University Chancellor Announces Resignation

By Stephen Davis · Originally published March 2019 · p. 23

University Chancellor Announces Resignation Stephen Davis (M.A., UNC-CH,1973) Chancellor Carol L. Folt of the University of North Carolina announced on January 14 that she will step down at the end of the academic year this spring. “There has been too much recent disruption due to the monument controversy,” Folt wrote in an email addressed to the University community,” referring to the tearing down last summer of “Silent Sam,” the Confederate soldier’s monument on campus. In her letter Folt stated that she had authorized removal of the monument base and its commemorative plaques removed from McCorkle Place at the center of the Chapel Hill campus. The base had been left when the statue was taken down. “The presence of the remaining parts of the monument on campus poses a continuing threat both to the personal safety and well-being of our community and to our ability to provide a stable, productive educational environment,” Folt explained. Within forty-eight hours of the Chancellor’s email, eight responses had been posted on the university alumni association’s website, Carolina Alumni Review. They were unanimous in criticizing the university’s actions regarding “Silent Sam.” In six of the eight posts, words used included “cowards,” “cowardly,” “cowardice” and “spine of a jellyfish.” One respondent recalled that the monument had been taken down in the middle of the night. These unhappy alums would have been pleased to learn that the University System’s Board of Governors had apparently had enough. On January 15, the day after Chancellor Folt announced her plans to resign; the board directed that she had to leave by January 31. Chairman Harry Smith made it clear that the Board of Governors was displeased with the chancellor’s decision to remove Silent Sam’s base from campus. “We are incredibly disappointed at this intentional action,” Smith said in a statement issued Monday night, January 14, just hours after Folt sent out her announcement. Carol Folt was to have left UNC at the end of the academic year this May. The Board gave her two weeks to clear her office.