Three with Lee

As part of a series in The Well, Chancellor Lee H. Roberts addresses three topics of importance to the Carolina community.

Q: Carolina enrolled its largest first-year class in school history this fall, over 6,000 students. Enrollment growth is one of your goals here at Carolina. Can you share how we’re supporting more students in our current infrastructure and our plans to increase capacity?

A: It’s an exciting time; the entire UNC System saw record enrollment this fall. The Carolina Housing team has laid out a strategy to add 2,000 new beds and renovate 2,500 existing ones over the next decade. To accommodate this year’s increased enrollment, Avery Residence Hall was recently renovated and designated for incoming first-year students, and Granville Towers converted rooms for incoming students as well. Our next set of plans includes breaking ground for a new residence hall with 700 beds, as well as renovating Hinton James, Ehringhaus and Craige residence halls. In terms of dining, seating has been added to Lenoir Dining Hall, and Carolina Dining Services introduced mobile ordering through the Hello Heels app, with more enhancements still to come. Our Finance and Operations team is also leaning into technology and increasing efficiency to work with more students. I’m looking forward to working across campus to expand campus features so that more students can experience all that Carolina has to offer.

Q: Another goal is to bolster Carolina’s research and expertise in artificial intelligence. How are teams across campus supporting this effort in becoming an “AI University”?

A: Many researchers across multiple disciplines at Carolina are identifying ways to use AI for the greater good of the world. I’ve been incredibly impressed by the work that is currently happening in this emerging field. For instance, Jeffrey Stringer in the School of Medicine is using AI to make pregnancy sonograms more accessible across the globe; Ha Nguyen in the School of Education is designing technology to eventually provide students with tailored feedback; and Francesca Tripodi is unpacking how AI influences how we access and understand information.

We also recently revamped our AI at Carolina website, designed to be a hub compiling our efforts. Thank you to the provost’s AI committee and University Communications and Marketing for creating a site that showcases our AI experts and shares ethical AI practices and resources for students, faculty and staff. Last week, we announced the School of Information and Library Science and the School of Data Science and Society will join together as founding leaders of a new school that will position the University as a national leader in applied technology, data science research and teaching.

UNC Kenan-Flagler also launched BlueChipAI this semester, a new platform to explore capabilities, advance AI literacy and skills for students, faculty and staff within the school. It’s been remarkable to see how our University is currently using and researching AI, and I’m excited to work across campus to position Carolina as a leader in this space.

Q: ServiceFirst has been underway for several months. Could you share any updates on progress and how the University is improving efficiency and consistency?

A: Scott Savage, our inaugural associate vice chancellor for organizational strategy and performance, has done a fantastic job leading our initiative to identify operational efficiencies across Carolina. Right now, there are several expert task forces discussing how we can improve service quality through consistency and accountability. We’ve divided these task forces into areas like HR, finance, procurement, IT, research, administration and communication. These teams are working to define and clarify tasks performed in each functional area across campus, and to provide a plan for improvement moving forward. Scott also finished up a campus-wide listening tour and will use the insight in determining recommendations for the ServiceFirst process. His team has built out a ServiceFirst website and will share updates there monthly. I’m thankful to this team’s diligent efforts to unlock ways for our University to work smarter and free up resources to reinvest in our core mission.