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CFCC Officials Forgo Search For President, Vote For Job To Go To Interim Jim Morton

By Cece Nunn, posted Mar 23, 2018
Jim Morton
Cape Fear Community College's Board of Trustees has chosen interim president Jim Morton as its pick to become president of CFCC, but whether he takes the helm will be up for approval by the State Board of Community Colleges and a final CFCC board vote.

Officials decided not to conduct a search. 

"We just felt it wasn't really necessary to do that," said Mat White, CFCC board chairman, on Friday. "We felt like we had a very qualified person in-house to fill the job so that's what we did."

Of the president position, White had said in February, "We are going to form a committee in the future, and we'll go from there."

During Thursday night's vote, held in closed session, three CFCC board members voted against selecting Morton, including Jonathan Barfield, a New Hanover County commissioner; William Turner Jr., former chairman of the CFCC BOT; and John Melia. The board has a total of 13 voting members.

Barfield said he thinks there should have been a search before the vote for Morton, particularly because the college receives more than $10 million each year of county tax money.

"I want to make sure I'm a good steward of the taxpayers' resources. I would like to know who else is out there," in terms of potential president candidates, Barfield said.

He said a search process has been conducted by other institutions and entities to choose new head officials in recent years, including at New Hanover Regional Medical Center and the University of North Carolina Wilmington. It's important to choose the most qualified candidate, Barfield said, because of how that choice impacts an organization.

"I think whoever is at the helm of your ship is going to be the one that's going to help you do the best recruiting," Barfield said.

Melia said he was blindsided by Thursday's vote, and that he felt like it had been a "done deal" before the meeting.

"Let me start with the fact that what I thought we were listening to is how we should go about selecting the next president, should we search or not search, and then the next thing I know we are going to vote on making Jim Morton – a fine guy by the way, I have absolutely no problem with Jim Morton – we are voting on making him the president," Melia said Friday. "It was the path of least resistance by a group on that board who had pre-determined this." 

He added, "My biggest concern was Jim’s lack of experience in an academic setting."

Melia said he was also concerned about the fact that CFCC's "faculty and the students have had no input into this."

Morton, who was initially employed by CFCC in 2015, was the finance director at Wilmington International Airport for 15 years, having  earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the UNCW Cameron School of Business, according to Morton's biography on the CFCC website.

The choice by the BOT of Morton follows several years of turmoil for the college in terms of the president's post. In October last year, Morton was appointed to serve as acting president through Dec. 31, the date former president Amanda Lee's resignation became effective. Lee's resignation was announced at the same meeting in October when Morton's appointment was announced, and no reason was given for her departure.

Morton's appointment as acting president meant that CFCC had three top leaders in six years: Ted Spring, whose departure resulted in a lawsuit that was settled last year, was appointed in 2012, and Lee was appointed after Spring left in 2015.
 
Along with the lack of a search process, the high turnover in the top position at CFCC in recent years was another reason Barfield gave for voting against choosing Morton.

"To me there needs to be a lot more thought put into what you're doing so you don't end up in the same predicament a year and half, two years from now," Barfield said Friday. 

CFCC's advertisement for the 2015 presidential search, under required qualifications, states, "An earned Doctorate degree from an accredited institution required." It also says, "Minimum of four years senior level community college administrative experience required, North Carolina experience preferred."

White said that Morton, despite not having a doctorate, is the most qualified for the job for several reasons, including his background in finance.

CFCC is like "a $100 million-plus business that we're operating, and we felt that it was very important that a person with understanding of business and finances, marketing, public relations [be chosen as president]. That was our thought," White said. "It's not fair to the taxpayers not to run [CFCC] as efficiently as you possibly can, and also Jim has a lot of contacts with local business, and one of the things that is a driver of our school is working with local business to provide the type of workers that they need and to also get them involved in our operation. We've already seen a big influx since he's been interim of that type of business."

Morton, who was appointed acting president as of Oct. 27, became interim president Jan. 1, with a salary of $210,000. His salary as president has yet to be decided. In his previous position as executive vice president, his salary was $176,016.

As interim president, Morton is one of three leaders of community colleges in North Carolina who do not have a doctorate, according to state records. As of the 2016-17 school year, CFCC was the sixth largest community college in the state based on total headcount enrollment.

"I've been on the board since 2014. This will be the third president that I have served under in less than four years," Melia said Friday. "The claim that the chair and the vice chair of the board are making is we need the stability; we’ve needed the stability since 2014 and we haven’t had that stability. And I just don’t think in an academic setting that the president of the institution should not have some academic credentials."

The state board's next scheduled meeting is April 19-20, but it is too soon to know whether the CFCC president item will be on the agenda for that meeting, said Brian Long, N.C. Community College System spokesman, on Friday.
 
"When a local board of trustees' selection of a president is sent to the State Board for approval, the State Board's Personnel Committee considers the candidate on the first day of the meeting," Long explained in an email. "If the Personnel Committee approves the selection, it is forwarded to the full board for consideration on the second day of the meeting. Since January, after thorough deliberations, the board has approved the selection of presidents for Sampson, Martin and Cleveland community colleges."
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