Familiar Faces Among UNC Board Appointees

The UNC Board of Governors is about to get a new look. 

The state legislature has selected 16 candidates from a slate of 30 nominees. Board members approved by the senate include the reappointment of Chairman John Fennebresque. The senate also appointed former state senator turned lobbyist Thomas Goolsby.

Almost half of the appointees have ties to the Raleigh area. David Powers, a Reynolds American executive, is the only one listed from the Triad, although Pearl Burris-Floyd - who served one term in the state House from Gaston County - is a vice president of the Greensboro partnership.

One prominent Triad nominee was not selected. Ed Broyhill is a Winston-Salem businessman who one ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Fifth district congressional seat. He is also on the board of the J0hn William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. Broyhill was one of 15 total House nominees but was not one of the eight from that pool selected.

Most of the new board members have Republican ties - no surprise given that the GOP has the majority in the legislature. They're also big political donors. Over the last eight years, they've given a total of more than one million dollars in campaign contributions to state candidates, according to Democracy North Carolina, a government watchdog group.

Bob Hall is executive director of the organization. He says having board seats go to major donors is nothing new – it goes back to when Democrats controlled the legislature. But he'd like to see the process reformed so that the members are more representative of the state.

“Politically it should be representative of parties and non-affiliated members," he says. "It should also have more educators on the board, and it should have people not from wealthy means. They should be coming from ordinary professions.”

The board has made some controversial decisions in recent months. In January, it pushed system president Tom Ross into retirement and last month drew protests for closing three university centers, including an anti-poverty center at UNC Chapel Hill.

The 32-member board serves four-year terms. They oversee 17 schools across the state including four universities in the Triad.