A working group of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors meets Wednesday to discuss proposed funding cuts and other changes to 34 centers and institutes at UNC system institutions. The list of entities under review includes University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Swain Center for Professional and Continuing Education. Most of the others on the list are located at the state’s research campuses.
 
The review is being done in response to a requirement from the General Assembly, contained in the budget it passed last August. That budget – known as the Appropriations Act of 2014 – stated “The Board of Governors and the campuses shall consider reducing State funds for centers and institutes, speaker series, and other nonacademic activities . . .”
 
The act further stated that funds cut would then be directed toward a $10 million state match for the Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund and/or to provide $5 million to implement provisions of the University of North Carolina Strategic Plan.
 
When the process began, there were 237 centers, institutions and speaker series on the review list. In subsequent months, however, a working group, led by board of governors member Jim Holmes, has pared it to the current 34 still under the microscope.
 
The group has looked at “enough data to probably consume three or four forests” and “tons of criteria,” Holmes said Monday. According to a summary presented to the board of governors at its Sept. 12, 2014 meeting, however, the most important factors in evaluating a center or institute were to be its alignment with the missions of its institution, its success in accomplishing stated objectives, its fiscal status and practices and the performance of its director.
 
Three possible outcomes for each entity on the list, according to the September presentation, are “continuation, continuation with modification or discontinuation.”

UNCW officials said Monday they had no comment except that they are cooperating with the review of the Swain Center.
 
The review is not politically motivated and has no agenda, except to determine how effectively the centers are fulfilling their mission, and how good a fit they are with their respective institutions, according to Holmes. Eight of the centers on the original list of 237 undertook a self evaluation and subsequently opted to shut down, he said.
 
Despite the budget directive from the General Assembly to find up to $15 million in the centers’ and institutes’ budgets that could be used for other academic needs, Holmes said that it would be incorrect to view the process as just about cutting funding.
 
“It’s been a healthy process. We’re doing [the review] to make the system better,” he said.  “Funding is just a part. We want to deploy resources smartly.”

One outcome of the review will be the creation of an advocacy policy for university centers, representing an extension of an existing policy, Holmes said. He also said that his group will recommend that all centers be reviewed on a periodic basis. No such policy now exists, and some centers have never been evaluated, he said.
 
After its Wednesday final meeting, said Holmes, the working group will make its recommendations public, so UNCW officials would get an idea of what changes might be in store for the Swain Center. Working group recommendations will go to the board of governors’ Standing Committee on Educational Planning, Policies, and Programs, which will then forward its recommendations to the board as a whole to consider at its next meeting on Feb. 26 in Charlotte.