Elizabeth City State University Chief Executive Officer and Chancellor Thomas E. H. Conway, Jr. is retiring in May after over four decades in higher education administration, all within the University of North Carolina System. In our latest installment of our People of Higher Ed column, we caught up with Conway to talk about the system’s controversial new $500 tuition program, inconsistencies in the Star Wars novels, and his plans to travel the Caribbean with his wife (and maybe return to teaching) in retirement.

Education Dive: A lot of people were very unhappy when the NC Promise program was announced — particularly the fact that the institutions chosen to offer the program were the most vulnerable in the state. Some saw the $500 tuition mandate as the first step in closing the institutions by way of de-funding their budgets, but you remain excited about the prospect of its arrival on campus. Can you talk about why?

Thomas Conway: Around the country, there’s a lot of conversation about the rising cost of higher education, but the North Carolina legislature actually decided to do something about it — they established these three NC Promise schools … in the most extreme geographical regions in the state.

Literally, the legislature provided us the opportunity to lower the tuition cost for in-state students and out-of-state students. At this point, the legislature is clear that there’s an in-state tuition and an out-of-state tuition. The in-state tuition for all NC residents is going to be $500 a semester, or $1,000 per year; that actually constitutes about a $3,800 reduction in tuition for in-state students. The out-of-state tuition is $2,500 a semester or $5,000 per year. The cost of out-of-state tuition last year was $16,000.

This is actual legislation; the legislature passed this bill, they allocated the funds for this year. The reality is that no North Carolina legislature can obligate a future legislature indefinitely, so in order to change it, another legislature would have to amend the bill or repeal the bill.

There’s the potential that low-income students to have the cost of their education almost completely covered by the Pell Grant. That student comes in, they have $1,000 in tuition [for the year], if their family has health insurance, that actually could take about $2,500 out [of the pool of fees each student pays], and if they’re full Pell eligible, that Pell Grant could actually generate almost $6,000 for that student.

Education Dive: So you’re leaving the campus — and higher education administration. What’s next for you?

After 45 years of working in education — I’ve been with the University of North Carolina system 41 years, almost 42 — I’m looking at a very long, and what I consider a very successful career. At this point, I want to do some mentoring, I want to do some teaching … it’s time to make space for some new talent.

I decided to go into administration very early, but I love to teach. My degree is in counselor education … and though they don’t have a counselor education program here [at Elizabeth City State University], I may look for other opportunities to teach.

No one knows a Thomas Conway that’s not working, and I’m not sure I know myself very well without having a job to get up to go to. It’s going to be a learning experience.

The first thing [my wife and I are] going to do is travel. We intend to hit the road for about six months with a fairly unstructured itinerary. We’re looking forward to just saying “let’s…” and then getting up and going. The first destination is probably going to be somewhere in the Caribbean, some place with a beach.

Education Dive: What advice do you have for other administrators who are coming up in the ranks?

Learn your craft. I think one of the things that happens is people get very ambitious and they see the position from afar, but you really don’t have a sense of the awesome responsibility of the job that you take on when you move into the front office job.

Spend some time learning how institutions work. I have had the great opportunity to work with some great tutors, to … watch leaders make decisions that prepared me very well, I think to anticipate what was going to happen in most administrative situations. It gives me the advantage to calmly wait for things to unfold, rather than anticipate what’s going to happen next.

A lot of young faculty members think they want to do administration, and there’s a strong bias that working your way up through the faculty ranks, etc. is the way to move into administration. The skill sets for administration are very different than the skill sets for the rank and file faculty.

Faculty really get paid for thinking, administrators really get paid for reacting, so you really have to process information very quickly without really having time to think.

Education Dive: What do you see as being the ideal pathway to the presidency?

The exposure from inside the university is important, regardless of whether you go the traditional faculty route or move into administration from the outside. Because I know what the institution is and how it needs to work, I’m able to facilitate processes to make it work. I think when you go outside and you bring in your lawyers, your business leaders [and others to the office of the president], clearly they’re going to be competent people, but what they’re going to need to do is surround themselves with people who have inside knowledge, because if you try to run your college the way you run your business … if you’re not careful, you’re going to find yourself in court very quickly.

I think that is one of the things that are incumbent upon folks who are in the presidency is to say, 'Okay what is the succession plan? What is the plan for bringing along the next generation of people, to really say this is how you do it’?

Education Dive: You mentioned you’re an avid reader — what are you currently reading?

The books that I have been reading over and over again ever since I’ve been in this role are those books that have been written about the rise of Elon University. There were a couple of books that were written about how Elon transformed itself from an institution that was kind of an open access institution to this institution that was really a national leader. It has to do with understanding where the strengths are within the university.  

When I read for just leisure, I’m a science fiction fan, and I lean very heavily towards the Star Wars genre. A lot of people don’t know the whole series of books that were written about the Star Wars characters and around them for years and years, and as the movies are coming out, they are re-writing all of that, because it was almost a free-for-all where they did not control the development of characters, so there wasn’t a central command post [in the books]. So you get this series of novels where the original characters marry, have children, those children divide up on the dark side of the force, the light side of the force. In the new movies, they’ve stepped back and said ‘let’s refocus this.’

Because [author] George Lucas is still involved [with the movies], I think this is probably going to be a re-writing and a re-characterization in a really positive way.