By naming Carol L. Folt on Wednesday as its next president, the University of Southern California sent a clear message that the former University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill chancellor had elevated her national reputation in a grueling fight over the fate of a Confederate monument.
Folt’s chancellorship, from which she resigned in January, was a case study in crisis management, culminating with her dramatic final directive that the remnants of a controversial statue known as Silent Sam be removed from a place of prominence on North Carolina’s flagship campus. That decision, members of Southern California’s presidential-search advisory committee say, helped to establish Folt as a logical and potent pick to lead a university that has lurched from one scandal to the next in recent years.
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By naming Carol L. Folt on Wednesday as its next president, the University of Southern California sent a clear message that the former University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill chancellor had elevated her national reputation in a grueling fight over the fate of a Confederate monument.
Folt’s chancellorship, from which she resigned in January, was a case study in crisis management, culminating with her dramatic final directive that the remnants of a controversial statue known as Silent Sam be removed from a place of prominence on North Carolina’s flagship campus. That decision, members of Southern California’s presidential-search advisory committee say, helped to establish Folt as a logical and potent pick to lead a university that has lurched from one scandal to the next in recent years.
“This was a decision of great courage and integrity, and it stands for me as a model for what university presidents should do,” said Viet Thanh Nguyen, a member of the search committee and an English professor. “For me it was very important to have someone who had the moral fortitude to deal with these issues and also had the actual experience of dealing with these issues.”
Carol Folt’s Controversies
April 2013: Folt, then interim president of Dartmouth College, cancels classes for a day after a student protest spurs violent rhetoric against demonstrators.
October 2014: A former federal prosecutor releases a report showing that more than 3,000 students, including many athletes, took sham courses at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill over nearly two decades. Folt, who took over as chancellor in 2013, ordered the report.
December 2018: Folt unveils a plan to keep a Confederate monument that had been toppled by protesters on the university’s campus. The plan was criticized by students and professors, and was rejected by the system’s board.
January 2019: Folt orders the removal of Silent Sam’s remaining pedestal and announces her resignation. The system’s board responds harshly, saying members were “incredibly disappointed” and moving up her departure date.
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Southern California’s growth in prominence, selectivity, and wealth has of late betrayed a darker side. The university is ground zero in a college-admissions scandal that came to light this month, and that’s just the latest spate of bad news. Accusations of sexual misconduct against a campus gynecologist, and revelations that a medical school dean abused hard drugs and consorted with a prostitute have raised deeper questions about administrative oversight and the university’s culture.
In the thick of the Silent Sam controversy, when Folt was torn between activist students who wanted the statue gone and conservative lawmakers who insisted it stay put, the chancellor appeared to be eternally condemned to lose-lose propositions. But her move to Southern California upends that narrative, transforming an episode for which she was relentlessly criticized into a résumé builder.
“As a writer, I like this story,” said Nguyen, whose novel, The Sympathizer, earned the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, in 2016.
Can’t Resist a Crisis
It is fair to ask at this point whether Folt, who is all smiles in public, relishes a good fight. This isn’t the first time she has steered headlong into a crisis.
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When Folt took the helm at North Carolina, in 2013, the university was still reeling from an academic-fraud scandal that involved disproportionate numbers of athletes. Privately, search consultants buzzed about who would want such a job — even at a top-tier university.
Geoffrey Cowan, a member of the search committee, said that Folt recognizes that a crisis gives new presidents room they might not otherwise have to make changes.
“It createsan opportunity for Carol Folt to come in and create a tremendous new fresh burst of energy and excitement and a core sense of ethics,” says Cowan, a communications professor.
Just as at Chapel Hill, Folt will be Southern California’s first permanent female leader. She is an outsider at a university that has been led in recent memory by insiders. C.L. Max Nikias, who agreed to resign last May, came to USC in 1991 and succeeded Steven B. Sample, who had led the university for 19 years.
During her tenure at North Carolina, Folt was known to be hands-on with students — even when it was unpleasant. In one memorable confrontation, which was captured on video, an African-American student called Folt “a disgrace” for equivocating over the Silent Sam issue. Folt stood there and took it, demonstrating a quality that Southern California professors say the university needs.
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“It’s much easier to hide,” says Elizabeth M. Daley, a search-committee member and dean of the School of Cinematic Arts. “This is not someone who is going to hide. She will do what has to be done.”
Folt’s move to a private institution from a public university, where she dealt with aggressive lawmakers and politically appointed trustees, may offer something of a reprieve. The power brokers she’ll answer to now include high-powered celebrities like Steven Spielberg, who is on the university’s board. They’ll have opinions, Daley says, but Folt isn’t likely to get bogged down in the wedge issues that dominated her final year at Chapel Hill.
“It’s probably a more reasonable and progressive constituency — a constituency that is going to come nearer to sharing her values,” Daley said. “Hopefully that will help her focus on the other work at hand, instead of focusing on the pedestal of a Confederate statute.”
She’ll almost certainly make more money, too. Folt’s base pay at Chapel Hill was about $600,000, compared with Nikias’s $1.3 million.
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Professors say they’ll be looking for Folt to assure them, from the very start, that she represents a new kind of leadership where transparency and integrity are valued.
“A hallmark of her leadership is community building, and there is absolutely no way USC can turn the corner without trust being rebuilt,” said Sharoni D. Little, a member of the search committee and chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer for the Marshall School of Business. “You can’t just come in for a day and say you’re open to that; you’re going to have to demonstrate that.”
Correction (3/21/2019, 11:55 a.m.): This article originally misidentified Sharoni Little as USC’s chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer. She serves in that role for the Marshall School of Business, not the university. The text has been corrected.