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The Provost's Office: An Informal History

Chapter One: Duties of the Provosts

Functions

In Chancellor Carey H. Bostian's 1955 letter of appointment to John W. Shirley as the first Dean of the Faculty, the term of appointment was described as indefinite. He said, "but it is my hope that you will find the opportunities for promoting the academic affairs of the college so interesting and the results of your work so satisfying that you will wish to continue for a number of years." In 1967 the title of the position of Dean of the Faculty was changed to that of Provost. With each of the Deans and Provosts no term was set, each served at the pleasure of the Chancellor. The only exception was Franklin D. Hart who was appointed for a set term until the new Provost was selected and came to NC State (Phillip J. Stiles).

Bostian said in this letter, "I believe that you have a good understanding of how your responsibilities as Dean of the Faculty will begin on an advisory basis to the Administrative Council and the Chancellor and will gradually evolve to a position carrying full and direct responsibility for various activities." Areas which Bostian indicated as requiring the greatest need for Shirley's attention were: teaching schedules; use of space; curricula; cost of instruction; appointments; promotions; admission and academic standards; relations of sponsored research to academic programs; publications; student-faculty relations; and faculty welfare. Two administrative areas were also assigned to the Dean at this time. These were the Library and the Extension Division.

One of the first assignments delegated to Dean Shirley was to handle the existing personnel forms for new hires, salary increases, promotions, leaves of absence, and terms of contract. Then he was assigned the responsibility for establishing more effective academic personnel procedures. Also delegated was the authority to implement these procedures within state, UNC and NCSC policies. These forms were revised by Shirley and later were substantially revised when I was an assistant provost. The promotion forms were revised again by Dean Debra Stewart and Vice Chancellor Frank Hart and by me in the late 1980s. Other lesser revisions have occurred from time to time. At first these forms were in sets of multiple copies, and when typed the last copies were very faint and hard to read. Next, all of the forms were in a format that could be entered into the computer and as many copies printed as needed. By 1993, all personnel forms were entered into computers by the departments and submitted electronically.

One of the functions that Shirley assumed from Bostian was the writing of letters of welcome to new faculty and EPA staff. This practice has been continued. We did stop sending out so much extra material about the city, including a map of the city, and activities available to faculty and staff in the College/University when the numbers of new faculty and EPA personnel increased so much in the early 1980s. We began to rely on the units on campus, such as the Faculty Club, the Department of Athletics, the Libraries and the Student Center to distribute their own materials at the annual New Faculty Dinner sponsored by the Chancellor and the Provost.

Deans of the Faculty and Provosts frequently appointed study committees and commissions. These were sometimes appointed jointly with or by the Chancellor. Frequently the study's recommendations were mailed to appropriate groups on campus then meetings were held to give faculty a chance to give their views on the recommendations. I began to hold a number of Provost's Forums for these discussions. At times the forums were on other subjects of academic interest and involved speakers from both inside and outside the university. These have been too numerous to list, but I will mention a few. Topics included advising, the core curriculum, the quality of the undergraduate education at NCSU, sexual harassment, race relations, how overhead costs (indirect costs recovered from grants) are determined and how they are allocated, and academic computing. Others will be discussed under University Studies in Chapter Six.

Legislative and other agency requests for information were numerous. Most legislative requests came via the Legislative Research Division and the UNC administration. While we might generate and prepare a lot of information, we rarely knew what questions had been asked for which we were supplying information. There have been faculty workload studies, computer questionnaires, space utilization studies and so on. A few reports will be described in other sections. I do want to mention two reports here. These two reports were prepared in 1990. The first was a response to a Legislative inquiry concerning School of Education faculty. I was never told why we were preparing this information, but I think it may have involved faculty's relationships and experiences in the public schools. The requests to the Board of Governors' were for information about a professor, an associate professor and an assistant professor from each campus with teacher education programs. The list was for: 1) Job description or list of duties; 2) Initial letter of employment; 3) Letters of renewal and salary increases; 4) Letters of appointment with tenure; 5) Letters of promotion; 6) Contracts; 7) Code of tenure and campus and college standards for tenure appointment; 8) Campus and college procedures for tenure application and appointment decisions; and 9) Procedures and documentation of faculty review after tenure. For the second request we prepared a voluminous report on activities at NCSU which provided "Services to Local Education Agencies." Our list included several with state-wide application too. This report was sent to Dr. Dawson on May 15, 1990, by Dean Joan Michael and included activities from all schools/colleges of NCSU not just those from the College of Education and Psychology. This document included even more activities and services than I knew we were performing. I recommend this report to all for reading (a copy can be found in the Provost's files of 1990 in the library archives).

As Provost I rarely met the members of Legislature except when they accepted tickets to football games and to the Chancellor's buffet, or to other public functions on our campus. The Provost also received tickets and attended these football functions on Saturdays. We did not receive similar treatment for basketball or for the other sporting events on campus We did get invited to the bowl games, to the Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament and to the finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball playoffs. On rare occasions there was a call to be present along with the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business if the Legislative Base Budget or Appropriations Committees were holding a hearing on our continuing budgets or on our change budget requests. I was there to respond if a legislator asked about an academic program. I did represent the UNC System once when a committee of the Legislature was holding a hearing on SPA employee's salary increases. I strongly supported a plan for merit pay and for step-salary increases because these employees had few increases in the past several years other than across-the-board raises. The staff who added knowledge and learned new techniques and skills and worked harder received almost the same salaries as those whose performance was minimal. They had all received across the board increases for so long that the new employees were getting almost the same salaries, except for longevity pay, as those who had several years of experience. The way most employees got ahead was to transfer to a new position or to leave the University, because upgrading of a present position with the current employee was not easy except when the State Personnel Office reviewed all of those in a particular job category. My advice did not get enacted although I have learned that for the 1994 session the State Employee's Association was proposing again that both these issues be funded.

In 1960 Chancellor John T. Caldwell redefined the position of Dean of the Faculty as: "the principle staff assistant to the Chancellor; the responsible line officer under the Chancellor overseeing certain functions, and the officer to act for the Chancellor in the absence of the latter." Many of the functions will be described under the subject sections of this report. In this charge, the Chancellor said, "In the absence of the Chancellor, the Dean of the Faculty would act for him in all matters requiring approval or action of the Chancellor's Office and preside over scheduled meetings of the Administrative Council and the Liaison Committee." Each Dean and Provost has since performed these functions. In 1966 Caldwell wrote Kelly saying "I assume that we all understand that you're the 'bull of the woods' when I'm gone and you are here." In the area of faculty personnel, the Dean of the Faculty would "Review with the authority to recommend approval or rejection, or negotiate modifications of all recommendations for appointment, promotion, compensation, leaves of absence, special assignments, professional development, reassignment and separation of professional personnel in the divisions of the college, subject to normal power of review and approval exercisable by the Chancellor and higher officers." He also said that it was the responsibility of the Dean to forward only those recommendations that would promote the excellence of the College in its basic purposes. The Dean was told to maintain for the Chancellor a continuous review of all phases of the academic programs bearing upon the quality of the College's programs, its scope, and its budget. He was called upon to carry out investigations of academic and faculty matters requiring solution by the administration. James Stewart, Dean of Student Affairs, raised questions of whether this review of personnel and budgets of the Division of Student Affairs was really intended. The Chancellor said that it was. The NCSC component of UNC-TV was assigned to the Provost, but it was later transferred to William Turner when he became Administrative Dean for Extension.

This clarification and redefinition of function in 1960 came at the request of Dean Shirley and included many of his suggestions. Some not addressed were the Dean's relations with the Consolidated University. Shirley said: "At the moment we have two administrative hierarchies, each trying to do the same job from different points of vantage. This multiple administration is not only confusing in itself, but leads to problems involving status, face saving, and credit for achievements. The major problem seems to be that the University (UNC) has attempted to engage in operations on the local campuses in many cases where it should have worked through local administrative channels." One suggestion made by Shirley but not resolved at this time was that the Graduate School was viewed by Dr. Donald Anderson and Dr. William Whyburn of the Consolidated University as their operating entity rather than being a review and a policy body. "As a result, this takes them into almost every facet of our activities as internal administrators. The University should be a planning, expediting body; the institutions should be given both the responsibility and authority for carrying out the plans and policies with a very minimum of interference as to how this should be done. Only in this way can we prevent confusion and conflicting administrative directives." In the matter of the Graduate School a memorandum would come shortly after Caldwell became Chancellor which would clarify that the positions of Dean of the Graduate School and Business Manager reported to the Chancellor of NCSC.

After I became Provost, the UNC System had become better at letting us know when they were appointing a person from our campus to a system-wide committee or study group. In fact they usually asked us for nominees for these committees. However, on July 3, 1974, three days after I became Provost, Dr. Larry Champion, Head of the English Department, went to a system committee meeting at UNC-G and turned in an expense account to Dean Robert Tilman. Dean Tilman called me and said: "I thought that you were to let us know when one of our faculty was appointed to a UNC committee." I knew nothing of the appointment or of the committee and what it was to accomplish. We learned later from Champion that it was dealing with the general education requirement in the humanities. I never did see a report of the committee or a letter of appointment. We inquired and found, as we usually did, that each campus was supposed to pick up the expenses of their attendee.

Over the years this relationship with the central system continued to be somewhat frustrating from time to time. Who has the responsibility, for you will be held accountable, was a gripe of most of the persons who have held the Provost's position. At times the Chancellors complained even stronger. I probably shouldn't say this, but after substituting for the Chancellor at meetings of the system, both before and after the creation of the Board of Governors, I was glad that I was employed at NCSU instead of at UNC-CH because it seemed to me that the President and his staff became involved much more often in the internal campus affairs of the UNC-CH campus than at NC State.

