When the always provocative American Council of Trustees and Alumni issued its critical report of the Universities of North Carolina, the group’s typically thorough review got a surprising fan letter. “As I prepared for this job, I read your report [Governance in the Public Interest: A Case Study of the University of North Carolina System] thoroughly some time ago,” the incoming president of the UNC system had written. “There are many recommendations in this report that I agree with totally.” “Thank you for doing it; it has been an extraordinary help to me.” In its first decade of existence, ACTA...