Position Description — Chancellor
The Board of Trustees of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill invites applications and nominations for the position of Chancellor. The Chancellor is the administrative and executive head of the University and exercises complete executive authority over the University, subject to the direction of the President of the University of North Carolina. The Chancellor is responsible for carrying out the policies of the Board of Governors and the Board of Trustees.
The University
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the nation’s first public university, is a perennial leader in American higher education and a flagship known around the world for innovative teaching, research and public service. It is part of the 16-campus University of North Carolina system, which is governed by the UNC Board of Governors elected by the North Carolina General Assembly. The system is led by a President; each campus has a Chancellor and a 13-member Board of Trustees.
In fall 2007, Carolina enrolled the most academically prepared first-year class in University history, with a total of 3,895 students drawn from a record 20,000 applications. First-year students came from 94 North Carolina counties, 45 states and 22 countries. Overall, Carolina enrolled more than 28,000 students – 17,628 undergraduates, 8,177 graduates and 2,331 professionals. They are taught by a 3,200-member faculty, many of whom hold or have held major posts in virtually every national scholarly or professional organization and have earned election to the most prestigious academic academies and organizations. The Chapel Hill faculty also includes Dr. Oliver Smithies, a 2007 Nobel Prize winner. Another 8,000 staff members support the University’s mission. Every day, students, faculty and staff shape their teaching, research and public service priorities to meet North Carolina’s most pressing needs in every region and all 100 counties.
Now in its third century, Carolina belongs to the select group of 62 leading American and Canadian campuses forming the Association of American Universities. The University offers 76 bachelor’s, 108 master’s, 74 doctorate and four professional degree programs through 14 schools and colleges. They are: the College of Arts and Sciences, Kenan-Flagler Business School, the Graduate School and the schools of Dentistry, Education, Government, Information and Library Science, Journalism and Mass Communication, Law, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, and Social Work.
Carolina offers talented students the opportunity to learn in a high-quality academic environment. Through the Carolina Covenant, a first for a major public university, and an excellent overall financial aid program, the University is making college possible for qualified students regardless of their financial means. The University’s policies and practices protect affordability and offer an outstanding education that is consistently recognized as the best value in public higher education. These core values of access and affordability have long benefited North Carolina and its citizens.
The University’s academic culture fosters excellence in interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship between and among the health, natural and social sciences, as well as the liberal arts and the humanities. The breadth and depth of the campus community enable its members to consider complex issues, advances and discoveries from all perspectives. Many of Carolina’s greatest academic successes were made possible by these strengths and by the faculty’s passion and pride in taking a broad, holistic approach to teaching and scholarship and to the development of our student body into thoughtful individuals, informed citizens and compassionate leaders.
The University’s total revenues exceeded $2 billion in fiscal 2005-06. The North Carolina General Assembly provided more than $440 million, or 22 percent, in state appropriations. Other major sources included federal research grants and contracts ($422 million, 21 percent), sales and services ($301 million, 15 percent), student tuition and fees ($195 million, 10 percent), investment income ($207 million, 10 percent), patient services ($184 million, 9 percent), and private gifts (non-capital, $68 million, 3 percent).
The Carolina First Campaign is the most successful fund-raising effort in University history, raising more than $2.28 billion and exceeding its $2 billion goal in February 2007. The campaign met its goal of creating 200 endowed professorships. For students, donors have created 747 undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships toward a goal of 1,000. Other priorities include research, facilities and strategic initiatives. The campaign, which ends in December 2007, has doubled the total endowment to more than $2 billion.
The campaign’s success has more than made good on Carolina’s pledge in 2000 to triple the investment North Carolinians made by approving the Higher Education Bond Referendum. Voters overwhelmingly supported the referendum, which brought $515 million to Carolina for new buildings and renovations. The University has invested its own funds from sources including gifts and faculty research grants to create – now at $2.1 billion – one of the nation’s largest campus building programs. Carolina has completed nearly 80 percent of 49 bond-funded projects, the final one of which is scheduled to be completed in January 2009.
