A message from the chancellor: Thank you for an incredible year

Dear Carolina Community,

As we get close to the end of the fiscal year, I want to take a moment to reflect on the incredible achievements of our university over the past year. Our strategic plan, Carolina Next: Innovations for Public Good, has guided our work, and these accomplishments reflect the progress we are making to become the leading global public research university.

• For 22 consecutive years, U.S. News and World Report has ranked us a top 5 public university – a milestone that underscores the ongoing commitment to excellence shared by our faculty, staff, and students. We also have 21 graduate programs now ranked in the top 10 in the nation.
• We celebrated 6,500 undergraduate, graduate and professional students at our December and May commencement ceremonies. Over 900 were the first in their family to graduate from college and almost 600 were Carolina Covenant Scholars.
• Our incoming undergraduates started the new IDEAs in Action Curriculum in the College of Arts and Sciences, preparing them for careers that don’t yet exist and offering more critical experience with internships, research opportunities and study abroad.
• We launched the School of Data Science and Society, hiring new faculty and preparing to enroll students this upcoming fall in the newly approved Master of Applied Data Science.
• We’ve continued our efforts to serve our state and build stronger partnership with the citizens of North Carolina by restarting the Tar Heel Bus Tour in October. We are proudly partnering to connect young people with career opportunities through Carolina Across 100, and successfully launched the Carolina Community Academy, an innovative school for K-2 students at North Elementary School in Roxboro.
• As we highlighted on University Day, our researchers are driving innovation and impact in areas ranging from diagnosing rare diseases to developing new medications, from violence prevention to coastal resilience, and more, including the work of the NC Collaboratory to serve the people of our state. We are a research and innovation powerhouse, and we will continue to solve the grand challenges of our time.
• We celebrated two Tar Heel National Championship teams – Field Hockey and Women’s Tennis; and the retirements of three legendary coaches – Karen Shelton, Joe Sagula and Donna Papa with a combined 103 years of walking the Carolina sidelines.
• Finally, we closed the Campaign for Carolina, topping $5.1 billion in fundraising commitments, surpassing our original $4.25 billion goal by 20 percent, and we reached our $1 billion goal in scholarship funding. Each one of these gifts is an act of hope and a belief that our university represents the highest aspirations for our future.

None of this would have been possible without you, our world-class faculty, incredible staff and brilliant students. Congratulations on a wonderful year! Thank you for your hard work and dedication to our mission.

One of the privileges of an academic calendar is the rhythm it creates. We cram as much as we possibly can into each semester, knowing that we have time to catch our breath and reflect on what we’ve learned during our breaks. That’s what summers are for, and I hope that each one of you can enjoy the slower pace. I urge you to take time to rest and connect with family and friends and we can’t wait to welcome all of you back in August.

Go Heels!

Kevin M. Guskiewicz
Chancellor