The General Administration of the University of North Carolina system operates at a level between the UNC Board of Governors and the constituent institutions, and is responsible for administering policies determined by the UNC Board of Governors.
Each of the sixteen constituent institutions has a board of trustees with duties and authorities delegated by the UNC Board of Governors. A description of the duties and responsibilities of the NCSU Board of Trustees is included in the NCSU Faculty Handbook. The administrative and executive head of each constituent institution is the chancellor, who has executive authority subject to the direction of the UNC president. The chancellor is responsible for carrying out policies of the UNC Board of Governors and the institution's board of trustees. The responsibilities of the chancellor at NCSU are well defined and are communicated to the faculty in the NCSU Faculty Handbook.
The name of the institution is consistent with North Carolina State University's Mission Statement, which was endorsed in 1992 by the Dean's Council and formally approved by the UNC Board of Governors, which has authority to establish the mission of each constituent institution (see chapter on Institutional Purpose for the Mission Statement).
As at other constituent universities of the University of North Carolina system, the chief executive officer of NCSU is the chancellor. The chancellor exercises complete executive authority at NCSU, subject to the direction of the president of the University of North Carolina. The authority of the chancellor is established under The Code of the University of North Carolina (chapter 5, section 502), adopted by the Board of Governors in July 1972. This section is reproduced in the Faculty Handbook.
The handbook (updated fall 1992) also gives the titles and functions of the other administrative officers of NCSU. These include the provost, who is the vice-chancellor for academic affairs and chief academic officer; the academic deans; the dean of the graduate school; the dean for undergraduate studies; and the following additional vice-chancellors: research, outreach, and extension; student affairs; finance and business; institutional advancement. The organizational chart shows the relationship between these offices, and the Faculty Handbook explains details of their operation. These documents indicate that the titles of administrative heads are accurate, descriptive, and appropriate [6.1.1.1].
The organizational chart also shows administrative and academic divisions. The major administrative divisions are Academic Affairs, Institutional Advancement, and Finance and Business. The provost heads Academic Affairs, and there is a vice-chancellor for each of the other administrative divisions. The academic divisions include the Graduate School, the Division of Undergraduate Studies, the School of Design and nine colleges: Agriculture and Life Sciences, Education and Psychology, Engineering, Forest Resources, Humanities and Social Sciences, Management, Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Textiles, and Veterinary Medicine. Each college or school is divided into departments, once again listed in both the organizational chart and the Faculty Handbook (section IV). The Faculty Handbook identifies procedures for the periodic review of academic programs and leadership at the department and college levels (pp. 32-35).
The NCSU Faculty Handbook, 1992 addenda updates a number of changes in the names of departments, all designed to be more descriptive. The relationship of the names of academic departments to their function, academic offerings, and degrees awarded may be seen most clearly in the current undergraduate and graduate catalogs, which detail academic program offerings department by department [6.1.1.1].
In addition to the departments offering degrees, there are special academic units: the Graduate School, the Division of Multidisciplinary Studies, the Music Department, the Department of Military Science (ROTC training), the Department of Aerospace Studies, and many centers, institutes and laboratories (see list in the Faculty Handbook, 1992 addenda).
Undergraduate degrees are specified in the Undergraduate Catalog as Bachelor's degree in a designated field, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts, and professional degrees. The general names of the degrees awarded are those in accepted use in colleges and universities throughout the country.
The distinction among graduate degrees, the requirements of each, and the departmental and interdepartmental programs that offer them are detailed in the Graduate Catalog. Graduate degrees are specified in the Graduate Catalog as Master of Science, Master of Arts, Master's degree in a designated field, Doctor of Philosophy, and Doctor of Education.
University policies and procedures regarding the periodic review of academic programs ensure close and unbiased scrutiny relative to the accurate, descriptive, and appropriate use of terms to describe academic offerings and programs and the names of degrees awarded [6.1.1.1]. All undergraduate courses and academic programs are reviewed by the University Courses and Curriculum Committee, and graduate courses and programs are reviewed by the Graduate Council, prior to submission to the NCSU administration and, ultimately, to the General Administration of The University of North Carolina.
