North Carolina People; Erskine Bowles, President, University of North Carolina

And then a few weeks it would have been a year since our skin while he's inaugurated as president of the University of North Carolina. We thought it be a good thing to drop by his office to see how things are going. That's why we are talking sponsored in part by walkover via helping North Carolina people realize their financial goals since 1879 and through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting the U.N. see TV. Most presidents good see you this just day I'm looking mighty good all going well.

I feel great present Friday. Thank you for having me on the show. Well if so it's a trait early on you made the job it is to go from colorway to live with city getting acquainted with all these institutions and their diversity their uniqueness their civic accountability where you really take an oath what you're saying. I was knocked over. Really I wish all the citizens of North Carolina could see what a powerful asset they have built for the future. Your fees universities. When I went to. To gosh to will you and see Wilmington and an Appalachian State. I was knocked over by the size and scope of those universities. You know when you go to USC Greensboro or East Carolina or you and see Pembroke or Winston-Salem State and you see the diversity on those campuses it really makes you proud. And gosh when I went to the chapel hill and saw all of the

scientific research for cutting edge research for doing on genome IX or when you go to that Millennium Campus it in six days you've seen the future. Or when you go to to my new hometown Charlotte and see what they're doing out there you can see Charlotte in the field of bioinformatics and photonics. You know we're on the leading edge of the future. When you go to Western or you go to Asheville or you go to North Carolina Central and you listen to the kids there talk about the new ideas and innovations that are going on on the campuses. You know North Carolina has an asset like few other states have anything about I'm really surprised for maybe it's just us. Oh plenty. You know somebody told me the other day if you take all the square footage of all the buildings at the university it's over 60 million square feet. That's 17 times the size of the Pentagon which is the world's largest building. We have

53000 bed to this university. That's more than all of Chicago hotels put together. We have an annual budget of six billion dollars. We've got 200000 kids 40000 students. If you put them in one town one town that be more then would be the third largest town in North Carolina. So it's it is an incredible resource to the people of North Carolina. I can tell by your enthusiasm that you don't miss the sound and fury of Washington. You know I joined all of it I get it. I have the best job good of America. I really do I wouldn't trade you know following it yours and Dick's use for anything in the world. Well we're glad to hear that enthusiasm. Well let's talk about some of the issues you face and I know you've spent an enormous amount of time looking at this whole question of access as it relates to costs. Yes or what do you see looking ahead here. How are we going to deal with this acceleration of the expanse of the

U.S. we've got to get it under control. I have real concern about the finance is of the university going forward. You and I both believe to our very soul that we not only have the cost of tuition requirement to keep tuition as low as practical. But we have a moral responsibility to do it and I believe that we must keep tuition as a secondary source of income they can never be our primary source but our two primary sources of revenue are under enormous pressure today. The state budget where we get over two and a half billion dollars a year. It's under an enormous pressure from Medicaid which is just eating the state budget a lab. And you look at the federal budget where we get over 750000 million dollars a year you know that is also under pressure from our from the three entitlement programs Medicare Medicaid Social Security from our foreign involvement from the need to invest in homeland security. So the money that's available for education and for research is just breaking. And so that's why I'm so focused on how can we

we do so our cost is you know when I came in here cut the budget of general administration by 10 percent. Second thing I did was go to Christa Tillman who was ahead of Bill Self and asked her to head up the efficiency and effectiveness study that studies finished and we are implementing her recommendations today are not sitting on the shelf. The third thing we did is we set up performance measures so that people like me in our chance to risk can be held more accountable. We have to drive down the cost of the of a college education. At the same time we've got to look for new sources of revenues. That's why I'm so excited about what we're doing in distance ed because I think that can not only bring higher education to more people in North Carolina but I think it can generate revenues to hold down the cost of the college education. Wonderful as a citizen but more particularly as president university I know you worry about things like the dropout rate in school teacher supply. What about the continuity now.