In 1961 the Council on Teacher Education was formed on the NCSC campus and the Dean of the Faculty or Provost became and continues as an ex-officio member. This Council had been recommended in the Long Range Plan and was accepted by Chancellor Caldwell. The idea was to have those faculty from schools other than Education involved in the teaching of prospective teachers, so as to have a closer relationship with the School of Education. The other members of this Council included faculty from the School of Education, local school teachers, and administrative representatives from the county and city schools and an employee from the State Department of Education. During Harry C. Kelly's term as Provost he began to write the letters of appointment to this Council. Of course, the Dean of Education ascertained the willingness of prospects to serve and provided drafts of the specific letters of appointment needed for different members. No one ever refused this appointment when I asked.

Functions and responsibilities of the office changed under Dean Harry Kelly. One responsibility added was University-wide computing activities. This at first included both the Computing Center and Administrative Data Processing. This latter function was transferred to the VC for Finance and Business under Chancellor Poulton. Affirmative Action, University Studies, and Fort Bragg, were also added. Programs in Extension, and the business operations of the Summer School and evening programs were transferred to University Extension when William Turner became Administrative Dean.

In 1967, Chancellor Caldwell proposed that the Dean of Faculty title be changed to Provost. He said that: "Although the title of Dean of the Faculty is well understood and well accepted on this campus and Dean Kelly's role is indeed well performed, the comparable position at UNC-CH and Duke University carries the title of Provost, and on the other two campuses of the Consolidated University the title of Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs is used. I have concluded, therefore, that the position here and the incumbent warrants this well established new title which more adequately portrays the functions of principle educational officer on a university campus." He also said that no changes in responsibility were contemplated at this time. I had just become Associate Dean of the Faculty and Kelly was in Japan. So neither he nor I knew of the contemplated change in title at the time it was proposed. Caldwell did say, "Dean Kelly is in Japan. If upon his return the day before the Executive Committee meets, he expresses a desire that the title be other than Provost, I will inform you." A letter was written to Kelly with instructions to call upon his arrival in California. Kelly concurred with the change. I learned of the change after it was approved by the Trustees. My title changed from Associate Dean of the Faculty to Assistant Provost. On May 18, 1971, the title Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs was added to the title of the Provost's position. This full title continues today.

We made a number of studies for the Board of Higher Education. One that I thought was valuable was the report that I prepared for NCSU and submitted on March 14, 1968, on Inter-institutional Programs. It was a surprise to me at that time to learn of the large number and of the strength of many of these programs. This report is found in the 1971-72 Provost's files.

In 1972 the Chancellor wrote to UNC System President William Friday and said that Provost Kelly was the chief planning officer, and that the new position that brought Clauston Jenkins to the Provost's Office would be involved in that function. In reality, the planning was done sporadically, for Dr. Jenkins' time was spent primarily on the self-study for accreditation, in the generation of responses to questionnaires and preparing required reports. Most planning was done by the departments and schools. These were presented as they related to budgets when reviews of biennial budget requests were held. One UNC planning effort occurred in 1968 and included projections of enrollments in academic areas. This was done at all public colleges and universities and each reported to the Board of Higher Education. It was the difficulty that campuses had in completing this assignment that caused the BHE to get a position for a Coordinator for Institutional Studies and Planning at each public college in the State.

When Joab Thomas was Chancellor the BOG required that each campus prepare and present a long term plan to the BOG. Jack Rigney, Dean of International Programs headed that effort. Vice Chancellor of Finance and Business George Worsley and I agreed that a very real deficiency in our efforts was in the lack of continuous and systematic long range planning. While I was Acting Chancellor in 1981-82, we reallocated funds from NCSU's appropriations to create a permanent position for planning. We did not fill it but left it vacant to find out whether the new Chancellor would want it located in his office or elsewhere. When Bruce R. Poulton came as Chancellor in 1982 he hired a former associate at New Hampshire, Karen Helm, and placed the planning function under the Chancellor's Office.

An additional function assigned to the Provost effective June 1, 1972, was to attend the first meeting of the newly formed Board of Trustees of NCSU and to attend all future meetings of that group. Dean Harry Kelly began to present the personnel actions to the Personnel Committee of the BOT. That responsibility of the provost continues today.

One constant concern and problem was to be certain that the Student Supply Stores had textbooks for our students on hand at the beginning of each semester. One complaint of the faculty was that the store cut back on the number of new texts. Some of the faculty then requested more books than would be needed. The store had additional problems with a few faculty who did not get their lists in on time for texts to be ordered. The Provost heard complaints from all three and especially from the students if books were not available. The problems were really with a few faculty, and the occasional time when the Campus Store's personnel made a mistake in ordering the proper number of textbooks. The Campus Store's Committee finally came up with a suggestion that worked most of the time. This was to have one person in each department responsible for getting in the textbook lists rather than having the Campus Store appear to harass each faculty member who taught a course. At periodic intervals the Campus Store was to send the Provost a listing of courses that had not gotten in textbook orders that had appeared in the Campus' listing of courses to be taught the next semester. The Provost would send a copy of the list to the school dean and the department head. We soon got the Campus Store to send the list to the affected departments. Fortunately most apparently delinquent courses were those that did not require a text. Occasionally a faculty member did procrastinate too long, making it impossible to get the text here on time. Then there was the rare time when the Supply Store ordered too few texts or the texts were not available in sufficient numbers. All in all the system has become remarkably good.

Just before I retired in 1990, the accrediting agencies and the Legislature had begun to require assessment of programs. This had become a nationally popular exercise. Frequently those who proposed programs did not know how to measure quality or even what was important when they received a report. But with the use of computerized data analysis, they could begin to look at data. Besides, this had become the popular jargon. After all, everyone wants to have an effective educational program. Politicians in North Carolina saw this being done in other places, and they wanted to do it too. This process has, I believe, been far less reliable than subjective measures of quality, such as whether research got published in books and journals, and did the faculty compete well for grants and contracts if research was a function? For education and students, did the students get hired by the companies or appropriate agencies and did these companies come back the next year and the next for more graduates? Did better students get admitted to graduate or professional schools? For graduate students, did they get hired in their professions and by universities and colleges if the were going to work in academia? For extension did the clientele that they served prosper and take advantage of the knowledge disseminated?

In 1990 I received a memorandum from Vice President Raymond Dawson on the subject of Institutional Assessment Plans. The memorandum stated, "During the coming months each institution is required to develop a plan that will meet the requirements of the new 'accountability' legislation. The legislation provides: that the board of Governors of the University of North Carolina shall require each institution to develop a plan that would exhibit how the institution will measure its effectiveness, especially in the areas of student learning and development, faculty development and quality and progress toward the institution's missions. Each plan shall include information concerning the institution's goals to improve and maintain its quality in these areas. The plans shall identify a number of assessment measures that shall be required on all campuses to insure system-wide assessment. These plans shall be developed and submitted to the General Assembly by January 15, 1991."

Immediately we began to develop common UNC-wide data elements that might be useful, and to begin to respond to those on our own campus. Karen Helm was very helpful in suggesting the data elements which were used. Of course the persons who wrote the legislation didn't know what they were asking for, or how much time and effort they were requiring us to spend on an effort that they probably would not read and might not comprehend if they did read it! It sounded very grand, but I knew that it would not assist us very much in our efforts and that it probably would not add even a tiny increase in the quality of our programs. It was such requirements as this that made me grateful for the fact that my retirement would come in 1990.

At the time that I became Provost, Chancellor John Caldwell told me that he had felt for some time that the Dean of the Graduate School and the Dean of Research should report to the Provost, but that he had to wait until Dean of the Graduate School, Walter Peterson and Provost Harry Kelly retired to do this. These two areas became the responsibility of the Provost in 1974. During Chancellor Thomas' tenure Radiation Protection and International Programs were added to the provost's duties. Early in Poulton's term and at Dean of Research Henry Smith's retirement, the chief research officer's title was changed based on a recommendation from the "Mann Committee" from Administrative Dean to Vice Chancellor. This office then began to report to the Chancellor. The same Committee recommended that the Graduate Dean continue to report to the Provost. During Poulton's term the Admissions Office, Academic Skills, and Cooperative Education also became the responsibility of the Provost.

The Dean of the Graduate School also became a part of the Vice Chancellor for Research's responsibility under Chancellor Poulton, but remained under the Provost for academic matters and for management. After Larry K. Monteith became Chancellor the Institutional Research Office and later the Planning Office and its functions were assigned to the Provost. These offices were merged and it is now called, University Planning and Analysis. Other units added to the Provost's responsibility were the newly created Undergraduate Studies, and the Vice Chancellors for Research and Student Affairs. Extension now reports through the Vice Chancellor for Research. Units transferred by me were: University Studies to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Radiation Protection to Research, and Archives to the Library.

