news-record.com

William Friday headed the University of North Carolina system for 30 years; C.D. Spangler, for 11; and after him, Molly Broad, for nine.

Erskine Bowles has been UNC president for only four years, and, in an announcement on Friday, said that was enough. The 64-year-old Greensboro native will retire as UNC's fourth president by the end of 2010 -- or until the Board of Governors finds his replacement. That won't be easy.

A former White House chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, Bowles took the UNC job largely at the urging of state Republicans, who admired his tenacity, his business savvy and his ability to work across the aisle to get things done.

He did not disappoint. On his watch, the UNC system has become more focused, accountable and forward-thinking.

He demanded solutions to lagging graduation rates. "I think we've given a lot of students a really bad deal," Bowles said in 2006. "We get them into our schools, they take a bunch of remedial courses, they drop out after two years, they drop out with a bunch of debt. I think that's wrong. We're going to change that."

He has pushed for tougher admissions standards.

He has trimmed costly and redundant bureaucracies.

He has sought a clearer sense of mission and direction for university system -- and public input on that direction -- through the UNC Tomorrow initiative.

On his watch the UNC system created more reasonable and uniform protocols for paid leaves for former chancellors and top administrators who were stepping down to re-enter the classroom -- with perks that had become extravagant and inconsistent.

Bowles also saw more than his share of crises, most recently the resignation of N.C. State Chancellor James Oblinger in 2009 over a high-salaried job created for former first lady Mary Easley. The school's provost and the head of its board of trustees also stepped down in the wake of the scandal.

Closer to home, Bowles was forced to address fiscal management problems and the abrupt resignation of Chancellor Stanley Battle at N.C. A&T after less than two years on the job. He faced similar challenges at Fayetteville State University.

Through it all Bowles has been tough, fair and decisive. He is a driven leader who expects results. Of others and himself.

Of course, had the political winds been kinder, he might never have been UNC president. Before taking the UNC job, Bowles twice ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate.

Lucky for UNC he didn't win.