The resignation of Chancellor Stanley F. Battle surprised many on campus, but don’t say goodbye to Battle just yet. An article in the May 2 News & Record says that The UNC Board of Governors will vote on a resolution that will allow current Chancellor Stanley F. Battle to go on “research leave” from July 1, the day following his resignation, to Dec. 31.
While on leave, he would continue to receive his chancellor’s salary, which equates to $273,156 a year. He would then return to A&T in January as a full time tenured faculty member in the Department of Sociology and Social Work, where he would teach, receiving an appropriate salary for his position.
Phone calls and messages left for the Board of Governors at UNC General Administration were not returned by the time of press.
“To my knowledge, all students will be able to enroll in this course,” Battle said. When asked, Battle said that no one from the News & Record actually called him to ask if this was true, but he did later confirm it in an e-mail interview with The A&T Register. Battle says he had nothing to do with the resolution, and he hasn’t officially even decided if he would pursue this option. Attempts to reach the News & Record were unsuccessful.
“I have those rights to do so, but I don’t know what I am going to do,” Battle said. “When I came to A&T I was a full-time tenured professor, like most of our faculty here.”
The resolution would still have to be approved by the body of the Board of Governors before it would take into affect.
Battle announced his resignation on Feb. 24, sighting “personal and family reasons,” forcing the University to begin another Chancellor Search. The resignation left many students and faculty with mixed feelings. In a survey conducted on ncatregister.com over the course of 6 weeks, 46 percent of the people surveyed said they believed there were other reasons behind Battle’s resignation. 25 percent said that they were completely shocked, and didn’t know why he was leaving so soon.
The Board of Trustees has set a goal of finding the next chancellor by July 1; before the new fiscal year starts and an interim chancellor would have to be appointed.Battle says he is not sure if the University will have found is replacement by then, but the Board is working vehemently to do so. As of Monday, there were 17 applicants being considered for the position, according to an e-mail from University Relations.
- Dexter Mullins