Over the years a number of internal administrative matters have been delegated by the Chancellors to the Provost. In 1974 I stopped sending a list of those recommended for exceptions to the nepotism policy to the Chancellor for his approval. I began to formally approve these since I had already approved the appointment. In turn we also delegated a number of matters that were handled centrally to the schools and other units. My philosophy was, if I was rubber stamping an item why not let it be handled by the persons were most informed unless other regulations, codes or a legal issue required my approval. Examples of these are found in various sections of this report. It is so easy to fill the day with busy work that contributes nothing. We certainly had more of that already than was needed. Unfortunately many feel that an item has to go to the top administrator for it to be handled well. Actually good management involves responsibility and accountability, and matters should be delegated as much as is possible to the lowest level rather than retained at the highest level. Provosts have all felt and said, that if it is not really necessary, don't add another batch of paper work. Yet we often do just that because of imposed regulations. Many feel that we will be more accountable if the Chancellor or the Provost or both sign the piece of paper and if that piece of paper is in the files. In such circumstances if the unit heads or the faculty members involved are not reliable, then the product of the effort will be unreliable. Indeed, as Jack Rigney, Dean of International Programs often said, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

In 1976 we were following a practice required by the Board of Governors that if one campus of the system was considering a faculty member from another campus in the system for a position, the Chancellor of the campus would notify the Chancellor of the second campus before May 1. If the matter was under consideration and no notification had occurred before May 1, then the Chancellor had to seek the other Chancellor's approval. This of course was not a matter that the Chancellor at NCSU could keep up with, so it was quickly transferred to the Provost to do the checking and to draft appropriate letters for the Chancellor's signature. The Provost also informed the campus after a short time. In a number of cases search committees and department heads soon forgot the administrative memorandum informing them of the required process. Also, the faculty members from other campuses often had applied for the position, and sometimes they did not want their colleagues to know of their application unless they were to be offered the position. I was fortunate that I did require the deans to contact me about the level of salary to be offered to a new employee or we would have been in non-compliance more often than we were. It was not at all unusual for me to discover an unreported interview at the time that the offer was to be made to a faculty member at another campus. I found that most of the problems occurred on other campuses where the Chancellor and his office handled the matters, and the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs was not kept informed or was kept out of the information loop. I began to remind the deans of the policy about once a year at the Dean's Council or at the Administrative Council meetings, and I asked them to remind their department or unit heads. We were involved with very few cases where we had to request approval, and only in one case were we refused permission to consider the faculty members for appointment for that fall. In that case the department had slipped, and I learned after May 1, that they had the person under consideration and wanted to make an offer. The other campus refused because they said that they would not have time to recruit a replacement in that faculty member's specialty. We never refused. While the administration of the policy was cumbersome and took time, there were few circumstances when we had a faculty member leave for another campus in the system. We always figured that if a faculty member wanted to move to another campus in the system it was a good idea for them to go. I am certain that the policy was instituted to reduce raiding, but it was also intended to reduce the very late hires from member institutions. Most of our last minute faculty losses were to out-of-state institutions. Late hires did make it nearly impossible to find a replacement other than a temporary one who might not always be as satisfactory as one wished for the fall semester. I always wrote drafts for the Chancellor to send to his counterpart Chancellor. If he was out of town his staff always brought the letter in for me to sign for the Chancellor so that we could get it out of the way as soon as possible. We did not dislike the policy. It just made more work, and I was not certain that it was worth the effort. There were a dozen or so persons considered for every open position so there was a potential for many to be considered who did not make it to the finalist lists and who were never reported.

All Provosts are called upon by reporters to answer questions. This is especially true in case the reporter can't get the Chancellor and he/she wants some official to give them a quotable statement. The higher the level of the position the better, even when the person knows nothing about the subject of the story. Reporters frequently approached one or more faculty members for their opinions. At times they too were in no position to answer the questions. While most faculty will not give an opinion on a subject when they are without any knowledge, there was at least one that could always be found who would speak on any subject. I think that this was done deliberately, for a story without controversy or without differing opinions by administrators and faculty would be a no-good story in the reporter's view. It was amazing how few times opinions of the Faculty Senate leadership was sought on such matters, for they among all of the faculty would be the most likely to be informed on most issues. For the TV reporter you tape for 15 minutes and on the program you comment for a half a sentence and the reporter tells in one minute what you said while you, with your mouth running, are seen in the background! Our Chancellors were not always as accessible to reporters as they might have been and frequently they would have preferred that the person get their story from Public Affairs or Information Services staff. For what the reporter considered to be a really big story, they did not want to use those professional writers as a source. Those offices would frequently have a story already written for the press, but the reporter wanted to do his/her own thing. I remember being called at home, at work, and even occasionally at out of town conferences to answer questions or to confirm the accuracy of what the reporter had already written. About one-half of the time the newspaper reporters seemed hostile to me. Lucy Coulbourne, Director of Information Services, once advised me, after I had talked too much to a reporter, to never say anything except to answer as briefly as possible the specific question asked. The rule was never to volunteer additional information. I did follow this advice, however when the reporter obviously did not understand what he was asking, in spite of the fact that it was not the thing to do, I might try to explain the subject. I remember one time when a reporter did a story, after interviewing only one individual, saying that a student at NCSU said that our courses were "crips" and required no work. I looked at the student's record on the computer and found that he had flunked out of school. I wrote the Editor and said that the person interviewed was not a student at our University. The Editor wrote back and said that the reporter had rechecked with the student and had confirmed that the person was enrolled. I checked again and found that was not true, and responded again to the Editor. Someone from the paper then checked with the teacher of the supposedly easy class that was mentioned, and the teacher said that the person was not and had never been enrolled in that class. Some days later a retraction did appear and I received a letter of apology from the Editor.

I also recall a statement that I made to a reporter for the Technician one night who wanted to know if the snow, then falling, would cause classes to be canceled. I said, "We never close the University because of snow." The next day with 12 inches on the ground, I found that I was almost the only person who made it to campus. I had to come to work even though the University was closed after my remarks. Yes, the reporter did call my office and was surprised to find me there. The Business Office had arranged with a group working on snow removal at the airport to remove the snow, but the snow lasted so long and was so heavy at the airport that the snow removers couldn't come. So we were also closed the next day. The students had a lot of fun and they kidded me a lot about that. In the future I learned to say we "almost never" close!

The Provosts frequently were not knowledgeable about the details related to the reporters inquiries, so we would try to get them to talk to a person who was knowledgeable. I remember another day when we had a small amount of snow (but we were not closed) and a reporter called in desperation to get answers to a few questions. I explained that I was only vaguely aware of the subject and suggested persons to call and even gave home numbers. None of the persons were accessible (they were probably stuck in the snow on the way to work), so I did try to help because the person said that they had a mid-morning deadline. I did have at least one real reporter friend after that. Another time a TV reporter came and did an interview with me about a new educational report. I thought that he was talking about another report that had been recently issued, so we talked on camera for about 30 minutes. It was only later that I learned through the Chronicle of Higher Education that another group had issued a report on a similar but different title. This was an out-of-town TV reporter and a colleague from another university told me later that he had heard my discourse and that the discussion was one of the best on current academic issues in higher education that he had ever heard! The interview was shown for about 20 minutes on the TV station, and I never got to see the program. Obviously in this case the reporter did not know what the report was about either. News must have been scarce that day.

Trustee reports were prepared by the Provosts for personnel and academic programs. Most of the items included in the preparation of reports on personnel are discussed in Chapter Three. The Provost prepared those items needed for the implementation of new degrees, dropped degrees, and for the establishment of new schools or other administrative units. Some of these will be discussed in Chapters Two and Five. Usually the associate provost responsible for undergraduate curricula and the Graduate Dean would make an appropriate but abbreviated digest from the materials submitted by the proposing units and prepare this report for the Provost to submit to the Trustees' Committee on Personnel and Programs, as it came to be called during Poulton's tenure. Personnel matters submitted to the Board of Trustees and to the Board of Governors were prepared by the Personnel Office of the Provost. Proposals for new degrees and new schools or colleges were prepared by the submitting unit in the format required. After review and recommendation by the Courses and Curricula Committee for undergraduate programs and the Graduate School for graduate programs, they came to the Provost, along with the required number of copies for submission to the Board of Governors. After review and approval the cover letters were prepared for the Chancellor's signature. The Chancellor, after review and approval, sent the materials and the appropriate number of copies to the staff of the Board of Governors. Of course, new programs had been followed by both the Provost and Chancellor even before their submission to the school curriculum committees. A program to be dropped was accepted quickly by the on-campus reviewers and approved by the NCSU Trustees. The UNC President always concurred, and he reported to the BOG. After the creation of the Board of Governors in 1972, guidelines for the submission of new degrees and programs were spelled out in detail and we all knew what the system wanted much better than ever before. This made it easier to get a new program approved, for it included those elements that the reviewers expected, wanted and needed.

Provosts have had to look into and determine the validity of many complaints by students and their parents and by politicians who wanted responses to complaints by their constituents. I describe a couple of these in Chapter Three. I usually asked the persons complaining to give me a specific course or faculty member to investigate, for I did not like to look into general charges when I really knew that the complaint dealt with one individual. Usually when a parent called they wanted a response directly. In some cases we had to tell them that the issue involved revealing a matter in the student's record and that they would have to get the information from their child or get their child's permission before we could give them the information. That response never went over well with them or a politician. They rarely understood the Buckley Amendment and its restrictions. When a politician, a trustee, and frequently the President of UNC or one of his associates called, they wanted us to investigate the complaint, and to respond to them so that they, in turn, could respond to the complainer. Under Chancellor Monteith, the Provost has more Chancellor responsibility than ever before. Responsibilities are more similar to those under Thomas and more like his plans for the Provost's Office. At the time that I retired, the Faculty Senate reported on April 20, 1990, on academic leadership and what they would like it to be under the new Provost. Their recommendations meshed closely with Monteith's view of the administrative functions and responsibilities for the position. In fact, the Senate committee discussed views on campus broadly and sought both the Chancellor's and my views. Chancellor Monteith began to implement these as soon as he was selected as Chancellor and before I retired. He continued to make these changes while Frank Hart was Provost and when Phil Stiles arrived, many were completed. Because of the importance of the changes made I will quote directly the contents of the "Report of the Ad Hoc Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Leadership."

The committee discussions have revealed one overriding concern: The academic focus at NCSU should be clarified by a restructuring of the position of the Provost. This Provost should be a strong leader at the pinnacle of the academic structure of the university.

Many support the idea that the position will take the structure of the personality of the individual holding the Provost's job. Different structures and styles of administration may be effective when coupled with the attributes of the office holder.

The committee feels that the Provost should lead all academic programs including all undergraduate and graduate education, as well as research. Certain aspects of student affairs, lifelong education, and public service might also be considered for his oversight.

The committee suggests that after University leadership is defined by the choice of Chancellor, the second most important appointment is that of the Provost. We recognize that the position of Provost may be filled and operational prior to the new Chancellor elect's ability to implement many, if any, changes in the University's administration. Therefore, we feel that in the interim the University administration should seek to find the best academic administrator available for the Provost position, independent of possible restructuring of the Provost's duties.

The committee was impressed with the complex administrative structure of North Carolina State University of which few faculty are intimately aware. We recognize that simplistic recommendations to streamline the administration are naive, but because our structure has grown rapidly we do call, however, for an examination of the structure necessary to administer the University. This will be a major effort and should no doubt be a major concern to the new Chancellor and the new Provost.