As established by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1971 for the current UNC system, the Board of Governors is responsible for the "general determination, control supervision management and governance of all affairs of the constituent institutions" (GS 116-11[2]) [6.1.2.1]. The Board of Governors may adopt all policies and regulations deemed necessary to maintain and manage the state's public system of higher education.
The Board of Governors is composed of thirty-two members serving staggered eight-year terms, with eight members elected by the General Assembly every two years [6.1.2.4; 6.1.2.5]. General Statute 116-6 requires that at least four members be women, at least four be members of a minority race, and at least four be from the political party to which the largest minority of the members of the General Assembly belong.
Regular meetings of the Board of Governors are held on the second Friday of the months of September, October, November, January, February, and May. The location of meetings is determined by the chairman [6.1.2.4].
Each of the constituent institutions within the University system has a board of trustees consisting of thirteen members that are chosen as follows: eight members are elected by the Board of Governors, four are appointed by the governor, and the president of the student body (who serves ex officio) (GS 116-31[d]). Trustees, except for ex officio members, have four-year terms and may be reappointed or selected for two consecutive terms (GS 116-31[e] and [f]) [6.1.2.1; 6.1.2.4].
The duties and responsibilities of the boards of trustees are clearly defined in official documents [6.1.2.3]. These may be found in the General Statutes of North Carolina (GS 116-33), the North Carolina State University Policy Manual (pp. 11-28), The Code of the University of North Carolina (chapter 4, section 403), and Article III of the Bylaws. Specifically, the powers and duties of the boards of trustees are defined and delegated by the UNC Board of Governors. These include appointment, compensation, termination, and policymaking relative to personnel not otherwise prescribed by state law, The Code, or policies of the Board of Governors; ensuring compliance with the educational, research, and public-service roles assigned to the board of trustees by the Board of Governors; awarding academic degrees, honorary degrees, awards, and distinctions; advising the chancellor with respect to the development and execution of the budget; management of property and buildings; the preservation, maintenance, and management of real and personal property, funds and other things of value; establishing admissions policies and resolving admission questions within the levels and criteria established by the Board of Governors; cash collection for fees, obligations, and tuition; and administration of student financial aid, student services, student conduct, student activities and government, intercollegiate athletics, traffic and parking, campus security, auxiliary enterprises, utilities, and miscellaneous facilities [6.1.2.7].
The NCSU Policy Manual states that the NCSU Board of Trustees advises the chancellor with respect to the development of budget estimates for the institution and with respect to the execution and administration of the budget of the University (p. 3). The chancellor submits annual financial reports through the president to the Board of Governors [6.1.2.8].
The Code of the University of North Carolina stipulates that a seat on the Board of Governors or a board of trustees is deemed vacant if a member fails, for any reason other than ill health or service in the interest of the state or nation, to be present for four successive regular meetings of the Board of Governors, or three successive regular meetings of a board of trustees (pp. 3 and 11) [6.1.2.5; 6.1.2.6]. Further, no member of the General Assembly or officer or employee of the state or of any constituent institution or spouse of any such member, officer or employee may be a member of the Board of Governors (p. 4).
The Code provides a written distinction between the policymaking functions of the Board of Governors and the responsibility of the administration and faculty to implement policy [6.1.2.10]. University policymaking is the responsibility of the Board of Governors, with the board of trustees of the constituent institution serving primarily in an advisory capacity to it and the chancellor, with the exception of cases where the Board of Governors delegates specific authority to the institutional board of trustees (The Code, section 203 A[9], and G.S. 116-33, 116-11[13]).