Total research grants and contracts rose by almost 3 percent in fiscal 2007 to exceed $610 million – more than double the amount from a decade ago. The research is helping cure diseases, bring innovation to industry and spin off businesses that create new jobs for North Carolinians. Key areas include a genome science initiative, an Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanosciences and Technology and the Renaissance Computing Institute, based at Carolina in partnership with Duke University, North Carolina State University and state agencies. The University aspires to reach $1 billion in sponsored research by 2015.
In its most recent legislative session, the North Carolina General Assembly created the University Cancer Research Fund, which will support basic research in medicine, pharmacy, and public health, as well as basic science departments of the College of Arts and Sciences through the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. The fund directs $25 million in 2007-08 and is slated to increase to $50 million per year beginning in 2009.
Carolina’s academic community benefits from a library with more than 5.8 million volumes and more than 54,000 serial subscriptions. The library regularly ranks among the best research libraries in North America as judged by the Association of Research Libraries.
Carolina’s students are educated in an environment that stresses not only excellence in scholarship, but also the values of service, community and global awareness, diversity, sportsmanship, leadership and teamwork. The Honor System is the oldest student-run honor program in the United States, and student self-governance thrives through such programs as Student Government and the hundreds of student organizations and committees that work with faculty, staff and administrators to develop appropriate policies for student activities within the University.
More than 253,000 Carolina alumni live in all 50 states and 142 countries. Nearly 131,000 of those alumni live in all 100 North Carolina counties.
The Position
The Chancellor reports to the UNC President and is responsible for carrying out the policies of the Board of Trustees and the Board of Governors. The Chancellor is supported by a Chancellor’s Cabinet of several Vice Chancellors, key deans and senior administrators. The starting date is July 1, 2008.
The Chancellor’s responsibilities include:
- Provide strategic leadership and effectively articulate the University’s mission of teaching, research and public service to the people of North Carolina, the nation and the world.
- Sustain significant progress toward the following University priorities:
- Create the richest possible learning environment for undergraduate, graduate and professional students.
- Strengthen faculty recruitment, retention and development.
- Improve the recruitment and retention of highly qualified staff who support the faculty and students in their educational, research and service roles.
- Invest in centers of excellence in research and creativity.
- Enhance Carolina’s engagement with North Carolina and the world.
- Successfully complete the campus development plan; begin Carolina North (a planned 250 acre satellite campus on a nearly 1,000-acre tract about two miles from main campus.)
- Determine strategies to direct resources to the University’s highest priorities.
- Exercise oversight responsibility for the University’s athletic program and seek to improve the comprehensive 28-sport program.
- Secure – in conjunction with the trustees, the President, and the Board of Governors – the necessary financial resources to accomplish the University’s vision.
- Strengthen and expand relationships with internal and external constituencies, including alumni, parents, donors and friends, grant-making agencies, other private funding sources, and the major national and international educational organizations that can continue to position the University in a leadership role.
- Under the direction of the President, work effectively and collaboratively with the North Carolina General Assembly and other state leaders and strengthen and expand existing relationships with campus and off-campus constituencies. Place a high priority on positive relationships with North Carolina’s people and communities.
- Continue the University’s efforts to work collaboratively with local elected officials to advance Carolina North, the planned satellite campus, and on other town-gown issues of mutual interest.
- Preserve and promote the values shared and cultivated by the University, including diversity, service, sense of community, and global awareness.
The Candidate
The candidate should have a clear vision for higher education, teaching and research. Preferably the candidate will have served in major leadership roles in higher education, ideally at a top research university with an academic health center. He or she is expected to be an inspiring, innovative leader with a passion for public education and an appreciation for the role of this university in the life of the state of North Carolina. The candidate should have an international outlook and understanding of global trends and opportunities. Other advantages include excellent fund raising and communication skills, a commitment to diversity and a savvy approach to working with elected officials. The North Carolina General Assembly is critical in determining the university’s support from the state of North Carolina. Academic credentials are expected to include an earned doctorate, appropriate terminal degree or equivalent professional experience and all of the qualifications required for an appointment of full professor.