This committee further recommends that the faculty governance be the basis for ongoing future study.

One thing that the Provosts have wanted as a responsibility but did not obtain, was resources for a Center for Instructional Development. In Harry Kelly's first year at NCSU a change budget request was made. It did not get funded although Caldwell gave it a high priority among the requests and made a pitch for it. Kelly did not continue to make this request but did talk about the need. In the first budget request that I prepared as Provost I placed this item as a high priority. This recommendation was based in part on a report by C. J. Dolce, A. S. Knowles and N. N. Winstead on "Centralized Audio-Visual Approaches" at N. C. State University in January 27, 1970. Among our recommendations was that new buildings constructed in the future have adequate electrical conduits and other structural features so that they could handle dial-access audio-visual communications.

In 1974 I appointed a committee to study audio-visual media on campus. The purposes were:

1. To survey the current resources and future needs for audio-visual media at NCSU.
2. To recommend appropriate University policies and procedures concerning audio-visual media: procurement, dissemination, services, maintenance and production.
   
3. You should attempt to define which functions should be the responsibilities of the schools and which should be handled on a University-wide basis.
   
4. If you should conclude that some functions should be administered on a University-wide basis, your recommendations should include a plan to accomplish your recommendations with estimated costs.

This report set the stage for continued development of media programs in each of the schools. The report confirmed our need for funding the change budget request which was submitted in 1974. It also led to the TV and audio maintenance repair positions which were assigned for University-wide maintenance in University Studies. During Chancellor Poulton's tenure and after I transferred University Studies to CHASS in 1986, this service known as University Closed Circuit TV was transferred along with the media unit in CHASS to Public Relations. This now falls under the Director of Electronic Media in Institutional Advancement. Dr. Thomas would have given me a very small amount of funds (around $20, 000) when the appropriations were received, but I did not feel that I would be able to hire a person and start the program with so few funds. I later learned that you take any amount of funds you can get and maybe later you will have enough to develop the project. Instead I proposed giving the funds to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences for their budding new endeavor in Humanities Extension. This was one of the wisest budget recommendations that I ever made. Today look at the wonderful accomplishments of this program.

In the intervening years I saw that many of the schools wanted to expand what they were doing in teaching improvement although they used different approaches. This was the best way at this time to get efforts started or expanded in instructional improvement, so I supported all requests for funds for the schools. All were interested in the use of TV in learning. These efforts have led to our capacity to deliver off-campus instruction which in the future is likely to become an even more important part of NCSU's educational efforts. The schools that developed this area the most were: Agriculture and Life Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences, Engineering, Textiles, and Education. The program in SHASS did a lot of public service types of activities and programs for the University too. After the SHASS program began to report to the Vice Chancellor for Public Service it continued to televise classes which are taught on Cable TV.

I also started the mini-grants for instructional improvement and for the use of computers in the classrooms. These were important in encouraging innovation and led to improvements. Instructional mini-grants are discussed later in this chapter under Assistant and Associate Provost's Responsibilities. Late in my tenure as Provost I placed a new version of the instructional development project back into the Change Budget requests. The Faculty Senate strongly supported this proposal. What happens to this request will be revealed in the next edition of the Provost's Office history.

One function performed by Kelly, Hart and me was to serve on the committee that considered requests for the allocation of funds to schools or other units from indirect costs. This activity was managed by the Dean or VC for Research after a determination of the funds available was made by the Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business. The committee received and reviewed requests from the units. Although we had a predetermined amount calculated for the funds based on the earnings of overhead from grants and contracts in each unit, we reviewed all requests to make certain that they fell within guidelines . We encouraged proposals that would take advantage of matching funds in grants. This worked very well. We usually gave the funds to schools in the priority set by the dean, but not always. We always received more requests than there were funds available. We also tried to have a small pool of funds that we would make available for needs of the University and to help those schools that may not have earned many overhead funds from grants in their schools. This usually meant trying to make certain that some opportunities in SHASS, Design, and Education were funded in some years.

The University receives a number of notices of potential faculty awards of various types for which faculty could be nominated. The process, beginning with Chancellor Caldwell, was for the Dean of the Faculty to appoint the nomination committee, or as was the case most often, the award could be made only to persons from specific fields. Then the Provost asked the appropriate dean or deans to make a recommendation. In other cases there was potential for a University-wide nominee. I requested nominations from the schools and then reviewed the nominees, if there was more than one, at the Deans' Council. Before the Deans' Council came into being, we would review them with an appropriate small committee or just review them with the Chancellor. The schools had the responsibility of preparing the nominating materials in a form suitable for the Chancellor to submit along with a draft of a suitable covering letter. Most of the time these covering letters had to be very technical and neither the Chancellor nor I had the expertise to write them, but most awards required a nomination from the Chancellor. During Chancellor Poulton's term his staff would usually send out the notices and handle the collection of the nominees. Then they usually asked me to take them to the Council of Deans for review and selection of the campus' nominee. In the case of the UNC O. Max Gardener Award, we had a standing committee that reviewed nominees and Mr. Hardy Berry, Director of Information Services and later Assistant Vice Chancellor for Communication and University Relations, usually prepared the proposal for the award with the assistance of the nominating department. We were remarkably successful in getting this award after Mr. Berry began to prepare the materials for the nomination.

Large numbers of requests for positions from people who wanted a faculty or an administrative job came to the University without a specific departmental address or for any known vacancy. In times when jobs were hard to get, the numbers were greatest. At first the Dean of the Faculty or later the Provost responded to each letter saying that the letter had been sent to the appropriate department or unit. The response usually was that we had received the letter and that when an opening became available we would enter this letter in the applicant pool. This was well intentioned but in many cases an opening became available months or even years later and the earlier request was forgotten. In time we stopped responding, but continued to send the letters (except for those clearly unqualified for a position) to the appropriate unit with a request that they respond. For those clearly unqualified we responded that we had no appropriate position available. This became especially true in the early 1970s. Later we were advised by the attorneys that we could be subject to being sued if we placed letters in a file and indicated that they would be referred to if a vacancy occurred, and we forgot the letters in the file. This could also be true if we considered the person unsuitable and the applicant felt that they should have been considered. When there was no vacancy we began to write back saying that no position was available, with the admonition that if a position became available in the field, it would be advertised in media appropriate to the field. We advised all units without a vacancy to do the same thing. In many cases there were those that had no appropriate unit on our campus to send the application to, or I knew that there was no vacancy in the field, so we returned the resume.

Another chore which I disliked was to receive mail from some agency or company that came to large numbers of the faculty without a departmental address. In some cases this bulk mail might even be useful to some of the faculty. Since I had been here so long and dealt with faculty names so much, I could recognize the departments for most faculty. For this reason I usually went through this mail before or after working hours and wrote in the name of the department, and the staff finished the job by looking up the few remaining names in the directory. The reason that I did this was to save the staff time, for this could take them many hours, which they did not have to spend, and I could handle a hundred or so letters in a few minutes.

The thing that I complained about most was for the offices on campus who considered themselves to be understaffed to send all the mail, such as the parking permit requests or the parking decals after they were allocated, to the Vice Chancellor or to the school dean to which the staff reported. This meant that we got those for the Libraries' staff, the Computer Center's staff, the Graduate School's staff, and for all of the persons who worked in the other units that reported to the Provost. My office had two persons so we had to get someone from each of the other units to come over and sort out the names belonging to them. It paid, as several units recognized, to come last, for then the sorting was much quicker and easier. The sad thing was that in the later years the P.O. Box number was computerized and was written on the envelope and the numbers of envelopes that we received filled at least two large boxes. I suppose that several thousand was too much for the campus mail, but I never understood why they all had to be distributed at the same time. Someone had done something to send those in these batches so why not do the job in smaller units?

Another function that I performed was the making of the coffee each morning. I liked to come to work around 7 o'clock and wanted coffee early so I made it. I think that most of the women who came to Holladay Hall to work were very surprised that I did this, for everywhere else this was "woman's work." The reason really was that as an early person I could get a lot of desk work out of the way before I began to receive telephone calls and visitors to the office.

To illustrate the activities of the Provost during a year, I am including a summary of the activities of the Provost during the 1976-77 year which was submitted to Chancellor Thomas for possible use in his annual report. I have not included the activities of those offices and units that reported to the Provost for they sent their own annual report summary to the Chancellor too.

These included significant areas resolved during the past year:

• Repeating courses policy (studied but no change was made),
• changes in the procedures and criteria for selection of outstanding teachers and alumni professors (these were also selected each year with the Provost approving the list of the former and chairing a committee to select those from a list of nominees in the latter);
• revision of the re-examination policy,
• academic evaluation policy (replacing the Final Examination Policies);
• academic misconduct (a modification was made in the judicial process to create a separate misconduct statute. This was done in consultation with the Student and the Faculty Senates and the suspension and retention policy was revised with additional study to be made during the Summer of 1977)
• A Faculty Salary Study was completed by an ad hoc committee.

Other things accomplished included:

• the fifteen-minute interval between classes,
• the establishment of the Faculty Senate Advisory Committee on Faculty Salaries,
• the establishment of appointment terms for the faculty who are lecturers, demonstrators and laboratory supervisors.

Undergraduate Course and Committee actions approved included:

• 123 new courses,
• 113 revised courses,
• 61 reviewed courses,
• 44 dropped courses,
• plus one new and eight revised courses in the Agricultural Institute.

Curricula revisions included:

• Architecture,
• Landscape Architecture,
• Product Design,
• Visual Design,
• Engineering Operations,
• General Option in Psychology,
• Landscape Horticulture,
• Wood Science and Technology.

The following BA programs were revised:

• English,
• English Teacher Education Option,
• Writing-Editing Option,
• French Language and Literature,
• French Teacher Education Option,
• History,
• Social Studies Teacher Education Options,
• Multidisciplinary Major in Liberal Arts, Philosophy, Political Science, Criminal Justice Options, Spanish Language and Literature, the Spanish Teacher Education Option and Speech Communication.