NCSU's participation in the University of North Carolina system dates from the original consolidation of North Carolina's public colleges and universities in 1931. At the height of the depression, North Carolina sought economies in funding of public higher education by incorporating the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the North Carolina College for Women, and North Carolina State College into a single university system. In the 1960s the University of North Carolina at Charlotte joined the original three campuses, and in the 1970s other public colleges and universities in the state joined with the four campuses of the UNC system into the current system of sixteen campuses.
Terms of consolidation initially included substantial loss of autonomy and ability to shape the future development of the University. Much of this autonomy and authority has been recovered over the past sixty years, but many members of the NCSU faculty question whether NCSU's unique role in public higher education is fully recognized, appreciated, and supported.
The consolidated University of North Carolina system coordinates budget requests of all sixteen campuses of the system and must approve new degree programs. The UNC system was created to organize higher education in North Carolina for more effective service to the people of the state and to facilitate relationships between the state's public universities and the North Carolina General Assembly and state government. Much can be said in favor of the reduction in competition among the various universities for state funding and other benefits resulting from establishment of the consolidated system. As a member of the UNC system, NCSU has access to significant resources in good will and the persuasive power of the UNC General Administration in dealing with the North Carolina General Assembly.
Yet many people on the NCSU campus question whether the UNC General Administration fully appreciates the distinctive character of NCSU as a research-intensive land-grant university. A significant percentage of respondents to open-ended questions in self-study surveys of faculty and administrators pointed to perceived constraints placed on NCSU's achievement of its mission by policies of the General Administration.
NCSU's Mission Statement calls the institution a center of teaching, research, and service, yet NCSU is funded in the same manner as the regional campuses that have much smaller graduate and research programs and service missions quite different in scope and character from NCSU's historic programs of extension. State appropriations are based on formulas keyed to the number of students taught in classes. These formulas do not adequately recognize the University's responsibilities in research and extension, nor do they reflect sufficiently the distinctive character of graduate education, with its seminars and one-on-one faculty-student interactions in research projects and dissertation supervision.
All members of the NCSU faculty are called upon to participate in the University's extension mission, yet only faculty in the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, and Forest Resources are provided additional state funds specifically earmarked for extension, research, and service activities. Many of NCSU's historically strongest programs in technical and applied fields require extensive (and expensive) laboratory equipment and field sites. Again, state appropriations do not distinguish between NCSU's need for such facilities and other institutions with very different missions.
In recent years, NCSU's participation in the UNC system has had consequences for program development, manifested most clearly in NCSU's inability to gain permission from the UNC system to plan development of advanced degree programs in the humanities and social sciences. Some existing graduate degree programs on the NCSU campus are now under review by the UNC General Administration, and are being asked to compete for their future existence with programs on regional campuses.
Recommendation 12.1: NCSU should review its relationship with the UNC system to determine how to promote greater recognition of the distinctive character and mission of NCSU by the UNC General Administration.
Responses to open-ended questions on the self-study surveys of faculty and administrators indicate broad support for NCSU's mission, and significant agreement that NCSU has great potential to achieve preeminence among research-intensive land-grant universities. There is also broad agreement that NCSU is at a crossroads, faced with great opportunity for institutional advancement if it can overcome internal divisiveness and external constraints on institutional development.
In their responses, faculty indicate that they seek greater and more effective participation in institutional decision making. They look to senior administrators for leadership that will enable NCSU to overcome vestiges of academic provincialism within the University, pointing the University community toward an understanding of the University's future that can be shared, comprehended, and acted upon by all members of the University community. They seek a greater partnership with one another and with the administration in moving the University toward preeminence.
Faculty provide input into institutional policymaking through the Faculty Senate, the official representative body of the NCSU faculty, and various University committees. The Faculty Senate operates through approximately ten internal committees, and over fifty University committees guide the administration in all matters related to policies and procedures.
There is a growing concern among faculty that the centralized system of governance at NCSU (which gives all official University decision making to the chancellor, the president of the University of North Carolina, the Board of Governors, and the NCSU Board of Trustees) will limit the ability of NCSU to fulfill its potential as a preeminent university of the future. There are two chief concerns.
