Employee Forum news:
Carolina Counts aims to make Carolina the country's most collaborative,
well-managed university

Last month, Chancellor Holden Thorp offered Employee Forum members a glimpse of what to expect from Carolina Counts, the University-wide effort to streamline campus operations and provide more funding for academics.

On Nov. 4, Joe Templeton, who leads the effort with Mike Patil, talked to forum members about key details, including the naming of 10 top-level administrators – called “project champions” – who will respond to recommendations brought forward by Carolina Counts in response to the Bain & Company report completed last July.

Templeton, former faculty chair and longtime chemistry professor, has been working with Carolina Counts part time, while Patil, former associate dean for integrated business management in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy, is full time.

Templeton said the constituencies for the project include not only faculty, staff and students, but also N.C. citizens, state legislators, the Board of Trustees and the Board of Visitors. Each of these groups will have different expectations about how and why recommendations should be implemented, Templeton said.

Thorp has said that this initiative can help the University become the most collaborative, well-managed university in the country.

Templeton said Carolina Counts seeks to help the University manage its resources prudently while both making Carolina even more service-oriented than it already is and making this a more satisfying place for people to work.

“Those are goals that I think most of us would agree are worth working toward,” he said at the meeting.

Carolina Counts’ 10 improvement project areas and champions are:

Space planning and utilization – Bruce Runberg, associate vice chancellor for facilities planning;

Centers and institutes – Elmira Mangum, senior associate provost;

Energy services – Carolyn Elfland, associate vice chancellor for campus services;

Facilities and campus services – Richard Mann, vice chancellor for finance and administration;

Finance – Roger Patterson, associate vice chancellor for finance;

Human resources – Brenda Richardson Malone, vice chancellor for human resources;

Information technology – Larry Conrad, vice chancellor for information technology and chief information officer;

Organizational strategy and layers – Bruce Carney, interim executive vice chancellor and provost;

Procurement – Richard Mann, vice chancellor for finance and administration; and

Research support and compliance – Tony Waldrop, vice chancellor for research and economic development.

Templeton said it was important for people to understand that Carolina Counts was limited to presenting options for the project champions, who will be charged with the task of weighing options from the final Bain report that apply to their respective areas of responsibility.

The champions will work closely with an “improvement team” that will develop ideas for their assigned areas. Templeton and Patil will work in concert with the champions to select the members for each team.

The champions will be called upon to provide objective assessments about the implications of various ideas, maintain a staunch commitment to get the job done and keep the project team focused on open-minded thinking that challenges the status quo, Templeton said.

Champions will also be asked to navigate around or through any roadblocks to keep the project on track and on schedule, he said.

Within South Building, all facets of this process will be monitored and reviewed by an oversight committee that consists of Thorp, Templeton, Mann and Mangum.

“We believe that the work we all do at the University matters, and the Carolina Counts name was selected to help convey both the importance of our activities and the idea that the project would be driven by measurable benchmarks,” Templeton said.

He stressed that it would take time to develop the trust and consistency necessary for changes to be accepted, take root and eventually to become part of the campus culture.

“We are not in this for a short time and then out,” Templeton said. “It’s going to take a while to get where we want to go. If we are on the right track, we will keep going, and if we are not, we will reorient the project and go from there.”

Information about the Bain report is available on the Carolina Budget Information site, universityrelations.unc.edu/budget. A new Carolina Counts Web site is being developed to provide updated information about the initiative.

FACULTY COUNCIL news:
N.C. is poised to ride out the fiscal year

Planning for the worst seems to be paying off. Although the state’s first-quarter revenue report shows collections falling behind projections by about 1 percent, it looks as if North Carolina is favorably positioned to weather the rest of the fiscal year – even if the revenue picture worsens.

That was what Chancellor Holden Thorp told the Faculty Council at its Nov. 6 meeting. With state budget cuts and the 5 percent holdback Gov. Beverly Perdue authorized as the fiscal year began, the state is prepared to get through the rest of the fiscal year, he said.

“The first-quarter projections are about as good as we could hope for,” Thorp said. “Nationally, we’re in good shape; many other states are 8 percent to 10 percent behind in their collections. And the third quarter has even more optimistic projections than we have right now.”

Thorp expressed gratitude to the legislature for its conservative revenue projections and said that by April state leaders would have a better idea about the next fiscal year.

The legislature’s short session, which begins in May, will address the permanent 2 percent cut in the state’s biennial budget, he said.

“We hope that will be the cut we have, and it might be a little better, but that’s what we’re planning on,” Thorp said. ”But it’s worth reminding everyone that while the worst might be behind us, it definitely isn’t over.”

New appointments
Thorp told council members that Judith Cone, former vice president of emerging strategies for the Kauffman Foundation, would work with him during the next 18 months to help plan strategies that foster innovation and entrepreneurship at Carolina.

She will assemble internal and external groups of people who are accomplished in entrepreneurship and tap into their expertise, he said. “This is a good opportunity to think about how our teaching and research will have an even greater impact than they do now.”

Bruce Carney, interim executive vice chancellor and provost, announced that Bill Andrews, senior associate dean for fine arts and humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Sue Estroff, professor of social medicine in the School of Medicine, will co-chair updating the University’s academic plan.

The academic plan serves as a roadmap that helps guide overall thinking and the allocation of resources, Carney said. The current academic plan has been in place since July 2003.

Carney also said that Peter A. Coclanis, Albert R. Newsome professor of history, has been named the director of a new Global Research Institute and the University is reorganizing its approach to international affairs. Coclanis left his post as associate provost for international affairs to lead the new institute, which was announced last March.

Launching the institute was the top recommendation from a blue-ribbon task force that developed a strategic vision to enhance Carolina’s international presence.

Coclanis is a former history department chair and associate dean for general education in the College of Arts and Sciences.

In addition, Carney said, the University is reorganizing its campuswide global efforts to do more with available resources and shift to a chief international officer model, a role filled by Ron Strauss, executive associate provost.

Online course evaluation
An updated online course evaluation system replaces the one-size-fits-all instrument that has been used for the past decade.

Lynn Williford, assistant provost for institutional research and assessment, said the older course evaluation process was not only labor-intensive and inflexible, it also was incompatible with PeopleSoft, the base software for the University’s integrated administrative computer system, ConnectCarolina.

Course Response, the new evaluation system, is flexible and easy to administer, and it can be implemented quickly, Williford said.

The cost per school ranges from $2,500 to $4,500, depending on the number of FTEs. If the entire campus should implement the system, the cost would be $35,000 to $40,000.

In January, Williford’s office will collect feedback from users.