Final approval was obtained through the BOG on the following degree programs:

• dropping the Speech Communication Teacher Education Option,
• changing the designation of the department and degrees in Politics to Political Science,
  
• merger of two undergraduate curricula, the B.S. in Recreation and Parks Administration, and the B.S. in Natural Resource Management to a single degree the B.S. in Recreation Resources Administration,
  
• BA in Chemistry,
  
• B.S. in Social Work,
  
• name change of the Department of Textile Technology to the Department of Textile Materials and Management,
  change the B.S. in Textile Technology to three degrees, the B.S. in Textiles, B.S. in Textile Management and a B.S. in Textile Science.

Requests had been submitted to the BOG for a BA degree in Comparative Literature (which was not approved) and to discontinue the B.S. in Engineering Science and Mechanics. A revised Affirmative Action Plan under Executive Order 11246 was submitted to HEW in Atlanta in September, 1976. The revised plan covered another three year period, from July 1, 1976, to June 30, 1979. The projected three-year goals called for a net increase of 29 black and 49 female faculty members, a net increase of 10 black and 3 female non-faculty members, and a net increase of 163 black and 135 female SPA employees. An Affirmative Action Plan for the Handicapped was prepared in compliance with the Department of Labor regulations implementing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam Veteran's Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974. A race relations seminar was held for the Equal Opportunity Committee members in the fall at the Betsy Jeff Penn 4-H Center in Reidsville, N. C. on November 18-19, 1976. The purpose of the seminar was to examine, in full dimension the University's problems related to race and gender. A planning proposal was submitted to the National Science Foundation for consideration of funding of a regional Minority Center for Graduate Education in Science and Engineering. Interviews conducted by personnel from the Provost's Office numbered 310 persons, including 12 blacks , 46 females, and 11 other minorities. There were 369 EPA appointments including 1 vice chancellor, 2 associate deans, 2 assistant deans, 4 department heads, 2 named professors, 3 professors, 11 associate professors 63 assistant professors, 204 miscellaneous titles including instructors, and professionals, and 77 temporary persons. There were 304 reappointments, 63 changes of status, 86 promotions including 30 to professor, 32 to associate professor, 15 to assistant professor, and 9 miscellaneous promotions. There were 49 Off-Campus Scholarly assignments and leaves, 266 resignations, 22 retirements, and 6 deaths (of retired faculty). Dr. L. M. Clark, was selected by ACE for an Internship in Academic Administration for 1977-78. It goes on to list the committees that we served on and to list our travel. This was the year that I went as a part of the delegation to establish a cooperative arrangement between Mansura University in Egypt and NCSU. Jack Rigney and I had to write the agreement before we left Egypt. Clark attended the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries at Atlanta, Ga. The remaining travel was the usual. Simpson served as Secretary for the Dean of Engineering Search Committee, a position that he was to assume until he retired, on all VC and Dean Search Committees.

We all have to learn how to utilize our staff and to keep them informed so that they can fulfill their obligations. I learned that I could not do it all, and I could not even keep up with everything that they all did. So there had to be a balance of delegation with the staff member knowing when to discuss an issue with me and when to proceed on their own. If I had required all of them to keep me totally informed, I would have had no time to work myself. We did not have enough staff for me to have that luxury. I also found, as did Kelly, that the staff needed to know what other members were doing. We began to have staff meetings about once a week so that we could all share in problems and progress and advise each other. Each week I had a different group in. Most persons met with me twice a month. For example, we would deal with student issues and include an Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs in that meeting. We had one meeting a month when all of the staff came. Downs, Clark and later Witherspoon came to each meeting. We skipped the fifth week in a month. Hart did not need as many meetings so he reduced the number. I tried to keep the business to matters that involved or would be of concern to the members of each group. An individual came to see me when we needed to discuss issues that only involved that office or that person. Communication is a delicate thing. When is it too much and when is it too little? I came to believe that too much was better than too little. I found it necessary to have some meetings for informational purposes with the SPA staff. These were not held on a regular basis.

I preferred to handle mail only once as much as possible. Kelly and I were blessed with exceptional Administrative Assistants, Elsie Stephens and Gloria Johnson, and Hart with Rachel Dupree. They could send most mail that we should not have received to where it should have gone, and routine mail frequently had a reply already typed, or when there were questions to be answered, the background from the files accompanied the correspondence. This procedure saved a lot of time and I was able to keep up with my correspondence pretty well. When a response required further study or was sent to others that might take some time to resolve, I usually responded so the person would know that the matter was being studied or looked into. I know how much most people hate it if they think that they are getting a run-around. Sometimes they were, but I liked to know that they were and why.

A function frequently performed by the Provost is to substitute for the Chancellor. This occurs very often and usually you know well in advance if there is to be any obligation or speaking at an event. When an organization wants a speaker it seems that most often they want the Chancellor. Sometimes they really do want the Provost and you get invited as a first instead of as a second choice. The most frequent groups to call on the Provost as a first choice were student organizations. There were also times that I was asked to substitute for the Chancellor at the last minute. Sometimes the Chancellor would ask me to fill in for him and would suggest a few things that he wanted to convey to the group. Most of the time, it was the sponsoring group who called and said that they needed someone from the central administration and the Chancellor couldn't come. Would I? The nearest to the last minute case for me was at an event with a large audience at the McKimmon Center I was one of the many administrators who had been invited to mix with the audience during dinner. While I was in the buffet line someone came and said that the Chancellor had called at the last minute and couldn't come. When I got to the head table, instead of my sitting in the midst of the dignitaries there, I was seated next to the podium. I asked, "Is there something expected of me?" I was told yes, the Chancellor was supposed to speak and we assumed that you would. I asked on what topic, and was told anything that I thought suitable for the audience would be satisfactory. I did know what groups made up the audience. My next question was, how long? I was told, about 15 minutes. This was not an impossible task, so during dinner I jotted down a number of items to discuss, mostly about NCSU, that I thought might be of interest to this group. I took out my watch to be certain that I covered no more than 15 minutes. The talk seemed to be much appreciated and except for two or three persons I don't think others knew quite how impromptu that talk was. When I became Provost, I wanted to be very accurate, precise and to say exactly what I wished. So I read my talks. I soon found that this, for me, resulted in a speech that read better than it sounded. I soon learned that I would give so many welcomes and short talks that it was best to know who the audience was and to jot down a few subjects that would be appropriate. I frequently asked others and especially the person who asked me to speak, to provide me with some information to use in the talk which would be of interest to that audience. I leaned to take the watch out and to try to make certain that I did not talk overtime. I seemed to have given more talks than Dr. Kelly gave, but I may not have been very observant.

Besides giving talks in the absence of the Chancellor, the Provost was considered as the substitute for the Chancellor and was second in command of the University when the Chancellor was not available. Different Chancellors, when on vacation, used different procedures for contacting them. We usually knew pretty well which things the Chancellors wished to be contacted about and which we would be expected to resolve in the absence of the Chancellor. Even so, there were a number of times that Shirley, Kelly, Hart, and I had to make decisions that we would have preferred that the Chancellor make, but the Chancellor could not be contacted at that time and a decision couldn't wait. I recall one time when both Chancellor Caldwell and Dr. Kelly were overseas and we had, what for me, was a crisis. In the early 1970s a young man, a student from the School of Design, was working and had worked for most of the summer in the Physical Plant. The Director saw him and fired him on the spot. He had long hair, a beard, was bare-footed, and was dressed as sloppily as a student could dress in the early 1970s. The student was determined and he eventually worked his way up the administrative ladder and found me to complain to. He had found no one else who could or would overturn the Director's decision to fire him. As Assistant Provost I was now the top dog in the show. Frankly, he had achieved his desire to look absolutely disreputable and different from all but a very small cadre of students who were on the fringe in their attire. He looked that way and had made no attempt to look presentable when he came to see me. I investigated the case and found from his immediate supervisor that the student had done superlative work all summer, so I said that the Director couldn't fire the student employee. He was to continue at work until the time set initially for the end of this employment, and he did.

The Provosts have never had just one number one priority. The thing that we wanted most was a successful and great education for each and every student. Things such as a faculty of high quality, and all those items from the budget which make it necessary to obtain and retain them were always number one. So were the computers, networking and computing availability and accessibility. The library and its holdings, access to holdings by students and faculty, the associated computerization and accessibility to data bases, and the library's services were number one, too. Affirmative action for both race and gender were our number one priorities. The undergraduate curricula and the graduate programs, along with those associated components of excellence in teaching, research, and extension, including equipment, supplies, supporting personnel and advising were number one. Learning by students, and their obtaining a quality education, and the associated resources, such as access to computers, necessary tutoring and improved classrooms so as to facilitate learning, were number one. New positions were always needed and were a number one. Improved retention and graduation rates were number one. We all worked on issues involving space, including classroom utilization and its wisest use. Faculty evaluations and our attempts to truly make the reward structure reflect these evaluations were very important. We all looked at the systems for promotion and tenure and worried about whether we were really rewarding excellence and that there was no, or at least only a little, bias in these and in the salary increase processes. When bias was detected we tried to correct it. We also worked on our relationships with other administrators and tried to organize our time so that we could deal with these issues and still have some time so that individuals who had problems could come by for a cup of tea or coffee and talk to us. This list could be much longer. We could never just want one thing as a number one priority. We had to keep a huge array of vital matters and issues balanced and going at the same time. We took advantage of any opportunity at the moment, knowing that another opportunity would come next month or next year for another priority. Sometimes it didn't come for several years, especially in those years when the state recalled substantial resources from our budgets or reduced the budget permanently to meet a State budget shortfall. So the next year might be two or three years away, but it would come. To be a Provost you have to be an opportunist and an optimist and to keep at it. You will lose some, but you will win most of the time if you give yourself the time needed to win. But you have to know what you want to achieve. What we were looking for from our academic programs was not a list of needs, but a plan from the units which would and could take advantage of opportunities and dreams. Such programs always got our attention. For our number one objective was not to tell faculty or departments what to do or how to do it. The goals and dreams and aspirations of the faculty, staff and students, those were the most important and really the number one priorities.

