Hard-charging president of N.C.'s community college system resigns; Hackley calls it quits after two years doing 'undoable' job - Dr. Lloyd Hackley

Black Issues in Higher Education, Jan 23, 1997 by Pam Kelley

Hackley Calls It Quits after Two Years Doing `Undoable' Job

Charlotte, N.C.--Soon after he became president of the North Carolina Community College System two years ago, Dr. Lloyd "Vic" Hackley began encountering friction.

Some people said he was forceful -- too forceful. Others complained he was an outsider who didn't know the community college system.

Following weeks of speculation, Hackley announced on January 9 that he'll leave the presidency of the country's third-largest community college system by the end of the school year to pursue other interests.

Hackley's hard-charging style -- coupled with the difficulty of a politically charged job that gave him little real power -- conspired to do him in, observers said.

In an interview after his announcement, Hackley said no one forced him out. "This is my call; I have made it; and I made it with a lot of soul-searching because the community college system is so important."

Still, he says: "I am not naive enough to believe that everybody with whom I work wanted me to be here."

His departure comes as the fifty-eight-campus system with 779,000 students is poised to implement sweeping changes. They include switching from quarters to semesters beginning this fall, bringing uniformity to course offerings across the state and guaranteeing that credit from community college classes will transfer to the state's sixteen universities.

A political scientist and retired Air Force major, Hackley, fifty-six, took over as president in January 1995 following a successful tenure as chancellor at historically Black Fayetteville State University.

He also came to the community college presidency with impressive connections. He's been a friend of President Clinton since their days in Arkansas, when Clinton was governor and he was chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He now chairs the President's Advisory Board of Historically Black Colleges.

From the start, though, some people think think the deck was stacked against Hackley the community college job.

"It is an almost undoable job, in that the organizational structure of the community college system limits the effectiveness of even a very strong president," said Dr. C.D. "Dick" Spangler Jr., president of the University of North Carolina system.

Presidents of the state's fifty-eight community colleges don't report to the state president; they report to their local boards of trustees. "Those presidents have substantial independence and they do not move at all just because of the wishes of the community college president," Spangler said.

That kind of organization, which requires a politically savvy president who can lead by consensus, didn't fit Hackley's forceful style, some observers say.

"He didn't have the patience, the ability to bite his tongue, to deal with the many constraints that make that job an impossible job," said one community college system board member, who asked not to be named.

Hackley said he has tried to tell presidents that he wants to help them do their jobs, not run their campuses. But some still believed that "I was going to try to turn this into a system controlled by" the central office in Raleigh, he said.

His job has been made more difficult, some insiders say, because North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker serves as chairman of the community college board.

Hackley said he hasn't had a problem with Wicker's dual role. But others believe Wicker's presence as chairman politicizes the community college system. Wicker couldn't be reached for comment.

Some observers also believe Hackley wasn't accepted because he's African American.

"I've heard that same thing," Hackley said. "But there are so many things I brought to the system that people thought were negative -- that I was associated with the Clinton administration, that I came from the university system, that I came from a Black college. Does being Black in America exacerbate it? I would have to say, yeah, probably."

During his tenure, Hackley has led a massive effort to re-engineer the community colleges. "As traumatic as it will be when we go through all these changes, this system and the people of North Carolina are going to be better off," he said.

Many of the changes were mandated by the state legislature, and they weren't always welcomed by the state's fifty-eight campuses.

Still, Lenoir Community College President Lonnie Blizzard, president of the N.C. Association of the Community College President, believes most top administrators supported Hackley.

"Certain decisions, even though I support him, I wish had gone another way," Blizzard said. He declined to give specific examples, saying, "It's water under the bridge now."

Wicker said in a statement that the process of naming a new president will begin immediately. Some observers believe campus leaders will lobby for a new president to be promoted from one of the campuses. The president is elected by the North Carolina Board of Community Colleges, whose members are appointed by the governor, the state Senate and the House.