University Mission
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has existed for two centuries as the nation's first state university. Through its excellent undergraduate programs, it has provided higher education to ten generations of students, many of whom have become leaders of the state and the nation. Since the nineteenth century, it has offered distinguished graduate and professional programs.

The University is a research university. Fundamental to this designation is a faculty actively involved in research, scholarship, and creative work, whose teaching is transformed by discovery and whose service is informed by current knowledge.

The mission of the University is to serve all the people of the State, and indeed the nation, as a center for scholarship and creative endeavor. The University exists to teach students at all levels in an environment of research, free inquiry, and personal responsibility; to expand the body of knowledge; to improve the condition of human life through service and publication; and to enrich our culture.

To fulfill this mission, the University must:

  • acquire, discover, preserve, synthesize, and transmit knowledge; 
  • provide high-quality undergraduate instruction to students within a community engaged in original inquiry and creative expression, while committed to intellectual freedom, to personal integrity and justice, and to those values that foster enlightened leadership for the state and the nation; 
  • provide graduate and professional programs of national distinction at the doctoral and other advanced levels; 
  • extend knowledge-based services and other resources of the University to the citizens of North Carolina and their institutions to enhance the quality of life of all people in the state; and 
  • address, as appropriate, regional, national, and international needs. 

This mission imposes special responsibilities upon the faculty, students, staff, administration, trustees, and other governance structures and constituencies of the University in their service and decision making on behalf of the University

(Adopted by the UNC Board of Governors, November 11, 1994)