USC Picks Carol Folt, Former Chapel Hill Leader, as Next President

The University of Southern California has chosen as its next president Carol L. Folt, who stepped down in January as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the university in Los Angeles announced on Wednesday. In moving west, Folt will find herself with a familiar task: to navigate a campus that seems constantly to find itself under clouds of controversy.

Associated Press

Folt was appointed on Wednesday by USC’s Board of Trustees. In a written statement, Rick Caruso, the university’s board chair, praised Folt. “Dr. Folt stood out from the very beginning as a courageous and compassionate person who always places the well-being of students, faculty, staff, and patients at the heart of all she does,” he said.

C.L. Max Nikias stepped down as USC’s president in August following wave after wave of scandal, including the revelations that a former campus gynecologist had faced allegations of sexual abuse but continued in his post and that a former high-profile dean had consorted with prostitutes and abused drugs. And just recently, USC and several other universities were implicated in the bombshell case that has rocked college admissions, in which dozens of parents were found to have bribed college coaches and others to gain admission for their children.

Folt faced a litany of controversies in Chapel Hill. She oversaw the university’s handling of a widespread academic-fraud scandal that sank the campus into turmoil for years, and later managed the university’s response to protests over its Confederate statue known as Silent Sam. After protesters pulled down the statue, she proposed a plan to keep the statue on the campus, a proposal that drew fierce opposition from critics. Among her final acts as chancellor was to order that the remains of the statue be removed from the campus, a decision that provoked harsh words from members of the UNC system’s board.

Andy Thomason is a senior editor at The Chronicle. Send him a tip at andy.thomason@chronicle.com. And follow him on Twitter @arthomason.