A UNC Board of Governors panel on Wednesday spared UNCW’s Swain Center for Professional and Continuing Education from its list of recommended cuts and further scrutiny for university system centers.

As of Tuesday, the University of North Carolina Wilmington center was on a list of 34 centers and institutes within the UNC system that was scheduled for final review.

In its draft report released Wednesday, the board's Working Group on Centers and Institutes, recommended closing three centers in the system: UNC-Chapel Hill's Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, East Carolina University's N.C. Center for Biodiversity and N.C. Central University's Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change.

The group also called for continued review for 13 other centers, but not the Swain Center, according to the report.

The recommendations now head to the full Board of Governors, which meets Feb. 26.

The working group was tasked in September with reviewing all 237 centers, institutes and speaker series at the system’s 16 universities to recommend possible funding cuts, efficiencies, mission alignments and other changes. The Swain Center was the only UNCW center on the reduced list of 34.

The review was done in response to a directive from the General Assembly in the 2014 budget passed in August. In the budget, the General Assembly directed the Board of Governors to consider reducing state funds for centers and institutes and to redirect those funds – up to $15 million – to the UNC system’s five-year strategic plan and the Distinguished Professors Endowment Fund, according to the working group’s report.

The Swain Center receives $115,584 annually in support from the state's General Fund, according to UNCW officials. That yearly amount includes salaries and operating expenses.

While no action is recommended for the Swain Center, the working group is recommending that “ongoing efforts to improve coordination and efficient operation” among UNC system’s coastal and marine centers and institutes “be closely monitored.”

UNCW’s Center for Marine Science, along with eight other coastal and marine science centers and institutes, is among this group of entities. The other centers and institutes are programs of Elizabeth City State University, ECU, N.C. State University and UNC-Chapel Hill.

One aspect of the draft recommendations suggests that belt-tightening and stepped-up outside fundraising may be ahead for all centers and institutes that currently receive support from the state’s general fund.

The report states that chancellors should review each center or institute on their campuses that  receive the appropriations and weigh it would be viable to:

• "Reduce general fund appropriation by 25 percent over a three-year period
• Confirm that each center and institute has a plan to solicit outside funding
• Confirm that each center and institute has a plan in place to solicit funding from interested and supportive alumni and is implementing this plan
• Confirm that each center and institute is actively pursuing grant funding aligned with the mission and purpose of the organization."

In its draft report, the working group also recommends that campuses ensure, by the end of the 2015-16 academic year, that each of their centers and institutes has been reviewed within the last six years.

Click here for a copy of the full draft report.