University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Office of the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance.

The Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance has administrative responsibility for the university's Division of Business and Finance, which consists of the units that handle the university's budget, facilities planning and capital improvements, maintenance of buildings and grounds, security, personnel and property matters, and routine business operations. The position of Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance evolved from that of Business Manager, created in 1921 and known successively as Controller, Assistant Controller, and Assistant Controller and Business Manager.

From the description of Records of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance, 1789-1991. WorldCat record id: 26683417

The position of Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance, created in 1968, had administrative responsibility for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Division of Business and Finance, which consisted of the units that handled the University's budget, facilities planning and capital improvements, maintenance of buildings and grounds, security, personnel and property matters, and routine business operations.

The organizational development of the Division of Business and Finance was an evolutionary one. For the first hundred and twenty five years of its existence, the University conducted its business and financial operations chiefly through its Board of Trustees. The University's charter called for the trustees to elect and commissionate some person to be Treasurer for the said university . The Treasurer, originally not a member of the Board, supervised the collection of University revenues (mainly from land sales, bequests, investments and escheats) and the disbursement of funds for salaries, supplies, equipment, and building construction and upkeep. During the antebellum period the collection of student fees and other routine campus business were generally left to the faculty, who appointed one of their members to perform these duties. Originally the Steward, who provided meals on campus, was responsible for the care and maintenance of the buildings. When the stewardship was abolished, responsibility for buildings and grounds also fell to the faculty. Occasionally the faculty complained about the burden of this extra work, and in 1827 a citizen of Chapel Hill was hired to serve as Superintendent of Property and Financial Concerns. However, the arrangement proved unsatisfactory, and the superintendency reverted to the faculty in 1829.

Through the years the faculty member in this position was accorded various titles, including Receiver of College Dues, Superintendent of Buildings and Lands, and Superintendent of Property and Financial Concerns. In 1836, when Elisha Mitchell assumed the position, its title changed to Bursar. During most of the antebellum period, the Bursar and his predecessors were authorized to pay faculty salaries out of tuition receipts; they also paid for building repairs and other routine expenses. At the end of each session the Bursar made a report to the Treasurer detailing the amounts collected and spent and remitted any unspent balance. This system, with some modification, remained in use until the early twentieth century. With the reopening of the University in 1875, the faculty was relieved of the burden of the bursarship; and Andrew Mickle, a Chapel Hill resident, was appointed to the position. He was succeeded in 1882 by Willie T. Patterson, a Civil War veteran and trained bookkeeper, who remained in the job for twenty-seven years.

As the University grew larger and more complex, so did the Bursar's job. In 1881 the University began to receive direct legislative appropriations. The appropriations were received by the Treasurer, who transferred them to the Bursar, who was increasingly responsible for their disbursement. In the 1890s the Bursar also assumed responsiblity for keeping accounts of the proceeds from Chapel Hill's electric and water utilities, which were built and managed by the University. By 1902 it was obvious to President Venable that the University needed to adopt more systematic accounting and audit procedures. The Board of Trustees and its Executive Committee, normally meeting on a semi-annual basis, could not provide the necessary day-to-day supervision of the University's growing--in terms of total revenue and scope of business operations--financial affairs. Venable's first step in addressing the situation was to create the position of Purchasing Agent and appoint Charles T. Woollen to it. Part of Woollen's job was to monitor accounts and keep track of what was being spent. To achieve this he established a system of requisitions for purchases that proved very successful. In 1908 Woollen became Proctor, retaining the responsibilities he had as Purchasing Agent and assuming oversight of buildings and grounds maintenance, the Power Plant, Commons Hall, the University Inn, and the University Press.

In 1912 Richard H. Battle, who had served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Board of Trustees since 1891, died. At this juncture the Trustees, with Venable's urging, abolished the office of Bursar and transferred the responsibilities of that position to the Treasurer, who would henceforth be required to reside in Chapel Hill. Julius A. Warren, Cashier of the Merchants National Bank of Durham, was selected as the new Treasurer. Together Warren and Woollen continued to modernize the system of budgetary controls. However, neither of them had the ultimate authority for the University's financial and business affairs. In 1914 Woollen's title changed from Proctor to Business Manager, but his responsibilities remained the same.

Venable's successors lobbied for consolidating the oversight of business and financial affairs in a single position. Finally, at its meeting of 14 June 1921, the Board of Trustees approved President Harry W. Chase's plan to consolidate the oversight in the position of Business Manager. That position, subsequently called Controller, then Assistant Controller (following the creation of the Consolidated University system), Assistant Controller and Business Manager, and finally Business Manager, continued to evolve as the University continued to grow and as systems of accounting and budgetary control that had been adequate in earlier decades became outmoded.

In May 1968 the University hired Joseph C. Eagles, Jr., for the new position of Vice Chancellor, Finance, placing him administratively over the Business Manager. In the fall of that year, the Trustees abolished the position of Business Manager, and Eagles assumed the title of Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance. Soon afterward he engaged a consulting firm to review the University's business and financial operations. This led in 1969 to a further reorganization of what had previously been called the Division of Business Affairs. The name of the division became Division of Business and Finance, and two Assistant Vice Chancellors were created. The Assistant Vice Chancellor for Finance had responsibility for budgetary matters, while the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Business was to oversee the Auxiliary Enterprises (later Auxiliary Services), which at that time included Purchases and Stores, Operations and Engineering, Planning, Physical Plant, and Utilities.

Since 1969 the units within the Division of Business and Finance have proliferated. Some of them have changed their names to better reflect their functions. By 1990 responsibility for them had been divided among four Associate Vice Chancellors: the Associate (formerly Assistant) Vice Chancellor for Finance, the Associate (formerly Assistant) Vice Chancellor for Business, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities Management (created in 1986), and the Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources (created in 1990).

The records of the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance presently held in the University Archives reflect the structure that existed in the Division during the early and mid-1970s, when the principal units were the Finance Division; the Business Division; the Construction Administration Department, which oversaw the expenditure of the capital improvements budget and all campus construction projects; the Facilities Planning Office, which produced projections of future University space needs and capital improvement requests to meet those needs; the Personnel Department, which administered campus employment under the terms of the State Personnel Act; the Physical Plant, which maintained the University's buildings and grounds; the Property Office, which oversaw the University's real property, as well as handling all sales, purchases, and rental of property; and the Purchases and Stores Division, which controlled the purchase, use and disposal of equipment and the purchase and dispersal of supply items.

Business and Finance Officers, Titles and Tenure:

• 1902 - 1908 : Purchasing Agent
• 1908 - 1914 : Proctor
• 1914 - 1933 : Business Manager
• 1933 - 1934 : Controller

• 1934 - 1937 : Assistant Controller
• 1937 - 1941 : Assistant Controller and Business Officer
• 1941 - 1943 : Assistant Controller and Business Manager

• 1943 - 1954 : Assistant Controller and Business Manager
• 1954 - 1957 : Business Manager

• 1957 - 1966 : Business Manager

• 1966 - 1968 : Acting Business Manager

• 1968: Vice Chancellor, Finance
• 1968 - 1973 : Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance

• 1973 - 1977 : Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance

• 1977 - 1982 : Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance

• 1982 - 1983 : Acting Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance

• 1983 - 1988 : Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance

• 1988: Acting Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance

• 1989 - 1992 : Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance

• 1992 - : Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance

From the guide to the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records, 1789-1991, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. University Archives.)