The Faculty Senate always passes a very nice resolution of appreciation for each of the Deans of the Faculty or Provosts on their retirement or on their leaving the Provost's Office. This is a very nice gesture and it meant a lot to each of us and was very much appreciated as we left. The Trustees did this too, and we received a certificate from the President and the Board of Governors on retirement, but the resolution from the Senate was the one that we prized the most for we were really in the trenches with them.

Responsibilities of Assistant and Associate Provosts, Assistants to, and Coordinators

Kenneth Topfer, who worked for a brief time as Assistant to Dean Shirley, was hired to do studies and reports which increasingly were becoming required by the Board of Higher Education, the University of North Carolina and others. I have not been able to find out where he came from, but he did come from off-campus. The only information that I found was in a letter on July 28, 1960, from Chancellor Caldwell to President Friday. It stated that Topfer would serve both the Dean of the Faculty and the Chancellor in analytical studies involving space, teaching loads, faculty assignments, movement of students et cetera, that had to do with making intelligent budget and planning decisions.

Mr. William H. Simpson was the second Assistant to the Dean and later Assistant to the Provost. He was appointed by Chancellor Caldwell after Dean Shirley left NCSC and before Dean Kelly arrived at NCSC. Dean Kelly would come down to Raleigh about once a week and contacted Mr. Simpson by phone frequently as he was phasing out of his job at NSF. The Chancellor felt that Dean Kelly would need assistance from someone who knew the campus well. Mr. Simpson moved from the position of Director of Placement in the School of Engineering. Under these arrangements Mr. Simpson transacted most of Dean Kelly's early duties. Duties which Mr. Simpson performed over the years included the following: space studies needed for the allocation of space; the signing of space assignment forms for the Dean (later assumed by Dr. Murray Downs); and oversight of Archives functions and needs. At one time he held responsibility for Courses and Curricula records and was the Provost's liaison with the Courses and Curriculum Committee (Winstead replaced him in this function, and later Downs replaced Winstead); and the Faculty Hospitality Committee. He served as Secretary of the Committee on Committees from its formation until he retired. For a brief time Mr. Simpson served as Affirmative Action Officer between Dr. Clauston Jenkins who had been appointed as Equal Opportunity Officer, and Dr. Larry Clark. Mr. Simpson was appointed to numerous ad hoc committees as the Provost's liaison (these included a large number of search committees for administrative officers such as deans, vice chancellors, assistant provosts, the United Way Campaign and many others). After I came to the Provost's Office as an Assistant Provost, Mr. Simpson was also made, on a half-time basis, an Assistant to the Chancellor. He latter replaced Mrs. Helen Mann and became Secretary of the University and held this position until he retired in 1990. Mr. Simpson was a person of great character and had splendid interpersonal skills. He was the perfect person to make calls for the Provost or the Chancellor to determine campus opinion, the feelings of selected faculty, administrators or committee members regarding an issue or a candidate. Another function was to host or to work out housing accommodations and schedules, and to meet and greet very distinguished speakers or guests of the University. After Mr. Simpson became Secretary of the University, his service and duties to the Provost's Office decreased. In 1989 Chancellor Poulton assigned him to full-time duties with the Chancellor. Many of Mr. Simpson's other duties are discussed in other sections of this history.

In 1967 I joined Dr. Kelly's staff as Assistant Provost. Many of the functions that I performed will be described in some detail in other sections of this report, but I will mention some them here. Functions assigned to me were: Fort Bragg; the libraries; courses and curricula records; and liaison for the Provost with the Courses and Curriculum Committee. I provided oversight for the EPA Personnel office and reviewed each of the actions proposed by the school deans and made recommendations for action to the Provost. Dr. Clark assumed this function in 1989 but helped in this area after 1974. I represented the university for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and prepared reports for and was the university delegate to meetings of this organization. Dr. Downs assumed this function in 1974. I was a member of the Cooperating Raleigh Colleges Board of Directors, and I represented NCSU as a delegate at meetings of the North Carolina Association of Colleges and Universities, and the N. C. Association of Academic Deans. I also represented NCSU in matters that dealt with the Regional Educational Laboratory for the Carolinas and Virginia.

I also provided liaison with the Graduate School since that Dean did not report to the Provost at this time. It had been usual for Dr. Kelly not to know when a new graduate degree program was in a proposal stage until he learned that it had been submitted to the UNC General Administration. I provided counsel to any dean or deans who were in Dr. Kelly's dog house and helped them get needed actions approved. The only dean who never made it to the dog house was Dean A. C. Menius. I handled almost all requests for information and along with Mr. Simpson did reports or drafted reports. We made numerous studies as required or needed until Dr. Jenkins was hired and then he began to perform these functions. I did planning and prepared Change Budget Requests for the Office or for University-wide academic affairs needs. When I became Provost many of these were prepared by Downs or Clark. With the help of the staff, I revised or devised forms for the office and wrote a large number of drafts of letters for the Provost.

I learned in reading the files, that when I was nominated by the Chancellor for the Ellis L. Phillips Internship, Dr. Kelly preferred another nominee for he had been looking at that individual for the position of Assistant Dean of the Faculty for which I was eventually hired. I came to the position from that of Director of the Institute of Biological Sciences, Assistant Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, Grants Officer for School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, and Professor of Plant Pathology. Dr. Clauston Jenkins joined the Provost's staff as the Coordinator of Institutional Planning and Studies in 1970. This position was provided by the Board of Higher Education to enable campuses to respond to request for studies and data that they, the University system, federal governmental agencies, and the Legislature were beginning to require. The BHE was required by the Legislature to provide State-wide planning for higher education. Except for the UNC institutions, all of the other public colleges (ECU, WCU, NC A&T et cetera) at that time reported to the BHE. For example all new degrees on any campus including those of the UNC institutions, had to be approved by that agency. Most of the other requests for data, surveys, forms from federal agencies, planning and other items of these types were now handled by Jenkins or else he served as coordinator to see that the proper components of the University completed the forms and provided the required information. Dr. Jenkins started a number of internal studies which were to become useful in providing the Provosts with necessary background for decisions. He was a graduate of English and a very good writer. One of Dr. Jenkins' most useful functions was report and draft letter writing for the Provost. He also became our first Equal Employment Opportunity Officer. Dr. Jenkins came to the Provost's Office from the University of Wisconsin where he was a faculty member in the English Department and was also on the staff of the general administration of the University of Wisconsin System.

We had three self studies for accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools after the creation of the Dean of the Faculty position and before 1993. While these were University-wide in scope and involved large numbers of administrators and faculty, the Provost's Office was always heavily involved. This usually meant at least a year and a half of work in advance of the accreditation visit. For the accreditation in 1963, Mr. Simpson was the Provost Office's representative, in 1973 it was Dr. Jenkins who became the staff person for the Self-Study for that accreditation. I was an associate of his and attended the orientation meeting in Atlanta with him and I did some work on the self study, but Jenkins did most of the hard work and there was a lot of it. For the accreditation in 1984, Dr. Downs was the Provost's representative and worked diligently on the project. Karen Helm was also very much involved as the Director of Planning for NCSU. For the 1984 visit the Chancellor's Office was more involved in the overall development of the plan than prior Chancellors had been.

Dr. Marvin Gehle followed Dr. Jenkins when he left to go to Law School at UNC. Dr. Gehle came to us from the Department of Poultry Science at NCSU. Gehle was selected by Dr. Kelly to replace Jenkins. No committee was appointed, and we were not informed by Dr. Kelly and did not know that Dr. Gehle was under consideration for the appointment until Dr. Gehle was hired. Dr. Gehle did most of the functions performed by Dr. Jenkins except that he was less involved in draft letter writing. Dr. Gehle's greatest strength and his greatest contributions were that he was a whiz with computers and could write computer programs. He enabled us to begin to have programs that could be used to get the computer to draw together data so that the amount of time needed to prepare a specific report was lessened. This was fortunate because Administrative Data Processing did not have an adequate staff to handle many of the Provost's needs in this area. His talent was also needed because the number of reports were increasing exponentially. It seemed that with the advent of the computer, all agencies wanted us to provide more and more data and reports so that they could generate more and more data and reports. It almost drove us crazy, for many of the things that we compiled seemed to be nonsense in explaining what went on at NCSU and questions frequently were not asked in such a way that they meshed with our data or with our administrative structure. So Dr. Gehle was essential to our survival and his efforts enabled us to meet the ever increasing demand from various off-campus agencies, the BHE, the UNC System, other State and federal agencies, a variety of accreditation bodies and others. Many of Dr. Gehle's programs continued to be used by Administrative Data Processing and Institutional Research for several years until other languages and programs became more effective. He left us to go to work in industry, and this position was then transferred to Institutional Research, which was then under Student Affairs, to continue to provide these functions for the Provost.

The next group of Assistant or Associate Provosts were Dr. Leroy Martin, Dr. Henry Schaffer and Dr. William Willis. Each of these were in charge of academic computing and in some cases administrative computing. Their functions will be covered in Chapter Six under the section on the Computing Center. Each has served as the Provost's representative on the Welfare and Benefit's Committee, and a variety of other ad hoc committees.

Dr. Murray Downs joined the Provost's staff in 1974 from the History Department where he was a Professor. Dr. Downs' primary responsibilities were for maintaining course and curricula records, coordinating the review and approval of undergraduate academic programs and assisting the Faculty Senate and Council of Associate Deans in the development and implementation of undergraduate academic policy. Dr. Downs maintained the list of courses designated for Laboratory and Computer Fees and resolved complaints and difficulties in this arena. He also represented the Provost in matters involving teaching effectiveness and evaluation. He oversaw the allocation of the mini-grants for the improvement of teaching in undergraduate courses and for innovative experiments to bring computers into the improvement of undergraduate classroom instruction. He received proposals for processing and forwarded these two types of proposals to the Teaching Effectiveness and Evaluation Committee who reviewed and recommended recipients. Funds were allocated by the Provost after budgets were developed and approved by Dr. Downs.