The first concern is with the dual committee structure used to seek input from faculty and other associated groups relative to the establishment of policies and procedures. Although the Faculty Senate is the representative body of the NCSU faculty and has an operational committee structure of its own, the University maintains over fifty other committees, mostly of faculty, that address many of the same issues reviewed by the Faculty Senate. In the view of many faculty, this dual committee structure is duplicative, cumbersome, and inefficient.
The second concern is that the Faculty Senate's role in determining institutional governance is so limited that the faculty decline to become involved. Many faculty think that if NCSU is to achieve the preeminence to which it aspires, faculty must play a larger role in formulating and implementing key institutional policies.
Efforts by faculty to assume a greater role in institutional governance reflect the faculty's move away from a narrow focus on teaching, research, and professional development in a specific field and toward acceptance of greater responsibility for the future of the University. Faculty seek to share responsibility with administrators for a wider range of institutional decisions.
Such concerns have led to a number of studies with recommendations for change in faculty governance at NCSU. The most widely known reports addressing the question of faculty governance are the Burniston Report, the Carlton Report, the Report of the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Faculty Governance, and the report of the Watauga Seminar for the 1992-93 Academic Year: "N.C. State University of the Future: A Research University? Or Is There a Better Model?" All of these reports recommend an increased level of faculty involvement in institutional governance. These reports deserve serious and immediate consideration, and the current Faculty Senate is focusing considerable attention on this issue. In addition, the provost has charged the Committee on Committees to study the current committee structure at NCSU, and has set up an ad hoc committee to examine the current system of administrative committees. Both committees have been charged to report by March 1994.
Recommendation 12.2: NCSU should increase the level of faculty involvement in institutional governance.
All groups studying this issue should work toward a speedy resolution of this issue. The Burniston, Carlton, Watauga, and other related reports, such as the reaction of the associate provost for undergraduate affairs to the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Committee on Faculty Governance, should be considered as part of the recommendations of these groups. The work of these groups should include the solicitation of input from the general faculty.
In short, the purpose of the Board of Visitors is to provide advice and counsel to the chancellor and to the NCSU trustees on a variety of topics including the changing role and scope of the major research land-grant universities of the twenty-first century. Members of the Board of Visitors are appointed by the chancellor, with the advice and consent of the NCSU Board of Trustees.
In addition, a number of discipline-related lay advisory boards provide advice and council on their immediate areas, with members representing related professions and distinguished academicians who provide useful advice on fund-raising, long-range planning, and curriculum. There are over sixty such advisory boards, nine of which are in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Sixteen of the advisory boards are discipline-related, two are in Student Affairs, and the Graduate School and the Financial Aid Office each have one (see self-study library for a list of advisory groups).
The boards of directors of the University's foundations also serve an advisory function to academic departments, colleges, and schools, and to the University at large. For the most part, however, foundation directors focus on fund-raising activities rather than curricula and instruction. Foundations that support the teaching, research, and extension programs of NCSU are covered in more depth under Related Corporate Entities, below. Such organizations have already served the University well, and others are sure to follow. Their work will be even more effective if they can work together and contribute to the well-being of the entire institution as well as to single colleges, departments, or programs.
Recommendation 12.3: NCSU should establish policies, procedures, and criteria for creating and coordinating the operations of advisory committees to academic, administrative, research, and outreach programs.
The Faculty Handbook contains information on administrative organization, faculty appointments, rights and responsibilities, professional development, benefits and other regulations and policies. It is distributed to all new faculty and is updated periodically. Each departmental office has loose-leaf copies of the other two documents, the Policy Manual and the Administrative Procedures Manual, which are updated as necessary throughout the year.
Because North Carolina State University is a part of the University of North Carolina System, it is also governed by The Code of The University of North Carolina. Appropriate points from The Code are quoted in the Faculty Handbook and the Policy Manual.
Duties of administrative officers of the institution are detailed in the Faculty Handbook, and those of the chancellor are established by The Code of the University of North Carolina [6.1.4.1].