Have you worked out a sort of a seamless web among the schools or community colleges in your own. Are you all three facing the problems together. I think we've made enormous progress in the last year. Twila We're halfway home. We've got a long long long way to go. The first thing I did when I took this job was to call President Martin Lankester who I respect so much you heads up our great community college system and I think our community college system is one of the most enormous assets we have in North Carolina here. But I called Martin and I said Martin what are the inhibiting factors to a seamless education for the students in North Carolina. What do I need to change so that it's easier for a kid to go from the community colleges to university. And he gave me a whole list of things in President Friday I remove those. Day one they are gone. Since that time we have met together

as a governing body over and over and over again. We've had our two faculty governing bodies come together. And I'll give an example of the smart kind of things we're doing for the taxpayers and for the people. The community colleges have great facilities to train nurses. There's an enormous demand for nurses and there's an enormous shortage of nurses throughout the state and a lot of people who want to go into these programs. But unfortunately we don't have the teachers. That's our job to turn out those teachers. We're going to send out 16 new teachers to teach in those great community colleges that have master's degrees in nursing this year will expand it again next year and we'll be able to eat and meet that demand and create real jobs for people in North Carolina. We've also focused really hard on K through 12. Our job is to produce more teachers better teachers. We've got to produce more math and science teachers. We've got to produce stronger principals and stronger superintendents. And a good example of what we're doing there is we have the principals from the 18

poorest performing high schools in North Carolina coming in today to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler School of Business. And these principals are getting intensive rigorous instruction in finance in management in leadership to give them the skills to go back into those high schools and improve them. We'll bring in 44 more next year. We're going to do our job because this university is going to rise and fall with K through 12. Let's move that thinking beyond this relationship question to all that you've been saying about the relationship of just that system and the future economic development of the state. You you're a real student of the economy. What do you see to be in the future. Because I think the economy of North Carolina depends on our being able to turn out a highly educated highly trained workforce. We no longer live in and on an island that we live in today

a global economy and it's a knowledge based global economy. Let me give an example. Today in Singapore 44 percent of their eighth graders scored the most advanced level in math and science in the U.S. less than seven percent of our kids do. And boy when you come here home to North Carolina less than 34 percent of our kids are even proficiency much less at the most advanced level in reading math science or writing. And what happens to those kids today in North Carolina. Well for every hundred eighth graders in North Carolina somewhere between 58 and 68 will graduate from high school. Thirty eight will go to college. Twenty eight will come back for the second year and 18 actually graduate from college. The president Friday that worked fine in my day. You know I'm from Greensboro and you remember all the text tool furniture and in apparel jobs that used to exist in North Carolina but they are gone and they are not coming back. And all those folks who tell me oh Urson don't worry about the loss of those low skilled but moderate

income jobs because Avis is North Carolina we're going to create the next new thing. I'm telling you what if we don't wake up and get more of our own people better educated that next new thing it's not going to be created here. It's going to be created somewhere over there in Singapore or China or India. And those jobs of the future that we're counting on for my children and our grandchildren they're not going to be here they're going to be over there. So we've got to get more people better educated. We've got to make sure that we're turning out people with strong math and science skills and people with strong skills in the liberal arts so they have creative thinking skills problem solving skills communications skills team building skills because that's what we're going to need to compete in this new world of work. All of that being true. I remember when I was a part of a commission you had rowed all over eastern North Carolina. Looking at that particular situation you make me think of this special emphasis where you got really creative ideas going in the eastern part of the study.

Yes are we. We cannot be to North Carolina's. We must be one North Carolina. And we have an obligation to see what we can do to bring you jobs and new opportunities to rule North Carolina. We have asked for a competitive spawn to do research but not just any kind of research we might want to do at the university. It is demand driven research that will create the jobs of the future throughout North Carolina. It would be in areas like marine aerodynamics up in the Northeast marine science along the coast of North Carolina support logistics down in the southeast natural products up in the up in the West bioinformatics bio manufacturing biotechnology nanotechnology photonics. That's for the future. And what we want to do is make sure that all the kids in North Carolina get the skills they need so that we can attract the jobs of the future to come throughout the state. Now let's carry this one step further. Without going into the long history

of North Carolina's efforts at planning its own future I'm even looking at itself. What you just said almost did ban something like that exists. Looking to the to the dimensions of the state sales here what about the university now and looking at North Carolina where its shortcomings may be where its assets are and looking ahead President Friday. It's just one of the many great things you did for our state but I was a great believer in the progress board. I think the progress board did a lot of good for North Carolina but it looks like it's not going to be here in the future. And therefore bear is a huge gap. Of expertise here in North Carolina but we need to bring forward. I want to create here and we're working on it now. A Public Policy Institute at the university. It would be headquartered here in Chapel Hill but it would take advantage of all of the bright minds we have in this

