The UNC Board of Trustees met for the first time in the calendar year on Wednesday and Thursday, with several items on its agenda that drew broad attention and controversy. Among those: a significant expansion of the nation’s oldest public university’s campus and further consideration of tightening of its spending.
The trustees gathered in the Spangler Center building on the campus’ Friday Center complex Wednesday and Thursday to conduct their bi-monthly business and hear updates from university leaders. Here are the highlights from both days of meetings:
Surprise Resolution Forecasts Funding Cuts, as Support for Global Area Studies Centers Continues
During the board’s Budget, Finance and Infrastructure Committee discussions on Wednesday, a resolution not in the previously-published meeting materials was approved directing UNC leaders to cut an additional $16.5 million in administrative spending as part of its ongoing effort to shave $70 million from its annual operating budget. The measure — introduced by Trustee Marty Kotis just before Wednesday’s committee meetings began — builds upon the Chancellor Lee Roberts’ administration’s ServiceFirst initiative to centralize UNC’s operations and cut down administrative costs. In addition to the $8.5 million already identified through ServiceFirst, the resolution set a target of identifying $25 million in total reductions by June 30, 2026, calling it an “achievable” amount to trim from the university’s administrative salary base and directing UNC to explore areas “beyond attrition” in order to reach that goal.
Roughly $7 million of those cuts appear to be administrative funding for six different global area studies centers at UNC. The administration alerted the directors of the Center for European Studies, the African Studies Center, the Carolina Asia Center, the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, the Institute for the Study of the Americas and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies in December that their centers could close within 2026, citing uncertain federal and state funding streams moving forward. UNC has since confirmed the centers will be closed and many of their activities moved to academic departments — but the decision has drawn significant criticism from campus community members involved in global studies and beyond.
UNC Student Body President Adolfo Alvarez used his allotted time for remarks on Thursday to hold a brief presentation to the rest of the trustees sharing testimony from students about the centers’ importance to their school work, experience at Carolina and the university’s global reputation. Senior global studies major Noa Roxborough, who is part of Alvarez’s executive staff, also shared her experience using the centers to prepare her for a career practicing human rights law and their programs’ success at attracting students to enroll at Carolina.
“These centers distinguish UNC among our peer institutions at the national and global level,” Alvarez said to the board, who did not ask any follow-up questions to the pair of students. “They are something most campuses do not have. Most institutions are continuing to support their academic centers throughout this moment of uncertainty coming from the federal government. The centers strengthen the academic experience and retention of students and faculty because they offer an incomparable experience.”
Following up a bigger demonstration held at the beginning of January, a group of UNC faculty and students involved with the six areas studies centers protested the directive outside of the Spangler Center during the board’s closed session on Thursday. A few dozen people gathered to hold signs as speakers stepped up to share personal testimonies of the centers’ roles in their work and lives on UNC’s campus.
UNC history professor Cemil Aydin speaks at the podium as part of a demonstration organized by students and faculty to protest closing six global area studies centers. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
History professor Cemil Aydin, an advisory board member for the Center for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, spoke at the protest and said without such centers as they are, he believes UNC would not be able to as effectively compare to the country’s best public universities. He argued closing the centers sends not only a message to potentially downplay or divide those area studies’ importance from campus culture, but also comes across as a politically motivated move because of their successful outcomes.
“This decision [university administrators are] thinking about, what is the rationale behind it,” Aydin asked. “Could it be financial or academic? Those rationale would not work at all — in the sense that if we’re a basketball team, we’re basically getting rid of Michael Jordan of our [field] in order to save money. It doesn’t make sense. This is one of the most successful products of this campus and you are getting rid of it.”
The Board of Trustees’ resolution — which was adopted on Thursday — acknowledged the support of the global area studies centers have garnered since December. It said the board recognizes “the importance of some of these programs to [UNC’s global] mission, and reaffirms that mission as its top priority,” while also saying administration should still be “evaluating whether certain programs maybe integrated into other existing schools and departments.”
Carolina North and New Residence Hall
The Board of Trustees unanimously approved $8 million in advance planning spending authority for UNC’s administration to begin seeking a master developer for the 230 acres off of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and stretching to the eastern border of the Carolina North Forest. With that forest treated as protected land, the airport site is functionally the largest available tract of developable land for the university.
Because of that, Roberts said he believes developing the land to fit both the university’s housing and academic needs is an “obligation,” as he told the board last week. During a media availability on Thursday, he reiterated seeing it as a priority that aligns with university leadership’s philosophy around growth.