The administrative head and official spokesman of the institution is the chancellor, who exercises executive authority subject to the direction of the president of the University of North Carolina system. The chancellor is responsible for carrying out policies of the Board of Governors and the NCSU Board of Trustees that are applicable to the institution. The chancellor must keep the president, and through him the Board of Governors, informed of the operations and needs of the institution, including the development of educational programs, the appointment of personnel, and the development of the proposed budget. The chancellor is also the official medium of communication between the president and all deans, department heads, directors, and other administrative officers; faculty members; students; and staff.
The chancellor attends all meetings of the NCSU Board of Trustees and keeps the board informed of the operation of the institution and its needs by giving a detailed report. It is the chancellor's responsibility to enforce all policies, rules, and regulations of the Board of Trustees and to serve as the official medium of communication between the Board of Trustees and other individuals, agencies, and organizations, both within and outside the institution.
The provost is the chief academic officer under the chancellor. The provost is responsible for the review and approval of all academic programs and policies and has authority in all matters pertaining to appointments, promotion, and compensation of faculty and professional personnel in the academic divisions of the institution. In academic and personnel policy matters, the provost interacts with the college or school deans, the Faculty Senate, and appropriate University standing committees. The provost and the vice-chancellor for finance and business are responsible for formulating the annual budget, biennial budget requests, space allocation, and planning among the academic divisions. The deans (including the graduate dean and the dean for undergraduate studies), the vice-chancellor for research, outreach and extension, and the vice-chancellor for student affairs report to the provost. The following offices also report to the provost: NCSU Libraries, Affirmative Action, Academic Personnel, Academic Computing, Undergraduate Admissions, Computer Graphics, University Planning and Analysis, and International Programs.
Job descriptions for other administrative officials (academic deans, dean of the graduate school, dean for undergraduate studies, vice-chancellor for research, outreach and extension, vice-chancellor for institutional advancement) are provided in the Faculty Handbook, including the 1992 addenda.
In the University of North Carolina system, the Board of Governors actually exercises authority. The president, together with other designated administrative officials, and the Board of Governors, administers the system. The chancellor of North Carolina State University reports to the president of the University of North Carolina System [6.1.5.3].
Although an organizational chart describing NCSU's administrative organization exists and is available upon request, it is not readily available in any document widely disseminated on campus [6.1.5.2].
Recommendation 12.4: NCSU should publish an organizational chart of the University administration regularly, either in the Official Bulletin, as an addendum to the Faculty Handbook, or by other appropriate means.
Administrative officials have the credentials, experience and/or demonstrated competence appropriate to their respective areas of responsibility (see self-study library for curriculum vitae and verification of doctoral degrees) [6.1.5.4].
The NCSU Board of Trustees has recently approved a system for evaluating the chancellor (see self-study library) [6.1.5.5]. Although formal policies and procedures for evaluating administrative personnel between the level of dean and the chancellor are currently being developed, there is currently no formal system for reviewing the provost, vice-chancellors, associate vice-chancellors, and program directors other than informal reviews conducted by the respective administrators' immediate supervisors. The lack of a formal system for evaluating administrators between the rank of chancellor and deans raises concern over whether all members of the administration are receiving equitable treatment.
Recommendation 12.5: NCSU should develop formal policies and procedures for the periodic evaluation of all administrators.
Those policies and procedures should include the participation of individuals to which each administrator reports, as well as peers and subordinates with whom each administrator interacts on a regular basis.
A formal review of deans and department heads is conducted every five years (see Faculty Handbook for a detailed description of this process) [6.1.5.5].
NCSU's administrative organization is similar to that of many comprehensive, Research I land-grant universities, particularly since the recent reorganization of the Division of Institutional Advancement. Throughout NCSU's history, due to the institution's organization into schools and colleges, activities have developed in one or another college that would benefit the entire institution if they could be organized and managed at the University level and made available to everyone.