university throughout our 16 campuses. It would bring HBOS great minds together and it would be an objective nonpartisan highly respected highly trusted research organ that could be so helpful in trying to decide how are we going to solve the long term problems facing North Carolina. It could do research on how we're going to create more small businesses. What kind of tax structure do we need to encourage small business growth. How are we going to solve the problem of the uninsured here in North Carolina so that so many of them don't end up in our emergency rooms where the cost is five times the amount it would be if they got help before they got to the emergency room. Those have account of things that I can see a great Institute a public policy here that was highly respected how the objective nonpartisan working with the leadership of North Carolina to solve these big big problems we face today. Listening to you is really inspiring. Now our legislature sitting over there in Raleigh.

What's going to be your priority then talking to them this session. In view of all that you've said here which is a really really a very inspiring structuring of the approach of the university's role in this day. What will you what are you going to tell them. Well I'll tell you I told them yesterday I went over there and I'm a real believer of that if everything's a priority. Nothing surprise. And we submitted a budget that was 32 pages long. It was prioritize number one through 10 as opposed to three hundred twenty four page budget. They presented two years ago and our number one priority priority has to be access and affordability. We have got to make it possible for more people to get into this university so we've asked for enough money so that every single kid in North Carolina who is eligible for a need based aid actually receives it and is held harmless for any future increases in tuition fees which I hope there will be.

Second is our faculty. President Friday we can build all the buildings in North Carolina you want to build. But if we don't have great faculty we don't have anything. We have wasted our money. You know our faculty holds the key to our future in their minds. And so I have asked for the legislature to give us enough money to bring our faculty to the 80th percentile of their peer organizations. That way we can recruit and retain the best faculty in America. If we had mediocre faculty will turn out a mediocre product and therefore North Carolina will not be able to compete for those jobs of the future. So those are our top two priorities. My third priority is this research comparatives fun so that we can bring those jobs of the future to North Carolina. We do these things. We'll be able to compete with the best and brightest where ever they may be. And we also won't have to raise tuition in the future because we would have taken the

pressure off of the budgets here 80 percent of our budget is people. So if we can keep you know bring the cost of education down through these need based aid and if we can have that great faculty here you'll take all the pressure off of tuition. Quite a program. I want to go back to something I know you did recently that did something earth could bow. When you went over in the wake of the tsunami what was that experience like to you as a person present Friday. It was it was the it had a bigger effect on leaving anything else I've ever done in my life. You know in the side of the devastation it just it got to you. When I first flew in to Bonn to AHCI in Indonesia and I was flown in on an old helicopter looking out to one of those small round windows and it was like watching a horror movie that just wouldn't end it with own and on and on because as you flew down to 10 to 15 mile stretch of the coast everything was

gone. It was just like the rug had been pulled out. There were no trees there were no hills there were no cars there were no houses there were no schools there was no infrastructure. It was all gone. And my job was to to bring together the seven donor nations the three hundred sixty so not non-governmental organizations NGOs to coordinate efforts to bring relief to these 13 countries. And I quickly found that while everyone was in favor of coordination nobody wanted to be coordinated. It was a good practice for this job. It was but it really it really was it was the most meaningful experience of my life because we were able to meet the needs of these people in housing water sewer. There were no health care problems resulted as a result of this enormous damage and you have to remember to think about what's gone on here after Katrina and then multiply that times hundreds

of thousands you know 250000 people lost their lives three million people lost their homes and they didn't have the infrastructure here to rebuild those homes everything has to be brought in from somewhere else. It was in the Normas I'm just ecstatic. Human heart is still responsive to that of the human heart was a mate in me got it it got to my heart more than anything else I've ever done. But to see what people did 11 billion dollars was raised to provide humanitarian relief that was needed to give these people a chance for you tomorrow. Very very devastating experience all the way around. Yes sir all right now let's look at the next five years. All this studying all this knowledge base you've accumulated all this humanity you've experienced you're in like you know that university is a human institution more like anything else in government. What do you see out there.

