Hackley Calls It Quits after Two Years Doing `Undoable' Job

Charlotte, N.C.--Soon after he became president of the North Carolina Community College System two years ago, Dr. Lloyd "Vic" Hackley began encountering friction.

Some people said he was forceful -- too forceful. Others complained he was an outsider who didn't know the community college system.

Following weeks of speculation, Hackley announced on January 9 that he'll leave the presidency of the country's third-largest community college system by the end of the school year to pursue other interests.

Hackley's hard-charging style -- coupled with the difficulty of a politically charged job that gave him little real power -- conspired to do him in, observers said.

In an interview after his announcement, Hackley said no one forced him out. "This is my call; I have made it; and I made it with a lot of soul-searching because the community college system is so important."

Still, he says: "I am not naive enough to believe that everybody with whom I work wanted me to be here."

His departure comes as the fifty-eight-campus system with 779,000 students is poised to implement sweeping changes. They include switching from quarters to semesters beginning this fall, bringing uniformity to course offerings across the state and guaranteeing that credit from community college classes will transfer to the state's sixteen universities.

A political scientist and retired Air Force major, Hackley, fifty-six, took over as president in January 1995 following a successful tenure as chancellor at historically Black Fayetteville State University.

He also came to the community college presidency with impressive connections. He's been a friend of President Clinton since their days in Arkansas, when Clinton was governor and he was chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He now chairs the President's Advisory Board of Historically Black Colleges.

From the start, though, some people think think the deck was stacked against Hackley the community college job.