moeser, on the other hand, appears perfectly content to allow CCI - and the intellectual climate - develop at its own pace. Fund Raising If Moeser hasn’t attacked the issue of the intellectual climate as intensely Tuesday, September 4, 2001 r jig private fund-raising campaign on University Day, Oct 12.1 will have more to say about why this cam paign is so important to Carolina’s future tomorrow. I will share some early details about the campaign that will dramatically illustrate the power of the private philanthropy that will make this university so much stronger in the years to come. Against that backdrop, it is easy to make the case that this fall semes ter will perhaps be among the most important in the university’s recent history. Vigorously advancing the process that will create a campuswide acade mic plan will be crucial to our future strategy. What shape our future growth will take remains a major issue, and our discussions with the town continue, leading up to a criti cal vote by the Town Council next month on the university’s develop ment plan. However, the real purpose of my speech tomorrow is to move beyond these day-to-day issues to begin to engage the campus in a substantive discussion of our long-term vision for Carolina. This should not be my vision, but our vision -one that is shared by the entire campus community. And that will require the participa tion of the entire community in helping to define that vision. Tomorrow I hope to launch the dis cussion from which we can define what it would mean for Carolina to be recognized around the world as America’s leading public university. Please join me tomorrow. I hope I have piqued your interest with these brief remarks. I would value both your presence and the contri butions that you, your friends and your colleagues can keep making to our community’s thoughtlul discus sions this year. Afterward, you are invited to enjoy lemonade and cookies with everyone in the Great Hall. James Moeser is the chancellor at UNC. JAMES MOESER GUEST COLUMNIST as Hooker did, he has far outshone Hooker in anoth er category: fund raising. Part of this is a simple result of circumstance: With the 7 percent reduction in state funds, the University has been forced to seek out other revenue sources. But Moeser has exhibited interest in fund raising since he arrived at UNC. In his MARK SLAGLE POINT OF VIEW University Day speech last October, he vowed to triple UNC’s share of higher education money with private dona tions. Since that time, he has met with interested private donors and cultivat ed contacts with corporations. Moeser has certainly been much more rigorous about pursuing funding sources than Hooker. He chose to expend most of his energy on other problems. Faculty Relations The area in which Hooker’s and Moeser’s styles contrast most is that of faculty relations. Hooker once summed up his leadership philosophy as such: “My style is to grab problems by die throat and shake the hell out of them.” That aggressive approach often ran kled professors, who felt their opinions were too frequendy overlooked. Some were offended when he proposed four new Kenan professorships, saying the move implied that they were not effec tive teachers. When Hooker approved a University Day of Action to clean up the mess left by Hurricane Fran, faculty members were annoyed that their classes had been canceled without consultation. Moeser, however, possesses a much fighter touch than Hooker. He takes pains to maintain communication with professors. Moeser has sometimes found himself at odds with Hooker’s legacy, but he has always been respect ful of it Although their leadership styles differ, both men share a vision of the UNC’s future as the top public uni versify in the nation. It remains to be seen who will be remembered as the chief architect of that vision. Mark Stage is assistant editorial page editor. Reach him at mslag!e@email. unc.edu. 11
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