Downs also was responsible for coordinating the publication of the Undergraduate Catalog, the Advisers' Handbook and the Handbook for Teachers. He was at first responsible for the development of these two handbooks and then assisted, which means he provided the leadership, in their annual revisions. Professor A. S. Knowles prepared the Faculty Handbook which was published in 1971. Downs had chief responsibility to rewrite and to revise the Faculty Handbook and in consultation with the Faculty Senate to keep it up-to-date. Prior to Down's assumption of this function, Mr. Simpson was responsible for the Faculty Handbook.

Dr. Downs provided liaison with the University Government Committee, the Registration Records and Calendar Committee, the University Teaching Effectiveness and Evaluation Committee, the Merit Awards Program, the University Honors Council, and the Study Abroad Office. He chaired the Coordinating Committee for Undergraduate Advising and an ad hoc committee to study the appropriate roles of coaches, academic support personnel, and faculty in monitoring, advising, and motivating student athletes.

In 1976-77 either Dr. Downs or I, or in our absence Simpson or Clark, were still approving the late drops for all undergraduate students. It was at this time that I decided to delegate this responsibility to the associate deans for academic affairs in each school, for we rarely did more than rubber stamp their requests for approval, and for the students it was another step and hassle of getting something approved. A little later there were complaints of unevenness in the late drop approvals. It was stated that certain schools were very tight on late drops and that others were granting them easily. It was at this time that Dr. Downs and the Council of Associate Deans looked at what each was doing in this area and discussed the rationales that each was using. We never got uniformity of action, but at least there was better understanding of what was really going on instead of just listening to the rumor mill, which wasn't very accurate. He provided liaison with two sequential university committees appointed to study and revise our general education requirements. After the second committee made its report he helped the campus to develop new general education requirements and to get them into each unit's curricula. The committee was appointed during my tenure; however, the committee made its report while Hart was Provost.

Dr. Downs should be appreciated for all of his efforts to enhance the quality of undergraduate education, for he did so very much on a day by day basis in his many years of contribution and unselfish service. He, more than any other single University administrator, was responsible for our undergraduate program. Among his other contributions, I am proud of his leading the transition of Academic Skills to the Division of Undergraduate Studies. He became the Interim Dean of Undergraduate Studies in 1990 in addition to his other duties. Dr. Downs continued as a member of the Provost's staff as of July 1, 1993.

Downs also drafted and wrote many new policies and revisions of policies for the Provost and the Chancellor, and he handled a variety of odd and end jobs. His responsibilities will be described in more detail in several other chapters.

Dr. Lawrence M. Clark came to NCSU from Florida State University on July 1, 1974 where he was Professor of Mathematics and Mathematics Education. The most important function of Dr. Clark's was to be NCSU's Affirmative Action Officer. In this role he also responded to governmental questionnaires and handled investigations at NCSU related to discrimination based on race, gender, handicap and age. He helped the administrators and the faculty to understand issues relating to race and helped more than any other individual to change the climate at NCSU to a less racist one. He, along with Gus Witherspoon and all of our African-American faculty and EPA staff have helped our campus to be far more supportive of African-American students, faculty and staff. When Dr. Clark came to NCSU we began to meet with leaders in the Raleigh Black Community. At that time we were considered to be a very red-necked and racist institution. These Black citizens in the community began to advise and help us to learn better ways to meet our affirmative action objectives. He was responsible for the creation of the Chancellor's African-American Community Leaders Advisory Committee. Over the years, and especially at first, these wonderful citizens advised us and helped us make changes and include activities so that NCSU could become a place where previously denied populations would have a chance to succeed and where they could succeed. We haven't reached our goal as well as we would have liked, but we have come a long way. I remember when one prominent person said that no child of his would ever attend NCSU, but later one did, and he did extraordinarily well here. Dr. Clark was a primary source of help in our efforts to recruit and retain African-American faculty. Although he was not called an ombudsman, both faculty and students came to him to talk about their problems, and he often helped them to resolve their problems. As of 1993, he continues on the Provost's staff. Much more will be discussed about Dr. Clark's roles in the following chapters and especially in Chapter Four.

During the fiscal year of 1981-1982 I served as Acting Chancellor. During this time I continued to handle a few of the Provost's functions, such as promotions, tenure and salary increases. I assigned several functions to both Clark and Downs, so that whoever was in could handle most of the matters which required the Provost's signature. Downs handled all of the recommendations that came from the Faculty Senate and most of the academic proposals, and Clark handled most of the personnel matters. I assigned the responsibility to Associate Provost Martin, Vice Provost and Dean Henry Smith, Vice Provost and Dean Vivian Stannett, and director I. T. Littleton for final approvals for their units except for matters concerning themselves. I continued to sign the forms which involved them and policy proposals. Mrs. Gloria Johnson continued to serve as my Administrative Assistant in the Chancellor's Office.

Dr. Augustus Witherspoon came to the Provost's Office in 1989 from the position of Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Professor of Botany. I had begun to realize the need for additional help in the area of undergraduate affairs dealing with the academic performance and problems of our African-American students. This was in addition to that which Dr. Clark could provide, for he had so many other responsibilities. I came to recognize that we needed this position more than I had thought when I substituted for Chancellor Poulton at a grievance hearing that our African-American students held one evening in the Stewart Theater of the Student Center. I did not know what to expect, and had anticipated that I was going to answer questions of what the Chancellor and Provost were doing to try to enhance the academic success of African-American students. The questions started out with: Did you know? Or why did you let? It seemed to me that the students had put together all their complaints here at NCSU and directed them to me for a response. Some complaints dealt with those that I had been working hardest on to solve. Others dealt with matters that were occurring or had occurred in one or more departments or classrooms that I had never heard before. Some even were things that had happened at other universities. One thing that upset the students was that the data they had on black faculty was in error and I corrected their data. Someone in Institutional Research had given them data but had omitted all black faculty who had any administrative responsibilities, including assistant department heads and a number of other professors who had some part-time administrative duties. I recall a young man accusing me of fabricating the numbers for my own staff had given him other figures which he thought were correct. We had worked hard on the recruitment and hiring of black faculty and while I would have liked to have had more success, I felt that we were doing better than any other predominantly white institution that I knew. There were a number of other issues raised that night which emphasized the need for an Associate Provost whose responsibilities dealt with a greater interface with African-American students. When the opportunity came and we were able to get the funds we did create this facilitator position. While not all of Witherspoon's duties dealt with African-American issues, most did. Any assignment might be given to this position on an ad hoc basis. In time the position's responsibilities came to include helping Dr. Clark and Dr. Downs in the interview process of all associate professors and in reviewing and making recommendations for faculty promotion and tenure. Dr. Witherspoon worked with Dr. Downs in the planning for the college dean reviews. As the facilitator of African-American Affairs, responsibilities included the University Recruitment and Retention Programs, the programmatic activities of the African-American Cultural Center, a liaison role with African-American faculty and staff organizations and advisor to academic African-American student organizations. He also served as a facilitator to bring greater sharing and exchange of ideas and successes among the Coordinators of African-American Studies' positions in each of the Schools and Colleges. He began to acquire information of successful activities at other universities and shared them with these coordinators. This position serves as an ex-officio officer for the Chancellor's Advisory Council and the Chancellor's African-American Community Leaders Advisory Committee.

Witherspoon developed a course for all African-American freshmen where the objectives were similar to those developed for the freshman course in Undergraduate Studies. Another major effort was to see the African-American Cultural Center come into being. He worked on this effort for many years before he joined my staff. As Associate Provost he planned the development of the academic component of the program of this center. Other functions will be covered in the Chapter Four. He continued in the position in 1993.

Dr. Rebecca Leonard came to us in 1990 as Assistant Provost from the Department of Communication where she was an Associate Professor. She had worked on several projects for the Provost on race and gender on a part-time basis over the years. Her first responsibility was to organize a freshman course intended to try to help more students survive, to get off to a better start, to learn where to get help and to ensure that they got help before they were lost. Her responsibilities as Director of the First Year Experience Program were to develop the course, to get the teachers and to manage the course and the program so as to assist first year students to make a successful transition to NCSU. About 10% of the freshman class entered the program during its first year. While only a small segment of the students were served, the retention of these freshmen and their grade point averages improved at least a little. The success of the effort will, of course, be told if our retention rates and in time our graduation rates improve with the use of this course, and its subsequent revisions. It began to be revised even as it was taught the first time. (Graduation rates also will be influenced by the reduction in hours required for graduation which occurred in the revision of curricula in 1994.) During this time Dr. Leonard also held the title of Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Studies.

As Dr. Leonard's responsibilities phased out of work with freshmen, Dr. Hart began to add responsibilities in other areas. She assisted the Provost with special projects, such as processing information, data collection and drafting reports. Like all the other Assistant and Associate Provosts she drafted policy proposals, position statements, many of the Provost's responses and advised the Provost regarding policies and procedures. She helped by organizing and monitoring processes. She was the Provost's representative to the NCSU Quality Steering Team and helped develop the training program for Continuous Quality Improvement, including basic orientation training and training for CQI trainers and facilitators. She also conducted training sessions.

A responsibility which I had contemplated adding to the many others, was that of Coordinator of Gender Concerns. We had Dr. Leonard's agenda too full, but I understand that responsibility was finally added in 1994.