“We control this resource that belongs to the people of North Carolina,” the chancellor said, “and I think it’s our responsibility in our leadership roles here at the university to use the resources we have to serve the people of the state. And how can we have this remarkable piece of land available for development, at a time when there’s so much constraint in the town and across the Triangle…how can we not use that to help fulfill our mission?”
A map in UNC’s presentation to the university Board of Trustees displaying the entire Carolina North property in Chapel Hill, with the future development area shaded in yellow. (Photo via UNC-Chapel Hill.)
The airport site is roughly two miles from the northern edge of UNC’s main campus and Roberts said Carolina North will broadly be seen as a satellite campus. But he added that the goal will be to design it in a way to feel cohesive despite having different elements than the traditional campus — which is why his administration sought money to recruit a master developer to oversee the entire project.
“Everyone knows when you step on campus,” Roberts told gathered media, “there’s something that feels different about it compared to, say, an office park or apartment project. And it’s having that combination of uses together in one place, and we want to make sure it’s being designed so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
The initial development phase of the university project will feature all aspects of UNC’s vision of Carolina North being a “learn-live-work-play” site. Roberts said to expect more than 2,200 new undergraduate beds, significant graduate student housing options and multi-family housing options alongside ground-floor retail and a hotel. Part of the cohesion sought through the design is to help those elements not feel out of place to the surrounding area. While the Highway 86 corridor has long been primarily residential, Roberts pointed to Chapel Hill’s ongoing effort to build densely along the road and projects like Aura’s Booth Park being a comparable examples to Carolina North.
Chapel Hill Mayor Jess Anderson told 97.9 The Hill that from her initial discussions with UNC administrators, she thinks the vision for Carolina North is “well suited” to meet the town’s Complete Community goals around planning for development. Like the chancellor, the mayor stressed the need to have more affordable housing options available, not just for students but for those who work at the university.
“Back in 2021, the town and university conducted a joint housing needs assessment that highlighted the need for housing — which is research telling us what we see with our own eyes,” said Anderson. “The university also has this goal of growing by 500 students a year over the next decade, so that means we need a lot more housing. And this is such an ideal location…it’s on a transit corridor, it’s close to downtown. So, I think it’s a really exciting opportunity.”
UNC is aiming to address its housing needs in the short-term by building its first on-campus residence hall since 2006. As part of the materials reviewed in the Budget, Finance and Infrastructure committee, trustees looked at some early designs for the residence hall set to be constructed in the footprint of Jackson Hall and the athletic courts in the Cobb community. For the first time, the concepts presented showed two separate buildings for the new dorm: one deemed “East” and the other “West” that have more an of “L” shaped design than the typical blocks in the Cobb community and “X” shaped high-rise dorms on south campus.
An aerial rendering of how New Residence Hall 1 will be split into two buildings and how they will fit within the footprint of the existing Cobb community. (Image via UNC-Chapel Hill.)
An example of the exterior design of one of the new residence hall buildings, which will use brick to remain consistent with UNC’s other dorms while being built with a more modern layout. (Image via UNC-Chapel Hill.)
So far, the project titled “New Residence Hall 1” has a budget of more than $109 million, although university staff told the board final construction cost estimates based on the design are expected to be finalized in February. University leaders said the new dorm will aim to add roughly 720 new beds to the campus.
Recognition of John Preyer
The board operated a man down during this set of meetings, as John Preyer abruptly resigned from his role as a trustee on Jan. 9. Preyer was one of the senior-most members of the board, having been first chosen in 2019 and appointed to two additional terms.
Board members passed a resolution honoring Preyer and thanking him for his work on the advisory board, which included chairing the trustees for two years amid a time of significant change for the university. Preyer was part of the board that support the hire of Kevin Guskiewicz from interim to permanent chancellor in 2019, who helped oversee the search for his replacement and hired Roberts, and played an influential role in UNC’s hiring of Bill Belichick for its football program — with such involvement that ESPN reported his actions might have undercut Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham.
UNC Board of Trustees Chair John Preyer makes opening remarks during a meeting at the Spangler Center in May 2024. (Photo via Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill.)
The resolution thanked Preyer for his service to the university, while also highlighting the former trustee’s advocacy for creating the School of Civil Life and Leadership, UNC’s newer “all-funds” budgeting style, and the UNC Institute of Risk Management and Insurance Innovation.
Since Preyer’s term was set to last through July 2027, either the UNC System Board of Governors, North Carolina House or North Carolina Senate leader will appoint a new member to the board based on who selected Preyer.
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