The University of North Carolina, the nation’s first public university, has long been among the first in quality.

Is that in jeopardy in Chapel Hill and across the UNC System?

Since taking over the North Carolina House and Senate a decade ago, Republican state lawmakers and their university appointees have triggered negative national headlines about UNC with the clumsy removal of the Confederate statue known as “Silent Sam” and the failed hiring of prominent Black journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. Meanwhile, faculty members across the 16-university system are complaining about Republican oversight that they say has inhibited the autonomy of campuses, applied political litmus tests to the selection of key administrators and curtailed the faculty’s role in the shared governance of their institutions.

The run of bad press and the corrosive tension between conservative leadership and more liberal campus cultures raise a question: Has a decade of Republican control damaged the University of North Carolina?

For Sen. Gladys Robinson, a Guilford County Democrat and a former member of the UNC Board of Governors, there is no doubt about the answer. She said Republican meddling in what should be campus and faculty affairs has alienated faculty and intimidated administrators to an extent that it has put the university’s reputation at risk.

“They are damaging what is really a leading university system across this country,” she said. “I have been proud of it and they are really destroying it.”

William Link, who has written biographies of two revered former UNC leaders, Frank Porter Graham and William Friday, said the degree of political interference in the university those leaders once zealously protected would have left them “utterly dismayed.”

For UNC System President Peter Hans, such assessments are overwrought and blind to the university’s gains. Indeed, he said, “The university is stronger than it has ever been.”

Hans, a former head of the North Carolina Community College System who was chosen by the UNC Board of Governors to become UNC System president in 2020, concedes that UNC has been through recent storms and there are ongoing disagreements. But he noted that the university’s history includes periods of dispute and unrest involving race, free speech and political struggles over expanding the system. He thinks such clashes reflect the university’s dynamism, not its deterioration.

“A public system of higher education is always the subject of public input, there will be controversies, there will be challenges and in some ways this is a strength because people care,” he said. “I would worry about if and when a time came when people didn’t care enough to weigh in.”

Hans said the measurable fundamentals of the university system – graduation rates, alumni giving and grants received – are all increasing. UNC-CH and N.C. State are among the nation’s leaders in receiving federal research grants. A steady rise in applications – decisions on admissions are being announced this time of year – has made the UNC System’s top schools more competitive.

UNC-CH just reached a goal of raising $4.25 billion a year early. N.C. State just completed a five-year campaign that raised $2.1 billion. Only 12 other public universities in the nation have completed campaigns that raised more than $2 billion.

Meanwhile, thanks in part to a five-year freeze on tuition and the $1,000 per year in-state tuition at four campuses under the NC Promise Tuition Plan, UNC remains among the nation’s most affordable public universities.

In the latest state budget, Republican lawmakers increased funding for NC Promise, gave $97 million to expand online education focused on working adults and provided $2.2 billion for new buildings, renovations and repairs across the UNC System – the largest capital investment since 2000.

Some UNC schools appear to be tension-free under the GOP’s control. UNC-Charlotte’s goals, for example, fit well with Republican efforts to expand enrollment and focus on instruction that is related to the state economy’s needs. The university set an enrollment record in 2020 by crossing the 30,000 student mark for the first time in its 75-year history. It is now the third-largest institution in the UNC System behind N.C. State University and UNC-Chapel Hill.

Rather than being criticized as philistines tearing down the ivory tower, Republicans could be seen as marshaling UNC through what is a national change in public universities, a change that seeks to make higher education more affordable and more focused on developing job skills.

But rising university metrics and giving Republican motives a generous reading cannot dispel real trouble in the heart of the university – sinking faculty morale.

Hassan Melehy, a professor of French at Chapel Hill and a former department chair, said many professors feel a chill from conservative scrutiny. He said they doubt how much they can speak out, how much they can influence university decisions and how much they are valued.

“It’s mainly atmospheric conditions,” he said. “It’s a demoralization of many faculty.”

Melehy said the faculty needs better salaries, recruitment and retention, but “a lot of the things that are strong about UNC are still pretty strong.”