Will President Friday use you know me we'll. You did not. He wrote forever you know that. And expander is the person I admire as much as anybody in the world. And I laid out in my inaugural address what I hope to accomplish. And I'm a really plain open person. I want to be held accountable and therefore I want people to know what our goals are. And I said that I want to make this university more efficient more effective. That's why we have the accountability program. That's why we reduced our administrative costs and that's why we're working on doing the same thing on our campuses. I said I wanted to improve K through 12 because we the university you know we will rise and fall with the K through 12. We've got to reduce the number of people who come to the university who need remediation. We have got to put turned out more teachers better teachers more math and science teachers and stronger principals and superintendents. That's our job and by golly we're going to do it. I also said I wanted that seamless relationship to community colleges. And you and I talked about what we're doing there that a long ways to go

for us and you know we've got to improve the access and affordability hold down the cost of education. But we also got to make sure that the people who we admit to this university that they graduate and they graduate with a diploma that means something. Quality is really really important. You know low tuition without high quality is no bargain for anyone. I said what what we what we've got to do is we've got to also have continuing research so North Carolina remains on the cutting edge of research and development but I warn you that research to be more demand driven so it met the needs of the people of North Carolina. And lastly I said we've got to have great faculty because they hold the key to their future in bare minds. I think we're making great steps in in this direction. We've got a long way to go but I'm telling you I'm one charged up fella to lead this university in this effort. When you go out here and make students as I know you do. How do how do you see this generation then you're doing these things for they found some of these kids are really way beyond where my

generation was a does that age and age but what's been your experience with exactly the same first of all it's a greatest thing you can do in a job like this you have to leave this office you have to leave these administrators and go out and sit with the students because vests your product the vets what we're doing vets why we have these jobs. And that's what why I wake up every morning you know every morning almost every morning excited about what I have a chance to do. And these kids are inquisitive. They are smart they understand the world we live in. They know that their competition is not just in South Carolina and the genuine New York but the competition is global today and vey knows that they are here to get the knowledge. It's also exciting to go to the games and see the you know the great morale we have on the universities that the athletics bring to the university. But these these kids today are highly motivated to to make sure they get the

education they need because they know without it today you don't have a chance in this country in that context now based upon your very great experience. If you look around the region what you've been saying is about North Carolina but I know you're very aware that our state has been the traditional leader among the states to use Deal maintain those relationships. You working at problems that are regional in nature now you do transportation communication that is so much you can do together. It is and you know our ways. I've always felt ever since I watched Would you and President Spangler and president brought to the university has an obligation to lead. You know that's our job and we have to proactively think about what does the state need and what does region need in order to be effective in the future. And whether that is invest in future investments in roads infrastructure infrastructure water and sewer. If it's

protecting our environment or if it's making sure that we have a proper health care here to deliver people. That's our job we have to think ahead. Because if we don't nobody else will. What do you do to get a little recreation with all this driving in your sails. Well you know you're a good disciplinary. What do you do for you or for yourself. Probably Crandall would say probably but you know unfortunately food the only downside of this job is my my family lives in Charlotte and my wife runs a big textile company and we had a two career marriage your whole life and I think in the 33 years we've been married we probably only lived in the same town half that time. But I spend most of my weekends with her even coming down here or going there to meet her or going to one of our universities. I still get a little chance to play some golf every day which which I love with my great friends at

home when I can tell you life is good. I had my first two grandchildren this year and boy you don't know what love is do you have grandchildren is the best. Now you're a member of the greatest fraternity in the world. Being a grandparent it is the two year old granddaughter Ellie calls me papa. She saw a picture of a day and she said she looked at she said Papa and I thought oh that's as good as it ever gets on such a happy note we have to conclude this but I'm sorry we've run out of time because it's been such a delightful exchange with President. You aren't all of this and all this in the first year. Keep going. Well the only one present is a university that's built to have a thank you though. Frans I know you've enjoyed his little visit with our dynamic leader from the University of North Carolina. So until next week then goodnight. Sponsored in part by walkover via helping North Carolina people realize their financial goals since 1879

and through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting UN CTV.