Personnel Office

One of the first assignments of the Dean of the Faculty was to establish personnel policies and procedures and to maintain records of appointments, promotions, salaries, contracts, terminations et cetera. It was in 1961, late in Shirley's tenure at NCSC, that a full-time SPA employee was hired to handle the implementation of these functions. S. A. Chick was the first to begin to establish order and to develop a system out of very limited records. Recently a faculty member who started teaching at NCSC before World War II retired and was surprised to learn that these records did not include his first four years of service at NCSU. Fortunately that was not a serious problem for the N. C. Retirement System had his correct record of years employed. Not much progress was made in organizing the personnel files until Mary Strickland was hired in 1965. At that time, Mrs. Strickland was the only full-time person assigned to these purposes. By the time that Mrs. Strickland retired in 1989, the number of persons working in the office had grown considerably along with a similar expansion of functions performed. Others who have had major responsibilities include: Linda Snyder, Karin Wolfe, Beverly Cable, Gail Finch and Tara Britt. Each has made significant contributions to the development of the personnel records system. With an increase in reporting requirements came computerization and extensive detail in the records of all persons hired. Initially computer assistance was provided by Dr. Gehle and Administrative Data Processing for programs and systems. Later we hired some undergraduate students on a part-time basis who knew how to formulate and implement computer programs. At first Mrs. Strickland handled our relationship with student programmers and with those in Administrative Data Processing. Then we added Mrs. Snyder to make statistical studies, to interface with and to provide liaison with the programmers and systems personnel and to insure that we could generate on the computer the required and the desired reports. We soon reached the stage that Administrative Data Processing could no longer provide many of our programming needs. We then added Gail Finch to the staff for this purpose and after she left us, Todd Driver joined us to perform these functions. Although we had employed many male students in the Personnel Office, Driver was the first full-time male to be hired in the office. Along with computerization came increases in staff and an extensive expansion in the detail of the records of each faculty member and of the other EPA employees. Some of these reports provided information needed by the Chancellor, the Provost, the schools, the departments, the Faculty Senate, or by other administrative units. Much of the material was necessary to provide information that could be retrieved for reports required by the BOG, State agencies or various offices of the federal government. An example of these were the HEGIS reports of the federal government which made it necessary to classify faculty using a nationally standardized group of occupations. These did not mesh with our departmental or college/school structure. While these were probably useful to someone for national reports on manpower, we had to maintain an administrative unit classification for use on our campus. An example of a classification was plant physiologists. We employed them in at least six departments in two different schools. Our interest was in which administrative units they functioned, and not that they had a doctorate in Plant Physiology.

A Personnel Payroll and Position Control system was implemented. We now began to code and to process not only the personnel forms but also to enter the records in the computer system. Some additional records that we now could maintain and obtain more easily included off-campus scholarly assignments, leaves, and salary histories by person, rank, race, gender with departmental, school/college, and University averages. With the advent of the computer the employment history of each EPA employee could be maintained and retrieved without cumbersome hand-kept records. Composite or groupings of information could be retrieved for reports.

This office did the AAUP salary study until the BOG staff began to maintain computerized records on the EPA employees of each campus, and then the Personnel Office and Institutional Research had to verify the accuracy of the generated report. The BOG's records necessitated some additional standardization of records for each of the 16 campuses. Later, after the transfer of the Institutional Studies and Planning position to Institutional Research, almost all of the federal reports were prepared there.

The keeping of computerized records on each individual enabled the office to handle a variety of functions more easily and quickly. These included both salary increases and promotions. An example was the calculation for salary allocations to units under the requirements and guidelines imposed by the Chancellor, the Provost, the BOG and the Legislature. To insure compliance with these guidelines, the staff reviewed the salary recommendations from the schools for each faculty member and added appropriate notes such as the number of times that the faculty member had been selected as an Outstanding Teacher. They also checked the total sums of the salaries recommended to make certain that the schools had awarded increases only in the amounts previously allocated under each of the budget codes for increase funds could not be transferred from the instructional budget code. They prepared the promotion and data summary sheets and checked the personnel data on the promotion and tenure recommendations to insure accuracy. These records were then used to inform and consult with the Chancellor on matters of interest to him. It was also used to provide information so that the Associate and Assistant Provosts, the Dean of the Graduate School, the Vice Chancellor for Research and the Vice Chancellor for Extension could participate in the promotion's reviews. The information was then used in the hearings and reviews by the Provost with each dean on salary increase, promotion, tenure and non-reappointment recommendations.

This office also prepares the Trustee Reports on Personnel and the reports on Personnel that were sent by the Chancellor to the Board of Governors via the UNC administrators. All letters of appointment, tenure, and non-reappointment sent by the Chancellor were prepared for the Chancellor's signature. The general letters that was used as form letters for different types of appointments had been developed by this staff for review and approval by the Provost and the University Attorney. Those who have been responsible for these activities have included Helen Mann, when the Chancellor's Office handled the letters, Mary Strickland, Linda Spencer, and Rebekah Ingle.

The personnel in this Office have been the major resource for information on University Policies and Procedures concerning faculty, other EPA employees and their salaries. They were called upon by the entire campus to provide such information. While the Provost or the Associate Provost who oversees the Personnel Office also answer questions, the campus has come to depend primarily on the personnel in this Office. They have also been called upon to provide individual personnel information as required by State Statute, to be accessible upon request by persons who are citizens of the State. While the Office reports to the Provost, It provided oversight of the Office after I became Assistant Provost, and Dr. Clark performed this function under Hart and Stiles.

Computer files are also maintained by this office for all graduate students who hold teaching or research assistantships including term of appointment and the sources and the amount of stipend. The person responsible approved all appointments except those that exceeded stipend guidelines, those that appeared questionable, or those that violated policies. The persons with this responsibility have resolved most of these difficulties. A few could not be resolved by the staff, and those were referred to the Provost or to Dr. Clark for resolution. I recall a few cases where the graduate student appeared on appointments and payrolls from two or even three units so as to be employed over 100% of the time, or the appointment exceeded limits that were set for a graduate assistant who was carrying a one-half time graduate course load. Of course these were corrected prior to implementation.

At first this group prepared the personnel information for the Payroll Office and kept personnel data in manual records for many years. Later they coded this information, but it was entered into the computer records by others in Administrative Data Processing. Do you remember the key punch cards and tapes? Today these employees enter the information on each faculty member, other EPA employees, and graduate students, along with the appropriation budget codes needed for payrolls directly into the computer. They also enter all other personnel information and maintain or write the computer programs needed to retrieve the information as necessary for reports.

One frequent complaint was that it took too long to get someone appointed. Rarely was the delay caused by the personnel office. More often it was related to the personnel forms being submitted too late to be included in that month's payroll, or at times submitted forms did not mesh with the approval dates for Trustee or BOG approval. In 1962 there was a complaint from Dean Lampke. He said that it took several months to get a particular professor appointed. It had taken from January 10 until February 7 for internal administrative approvals. The greatest delay was that the form for appointment took two weeks to get signed by the Dean of the Graduate School. Final approval by the Trustees took an additional three weeks. At this time approvals of appointments and their signatures were required of the Graduate Dean, who checked to be certain that all new appointments of associate professor and professor were members of the graduate faculty, the Business Manager, whose staff checked to make certain that there were funds in the appointing unit's budget, the Chancellor and the Dean of the Faculty. The Dean of the Graduate School, The Dean of the Faculty and the Chancellor had all interviewed the prospective faculty member. We later dropped the signatures of the Graduate Dean and the Chancellor for internal campus processing and required only the Provost's and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business's signatures.

When NCSU got our own Trustees, it increased the approvals required for all appointments with tenure, terms of appointment of more than a year and for certain salary levels as specified by the Trustees' Personnel Committee. We were asked by the Personnel Committee to save items for retroactive approvals rather than to have extra meetings of the Personnel Committee or to send the Personnel Committee so many reports by mail for their approval. It was usually necessary to have their approval before an item could be sent to the Board of Governors; however, all salary increases for continuing employees during the year usually required the approval of the President's staff and some by the BOG. Only appointments conferring tenure, appointments of senior administrators, or salaries of new appointees exceeding the salary maxima for a particular rank, required BOG approval.

The BOG did not like to receive or make retroactive approvals. The Personnel Office began to send out calendars of meetings of both the Trustees and of the BOG to all deans, directors, vice chancellors, and department heads so as to avoid delays in personnel actions. This helped, but it did not solve all of the delay problems. Especially troublesome were those actions received after the deadline for submission to the BOG. We could always, and frequently did take supplements to our NCSU Trustees. Approvals for January caused us a serious problem for salary increases of continuing employees and for the appointment of tenured personnel. The BOG did not meet from early November until the second Friday in January. A number of appointments and salary increases were usually proposed for January 1. These frequently got to us too late for the November meeting. The result was that the salary increase or the appointment could not be implemented until the afternoon after the BOG's morning meeting. Our NCSU Trustees' Personnel Committee usually had four meetings, including one by mail in late June to handle actions to become effective on July 1. Additional appointments for the fall semester could always be taken to them retroactively at their September meeting.

Units sometimes sent in papers too late to get them included in the payroll for that month, and wanted us to pay by manual checks. We of course were always willing to try to do this, for it was never the employee's fault that the papers arrived too late. Each transaction took a lot of time and the State Auditor began to complain about the large number of such transactions. Certain administrative units seemed to have excessive numbers of manual payroll requests and to have some almost every month. In fact, almost all came from these few units. Mr. Worsley and I simply had to inform these units that we would not continue to process their manual requests. Since this was considered a sin by the auditors and was an expensive matter, we had to reduce the numbers of manual checks and had to stop using this method except for real emergencies.

The staff kept all of these actions in balance with an inadequate number of personnel, and sometimes almost accomplished miracles by only occasionally working overtime to get the salary increases or appointments entered on time to meet deadlines. This has been a great group of staff to work with and the entire campus is indebted to their Herculean efforts.

Deans' Council

The school/college deans have always exerted a great deal of power and influence at NCSU. While Shirley and Kelly were Deans of the Faculty, deans were the majority on and dominated the Administrative Council. Chancellors and Provosts have always called the deans together to discuss issues of importance or in an emergency, when needed. After Chancellor Thomas came, the deans expressed concern that they did not have the opportunity to meet without all of the members of the Administrative Council being present. By this time the Administrative Council had grown until it was quite large so that the deans no longer constituted a majority of its members. They wanted a regularly scheduled time when they could discuss matters of concern to all of them and to their schools more privately with the Chancellor and the Provost. We began to have regular meetings with the deans at schedu