Hans said he will protect academic freedom. Noting a recent case in which University of Florida leaders tried to block professors from testifying as expert witnesses in a voting rights case, he said, “We don’t have that here and we won’t have that here.” Academic freedom, he said, “is the bedrock of what we do here.” Without it, he said, “There is no university.”

Chapel Hill faculty who saw their Republican-dominated Board of Trustees delay approving tenure for Hannah-Jones would disagree with Hans’ rosy description of academic freedom at UNC. So would those who ran academic centers that were killed or restricted by conservatives on the Board of Governors.

Michael Behrent, a professor of history at Appalachian State University in Boone and head of the North Carolina conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), said the traditional Republican preference for local control has been turned on its head when it comes to UNC. “No one is in favor of big government like Republicans in charge of the UNC System,” he said. “It’s a takeover in a way that has disempowered all levels below it.”

Faculty complaints across the UNC System have drawn the AAUP’s attention. The Washington, D.C.-based organization is currently reviewing the university. The findings are expected to be released this spring.

Anita Levy, a senior AAUP program officer, said sinking faculty morale ripples through the university. “Faculty working conditions are student learning conditions,” she said, “and when the faculty feels under siege and are subject to the political control of the board, we believe the conditions at the university deteriorate.”

Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, who rose from the Chapel Hill faculty, has gamely tried to buffer the conflicts between faculty and Republican appointees.

“Our tradition of shared governance is now and has been one of great collaboration and at times one of great tension,” he said. He said “faculty governance is very important to me,” but he also responds to other constituencies, including alumni and lawmakers. Noting the importance of state funding, he said, “Our partnership with the General Assembly is critical.”

Hans disputes the notion that Republicans alone are shaping the university. He said, “I as system president am charged with engaging all these stakeholders regardless of their political affiliation because the University of North Carolina does not belong to the Republicans, the University of North Carolina does not belong to the Democrats. It belongs to the people of this state.”

Hans may engage with many people – he’s known for his diplomatic skills – but he serves at the pleasure of a Board of Governors that is stocked with Republican loyalists, including former lobbyists and lawmakers.

Since taking control of the General Assembly a decade ago, Republicans have all but eliminated Democrats from the UNC System’s 24-member Board of Governors and removed Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s ability to appoint four members of the 13-member boards of trustees at each of UNC’s university campuses. As a result, every current member of the UNC System Board of Governors and UNC-CH Board of Trustees was appointed by a conservative-run state legislature. Many were appointed based on their political contributions or connections rather than their understanding of or interest in higher education.

James Moeser, Chapel Hill chancellor from 2000 to 2008 and now a professor emeritus of music at the university, said he is “very concerned” about the Republicans taking a heavy hand in the operation of the Chapel Hill campus.

“The removal of the governor’s ability to appoint four members of the Board of Trustees was alarming,” he said. “That was the first sign that the leaders of the General Assembly had very partisan objectives in mind.”

Faculty morale is being diminished by more than clashes over academic freedom and the faculty’s role in shared governance.

John Stiller, a former faculty chair at East Carolina University, said excessive central planning has has stifled creative thinking that should come come from the bottom up. “Oversight is fine but putting in place metrics and approaches that don’t make sense for institutions has been a problem and continues to be problem,” he said.

Republican lawmakers have also sent a discouraging message through faculty salaries.

The new state budget provides a 5% pay increase over two years, but that will not make up for several years without a significant pay increase. The drought was caused in part by the failure of the legislature and the governor to agree on a two-year budget in 2019.

An AAUP analysis found that UNC System faculty salaries have not kept up with comparable four-year universities. From 2010-2020 across the entire UNC System, average pay for full-time non-medical faculty decreased by 7.4% after adjusting for inflation. That compares to a 2.1% inflation-adjusted decrease nationwide. Salaries at Chapel Hill mirrored the system-wide decrease.

Eroding pay has left the university vulnerable to losing top professors.

Holden Thorp, a chemist and former Chapel Hill chancellor, resigned in 2013 amid an academic-athletic scandal, went on become provost at Washington University in St. Louis and is now editor of the Science group of journals. He said UNC’s quality will slip if it won’t pay salaries that can compete with other highly rated schools. At Washington University, he said, “We hired a lot of people from Carolina. It was easy to beat them on the money and that’s not good.”

