Governor McCrory says our universities’ mission is to put butts in jobs. Bill Friday believed their mission is to set minds and spirits soaring so they can make North Carolina a better place.

The contrast between that blinkered view and that broad vision was never captured better than in Jane Stancill’s remarkable story Sunday about the 50-year-old hairdresser who earned her degree this year from UNC-CH, with Bill Friday’s support and encouragement (“Student mentored by former UNC leader William Friday perseveres.”)

Gail Markland, the hairdresser, tells her about her journey from the yellow table for “stupid” students, where she was forced to sit in her native England, to American citizenship, to a dyslexia diagnosis thanks to one of her clients, to classes at Durham Tech and ultimately to the remarkable mentorship of Friday.

She opened her shop early to cut his hair, and so she could have him alone. He gently prodded her, as he did thousands of people through his life, with polite, persistent questions: “What are you learning? What are you working on? What are your grades like?”

After she finished Durham Tech with a 3.99 GPA, Friday arranged a scholarship for her at Chapel Hill. Sunday, she graduated. Inside her cap was a picture of Bill Friday.

Today, Friday’s spirit at UNC has been replaced by something far different. Governor McCrory, legislators and even members of UNC’s Board of Governors seem sometimes to denigrate UNC’s value. They see its purpose as simply serving business.

Bill Friday saw it as serving something larger – namely, the spirit, potential and promise within every single man and woman in North Carolina, whatever their age, family, color, money or national origin.

History has judged Friday. As it will judge today’s leaders.