It’s no surprise that UNC President Erskine Bowles would heap praise upon retiring UNC-CH Chancellor James Moeser today, during Moeser’s last appearance at a UNC Board of Governors.
What surprises me are the factors Bowles cited as examples of Moeser’s record of greatness:
“He took a very good university and, in his quiet but firm manner,
demanded we make it great,” Bowles said, pointing to Moeser’s successes
in leading a $2.4 million fundraising campaign, shepherding a massive
construction boom, and defending the university?s decision to select a
book about the Islamic holy book as the summer reading selection soon
after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
I didn’t hear the speech, but these seem odd choices to represent the top accomplishments of a university chancellor. The fact that the university has grown larger, taken in more money, and defended left-leaning freshman orientation material seems to have little to do with greatness.
These choices might not surprise the Pope Center’s Jane Shaw, who wrote of Bowles’ UNC Tomorrow Commission:
If it were carried out, this agenda would create a larger and more
costly university system. That might provide some benefits, but whether
UNC would better achieve its core mission of educating the citizens of
North Carolina is not so clear. Whether the citizens of North Carolina
would be willing to pay for all these services is uncertain, too.
