It was a pleasant surprise that everyone involved with App State liked. Seriously, I haven’t seen one negative comment on App State Chancellor Heather Norris.

Going into Thursday, it was unknown who the new grand poobah would be. There were three finalists, but 11 years ago, there were also three semi-public finalists, and Sheri Everts wasn’t one of them (although there was a talk of a secret fourth finalist).

UNC System President Peter Hans didn’t have to take the App State recommendations. He could have gone rogue in making his recommendation to the UNC Board of Governors. The board itself could have gone rogue. It wouldn’t be the first time. Western Carolina had its lone finalist pull out in 2018 after a Board of Governors member decided to do their own investigation. UNC Asheville hasn’t had a chancellor longer than three years in over a decade. A former politician was hired at ECU in 2016 who was a total disaster with his hire later called “gross negligence.” The UNC Board of Governors has been told to stay in their lane regarding campus-specific issues. They retaliated against leaders after the racist Silent Sam statute was toppled in Chapel Hill.

For years, one of my big arguments for keeping now-former Chancellor Everts was to look at how the Board of Governors handed other chancellor searches. They could have hired another Ben Sasse. The search committee was led by a former Republican state senator.

Basically, there were a lot of land mines for App State in this search.

Being the App State Chancellor is a different job than it was in 2014 when Everts took over. There’s the whole Sun Belt Conference and FBS thing, plus expansions to the nursing department, like a dozen new or renovated buildings, getting to over 20,000 students, opening a new campus in Hickory and most recently, becoming an R2-level institution according to the Carnegie Institute, which is a pretty big deal and will put App State into national rankings instead of regional ones.

I defended Everts over the years against those who never liked her because she was an outsider (we’re seeing that now with Clark vs Loggains), a woman or perceived somehow as being too liberal. Yes, I’ve heard those arguments. But by 2023, it was time for Everts to go, and any goodwill she had anywhere was gone by early 2024.

Everts did a lot of good for App State, some of it mentioned above such as modernizing campus, being a good App State cheerleader in Raleigh and Chapel Hill and buying the old Watauga High School, which is now App 105, plus the R2 designation came as a result of work under Everts.

Also, the modern Sun Belt with JMU, ODU, Marshall and Southern Miss? Everts pushed for that. Some will say AD Doug Gillin was the driving force for that, but Everts hired him and had the final say-so.

Gillin’s probably grumpy he had to sit in the second row at the Norris introduction on Thursday.

But when Norris became interim in April 2024, Everts had left a trail of divisions, and anger, plus neglect of town-gown relations. You had students going to class in an under-construction Wey Hall with unfinished dangers, living in Hickory, wanting to establish a campus 911 center (which would have created longer response times to emergencies), screwing up the Indoor Practice Facility presentation to the Board of Governors a year ago, to petty stuff like trying to get rid of the Freedom Express from the Freedom Expression Tunnels. There was also the firings of LGBTQ staffers in late 2023, leading to a federal lawsuit and the whitewashing of the longstanding Pride Week tradition.

Seriously, the 911 Center stuff was baaaaaaad. When the Town of Boone, Watauga County Commissioners and your own Board of Trustees are on the same side against you, you have, in fact, done goofed.

Norris became the interim chancellor who, according to literally everyone I talked to, was going to retire after the permanent chancellor was selected. It was the ceiling, the roof, the top of Howard’s Knob, all that Norris could achieve.

In his comments recommending Norris, Hans praised her handling of *gestures at everything* after Hurricane Helene. You could make an argument that Helene got Norris the job. But there’s more.

Norris immediately undid some of the tunnel nonsense, the 911 Center idea died and the indoor practice facility got revamped and approved with a much better money plan. Norris also did what any appointed leader should do. She met people. In October, Shawn Clark vouched big time for Norris to be the permanent chancellor, and it can’t be understated how much that man and his coaching staff hated Sheri Everts and told everyone how much they hated Sheri Everts.

Clark wasn’t the only Norris cheerleader. Several others did as well. She kinda became a folk hero of sorts. A hobbit-sized folk hero.

On Thursday, search committee chair Deanna Ballard, that former Republican state senator and Samaritan’s Purse administrator mentioned earlier, asked Norris to pronounced “ap-puh-LATCH-an.” That wasn’t just a fun little moment. Everts had multiple public gaffes saying “ap-puh-lay-shun” in 2014 and 2015 (every time, she immediately realized what she said, corrected herself and apologized). The message is clear, Heather Norris and App State are intertwined.

On an aside, in her remarks, Ballard sneeringly declared they wouldn’t say who the finalists were. Like the names Joe and David weren’t being bandied around for days before. For those looking to file public records requests, the UNC System passed a policy in 2018 keeping chancellor finalists a secret.

So now what? As much as we like Norris, just like any elected official, the most popularity they’ll ever have is when they start.

There’s still construction projects to finish, especially up Bodenheimer, just up the road from the Chancellor’s house, in the Innovation District. You have several floors of the Hickory campus/building that need to be finished and filled. There might be some tough decisions upcoming with the ongoing nonsense in the new Department of Education in D.C. and the uncertain future of federal research dollars and even student loan programs. How far do you expand the nursing programs and try to delve into doctorate-level programs? What priorities do you push for in Raleigh and Chapel Hill for the upcoming state biennium budget?

Then you got athletics, aka the front porch. The grumpy second-row Gillin seen earlier is a very powerful man wielding some powerful visions that many have bought into. Some would say Gillin is too powerful. With the Ever-Changing Landscape of Collegiate Athletics brought on by the House Settlement, NIL and whatever new lawsuits get filed against the NCAA, having tough-minded leadership will be paramount.

Right off the bat, it would be wise to mend the wounds of the last decade. Norris should announce Chancellor Emeritus status for the late Ken Peacock and Sheri Everts. Why Peacock? Well, Everts never did so for Peacock, breaking a tradition of the new chancellor bestowing emeritus status for the previous chancellor. It still boggles a lot of minds why this never happened (Everts didn’t even go to Peacock’s public campus memorial event when he died, and it was noted she wasn’t there).

Peacock remains a popular figure in App State lore and this would honor Norris’ former boss. Honoring Everts, while unquestionably unpopular, would send a message that sometimes the best revenge is forgiveness and kindness. It would embody the spirit of App State.

Whatever the immediate future for App State entails, no one can later say they were against this when it happened.