UNC President Erskine Bowles, a former Charlotte businessman, announced today that he'll retire by the end of the year, WRAL-TV and the N&O report. At a Board of Governors meeting in Chapel Hill, Bowles said he had always planned to stay five years after joining the system in 2006.
"I know in my head that this is the right decision at the right time," WRAL quoted Bowles saying. WRAL also said Bowles called the university system "the best in the country."
Here's my take: Bowles ran twice unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, and his father was an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1972 and withdrew from the 1976 race. But Bowles has had a storied career, rising from head of the Small Business Administration in the Clinton Administration to White House chief of staff, essentially running the country during Clinton's years of turmoil, insiders say.
And while Bowles never won elective office here, he probably has made far more impact on North Carolina, its university system and hundreds of thousands of students who have attended its campuses on his watch, than he would have as a member of the U.S. Senate.
