UNC Board Chair Resigning from Leadership Role

Harry Smith is resigning as chair of the UNC System Board of Governors.

Kari Travis of the Carolina Journal was first to report Smith stepping down. WRAL and the News & Observer then quoted Smith saying that the amount of work and the politics involved had been wearing him down. The UNC System confirmed that Smith would be resigning effective October 1. Smith’s seat on the board runs through 2021.

The resignation continues a tumultuous time in leadership across the system. The board wrapped up its latest meeting on Friday with no indication a leadership change was imminent.

The board is searching for its fifth president in the last four years after two full-time presidents and two in an interim role have led the system since 2015. Bill Roper is currently the interim system president after former United States secretary of education Margaret Spellings resigned from the role midway through the last academic year.

Smith made several references at the press conference following Friday’s board meeting to the importance of keeping politics out of the operations of the UNC System, specifically in the search for a new president.

“We are trying to work very diligently to chart that course that just makes sense, nothing more nothing less, no political agendas, just what’s right for the UNC System,” Smith said Friday.

Smith has led the system through tense times, including the toppling of the Confederate monument on the UNC – Chapel Hill campus known as Silent Sam and the aftermath that led to continued protests and arrests and disagreement on the monument’s future among board members. A deadline for a new proposal for the future of the monument has come and gone multiple times after five members of the Board of Governors were appointed to work with the campus administration in developing a new plan. When a deadline passed this spring, Smith said no new timeline would be set, adding that his views had evolved on the issue after he initially supported replacing the monument on the campus.

Smith has also been criticized, including by other board members, for his role in what resulted in the chancellor at East Carolina University leaving that role and other operations at ECU, where Smith is an alumnus.

Smith has served on the board since being appointed in 2013 and was vice chair before being elected chair beginning in July 2018. His tenure followed Lou Bissette’s time as chair, who was elevated to that role in October 2015 following the abrupt resignation from the board entirely of then-chair John Fennebresque. That 2015 resignation came just after the board named Spellings the new system president. The system is now in the very early stages of looking for a new full-time president. The search committee made up of members of the Board of Governors recently laid out plans that would have a new president selected by the spring of 2020.

“We are grateful for Harry’s service, strong leadership, and selfless commitment to both the UNC System and the Board of Governors,” Roper said in a release on Tuesday. “I have valued his support, leadership, and friendship throughout this past year, and look forward to his continuing contributions on the Board of Governors.”