Heavner: Welcome, President Spellings

Let’s welcome President Spellings, our new university system president, and Margaret, our new neighbor in the Southern Part of Heaven.

This neighbor thing is important to every mission.  A single parent whose children are grown, she arrives with very few local connections.  It’s not just her job that’s tough. Public figures are challenged in making new friends with no agenda.  Let’s let her know that, in our neighborhood, she’s a welcome new neighbor.  That’s who we are.

She’s moved into the biggest house on the hill with the biggest job in the state, the most important and the toughest in our North Carolina public life.  North Carolina today is different and better than the rest of the south because our University is those things. She’s now its chief steward.

She now must shepherd UNC through times of galloping change, roiling in a tsunami of new technologies, the anger of old grudges and the ideology of inexperienced board governance that has yet to find its way.

Her unabashedly Republican leadership puts her politics out of sync in our village where 83% of registered voters are Democrat or Independent. It is, though, likely aligned the state’s voter majority.

Protesters have demonstrated, calling for her to be fired before she takes her job.  Yet, experience tells us that past performance and applicant’s promises are unreliable predictors of what emerges when the applicant is the incumbent.

Passionate student demonstrators are well intentioned in their protests.  At this point, they are misguided.

It was distressing to hear their student leader declare on WCHL that it doesn’t matter what she does in the job, “She will never be comfortable,” she promised, “We will always ask for her dismissal. And that’s that.”  That wince-worthy promise stirred comparisons to Mitch McConnell before President Obama had ever signed in.

Students come here to learn.  Someday, this young lady will learn that there are better ways.  The day may come when civil disobedience is appropriate.  Not yet.

There is an immutable propensity toward reciprocity in human relationships.  People tend to deal with others as they believe they are being dealt with.

It can be overcome and our new president is no stranger to political controversy or being the target of it.  Yet, trying to fire her now because of something she might do simply makes it harder for anyone involved to talk to others when creative and useful dialogues are our best path to progress.

Until our new president shows herself to be intractably intransigent in refusal to embrace the rights and to understand the sensibilities of those she calls her customers, let’s help her understand even as we cheer her success.

The governors of UNC were egregiously awful in the way they managed the presidential transition they instigated.  Some of its most prominent members, embarrassed by the experience, say they understand that now.  They are still learning governance. Ms. Spellings, meanwhile, is not responsible for the sins of the fathers who hired her.

For now, she and we should live the values of southern manners.  The big yellow house has big, wide front porches for howdies and a back porch perfect for sweet tea and good conversation.  It’s a place to for visiting, finding common ground.  It’s a good place for explaining and persuading; pondering, listening and learning.

That may fail.  But, our chances of getting the best come from expecting the best.  That also does not include a mindset to lie back, wait and see what she’s got.  In some ways, that’s more deadly than outright opposition.

She is smart, has a reputation for outworking everyone around her and doing so with a sense of humor.  We are more likely to advance agreement if we pursue it while finding joy in our common humanity and frailty.

This place is about learning.  She has said that her first job is to go to all the schools, to visit with the people of the state, to listen and learn.

If we are true to the roots we claim, we, too, will be liberal in pursuit of new ideas.  If the university functions at its best, our philosophies and policies are best derived from research and reason.

In Texas, the big jobs in education and public service went to Republicans.  As they say out there, just as here, the lady didn’t just fall off a turnip truck.  She found success where there was opportunity for advancement.  Now, her bread is buttered here.

And for sure, there’s no way that this board will ever chase their choice away.  So, she has a lot of latitude to do things her way. Let’s help her find it.

What’s the prescription, dear Tar Heels?  Bake a pie, take a casserole. Pursue trust. And Margaret–May we call you Margaret?–we welcome you to the Southern Part of Heaven.  You will be welcomed here by those who contribute to what makes our town swell and our University great.

We welcome your ideas and know you’ll listen to ours.   You do need to get one thing straight, though, here and now.  Our real barbecue is vastly superior to that stuff you slather over beef out there in wild and wooly Texas and call it that.   Indefensible.

Let’s show you at Crooks.  That will be a public demonstration to celebrate.