Thorp said conservative influence over UNC could make it difficult to attract top professors and administrators who could face challenges because of their politics. When someone asks him about whether they should enter a UNC job search, Thorp said he tells them, “Only if you want to go to war.”

Sinking morale is most pronounced among Black faculty members. Historic issues with race at Chapel Hill have been aggravated by Republican interference in the removal of “Silent Sam” and the failed hiring of Hannah-Jones.

William Sturkey, an associate professor who specializes in the history of race in the South, said many of his minority colleagues, a group already underrepresented on the faculty, considered leaving after the recent controversies. He said, “Last summer, with just about every colleague of color I talked to, it came up.”

Leaving isn’t an option for Patricia Parker, a Black professor and chair of the Department of Communication who has been at Chapel Hill for more than 20 years.

“We have to be very much aware of how difficult it may be for people to come here based on what they’ve seen in the national news,” she said. “But at the same time, those of us who have chosen to stay telling the reasons we have chosen to stay can counter that.”

To protect UNC-CH against political meddling, Faculty Chair Mimi Chapman and Roger Perry, a graduate of UNC-CH and a former head of its Board of Trustees, founded the Coalition for Carolina in 2021. The group includes alumni, faculty, staff, students and supporters of the university.

“We formed the group because we feel like the Board of Governors and the Board of Trustees are engaged in an ideological overreach with Carolina and the whole system,” Perry said. “They are getting down in the weeds and they are not allowing the administration and faculty to have the independence and autonomy that has historically been the case.”

UNC Board of Governors Chairman Randall Ramsey and UNC Board of Trustees Chairman David Boliek Jr. could not be reached for comment.

Perry thinks the pressure to change the leadership, priorities and culture at UNC-CH is coming from state Senate leader Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican. “I think the vast majority of this is driven by Berger,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious.”

Berger’s office dismissed that speculation. Pat Ryan, the senator’s spokesman, said, “Sen. Berger does not involve himself in university policy-making, personnel decisions or the day-to-day operations of the university system, nor does he have any desire to do so. Sen. Berger has said this repeatedly for years, yet the conjecture and innuendo continue.”

That conjecture gained fuel when the new state budget provided $11.4 million to plan and design a university system headquarters in downtown Raleigh, the first step in a $100 million plan to move the UNC System’s offices from Chapel Hill.

Perry said bringing the university system offices closer to the Legislative Building on Raleigh’s Jones Street sends a blunt message about who is in charge. “To move it to Jones Street – to that den of Machiavellis – is just an example of the politicization of the university,” he said.

How much the campus turmoil and faculty discontent will ultimately affect the national prestige and the continuing quality of the UNC System and its flagship campus is hard to assess.

Edward Fiske, the author of the bestselling “Fiske Guide to Colleges” has a closeup view of the controversy over political control and academic freedom at the University of North Carolina. He lives in a Chapel Hill retirement community.

“It’s probably not going to have a noticeable impact on potential applicants and their parents. Issues like these are not on their radar,” said Fiske, a former education editor at the New York Times. “But among potential faulty members, it could be huge.”

“UNC still has a terrific reputation nationally and it’s still one of the best bargains in higher education,” he added. “It’s just unfortunate that it lost the edge it had under Bill Friday and others.”

Sturkey, the Chapel Hill history professor, said measurements of the university’s success may still be positive, but it has lost its reputation as a progressive institution that helped guide the South toward a modern economy and addressed its problems with equality and race.

“The hard data looks good, but that’s not what makes UNC what it is. What makes UNC what it is is the research engine and the intellectual environment that was here,” he said. “We used to be a place where the rest of the South looked for answers. That’s not the case anymore.”

Sturkey said UNC-Chapel Hill, long regarded as a “public ivy,” is becoming a more typical public university where salaries lag, classes are larger and students focus on practical studies that will help them get a job.

“We’re not a place where people go to exchange ideas. They go for job training,” he said. “That’s fine, but that’s not what UNC was. It was a special place.”