Strategic Context
The University has recruited and hired a talented and highly experienced team of senior administrators at the vice chancellor, Chancellor’s Cabinet and dean levels.
The Carolina First Campaign has been a spectacular success, and vigorous fund raising will continue. There is a great need for sustained private support of University priorities.
Capital construction – especially in the context of potential enrollment and research growth – will continue to require a high level of attention along with new reviews of master planning for outlying University properties and the UNC Health Care System. While plans for Carolina North have progressed, culminating with final trustee approval in September 2007, the process of submitting a proposal and addressing related zoning issues with the Town of Chapel Hill is just beginning.
Recognizing Carolina’s role in the global community, the new chancellor must possess the knowledge and global perspective to enhance our position as a truly world-class university. The University has convened a Global Leadership Circle, a task force of visionary alumni and friends, to help develop a strategic vision for global engagement. Those results will help guide a major effort to expand the global reach of the University.
With the anticipated increased number of students and faculty will come a greater demand for highly qualified staff. Key to meeting this demand will be the need for competitive compensation and benefits.
While those issues are important, the most critical challenges facing the University in the future include the following:
- Enrollment growth. The UNC system expects to absorb approximately 80,000 additional students by 2017. The University’s enrollment exceeded 28,000 for the first time in its history in fall 2007. The student body has grown by about 4,000 students since 2000 and by about 6,000 since the mid-1980s. The current trustee-approved enrollment plan calls for nearly 30,000 students by 2015. Will this number be enough, given recent projections about the state’s growth? How can Carolina accommodate more students? Major considerations include how to fund additional growth and secure the necessary resources to support it – including additional faculty – while enhancing the quality of the educational experience.
- Competing in the research arena. The national competition for sponsored research funding has intensified dramatically. That trend has important implications at a time when the University aspires to secure $1 billion in external research funding by 2015. The University has benefited directly from the expansion of the National Institutes of Health research budget. But, as the result of shifts in those funding patterns and new federal priorities, the University is rethinking its strategy for seeking grants. A faculty task force has been asked to identify three to five broad thematic areas in which the University can invest to increase its competitive position, taking into account existing strengths, as well as new opportunities. One of those areas will be cancer research, the focus of the $50 million University Cancer Research Fund just created by the North Carolina General Assembly for investigators at the University, in part to complement the North Carolina Cancer Hospital now under construction. The other thematic areas are yet to be determined. The recommendations of this task force will be forwarded to the new Chancellor for review and approval.
- Replenishing faculty resources. Nearly 41 percent of the University’s faculty are 55 years of age or older. Based on national trends, at least 500 tenured Carolina faculty members are expected to retire in the next decade – more than double the rate of the past several years. University projections predict the need to hire about 2,000 new faculty members over the next eight years, or about 250 faculty per year. That total does not include potential new faculty hires supported by the cancer research fund or accelerated enrollment growth. Carolina has many individual strengths and an interdisciplinary culture that positions the campus well for developing and implementing an effective new strategy to address this challenge.
Summary
The new Chancellor will arrive at a time when the University has made substantial progress on virtually every priority. The new Chancellor will have an unprecedented opportunity to lead Carolina to even greater heights. In fulfilling the University’s aspiration to become the nation’s leading public university, the new Chancellor will embrace our value of being what current Chancellor James Moeser has described as “not only great, but good,” and recognize that excellence at Carolina has a soul.1
In setting its sights that high, the University draws from its heritage as the nation’s first public university and a deep commitment to making the state and people of North Carolina successful in the future. The campus community, alumni, friends and key volunteers embrace this vision.
1 Collins, Jim. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishing, Inc., 2001, p. 11.