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Creating new opportunities for Carolina's future is vital
The University has a strong Honors Program, study aboard
opportunities and first-year seminars – programs that have been replicated at many of the top universities competing
for high-achieving students.
But to remain competitive in recruiting high-caliber high
school students, the University must also develop opportunities that are not
available elsewhere.
That was one of the messages the Board of Trustees heard
last week during dual presentations – one
about students who make up the Class of 2012, the other about the impact of
increased enrollment on Carolina’s overall academic quality (see related
stories on page 4).
Exploring such opportunities is part of a process that
board Chair Roger Perry initiated this summer when he asked Student Body
President J.J. Raynor and University trustee John Ellison to meet with the
University’s many audiences to talk about the University’s future and how it
can become even stronger.
Ellison said the discussion series, called Carolina: Best
Place to Teach, Learn and Discover, was a great opportunity to uncover
recurring themes for some of the University’s most pressing needs and promising
opportunities. He and Raynor have already met with around 140 students,
faculty, staff, alumni and others, and plan more meetings during
the year.
Funding big ideas
A new trustee committee focusing on fundraising and
communications also described preliminary plans for a key initiative to help
make Carolina successful: a new fundraising campaign, possibly with a goal of
$3.5 billion to $4 billion.
Matt Kupec, vice chancellor for University Advancement,
said much work was required before a new campaign could be launched. The first
step would be to recruit a volunteer committee to work on the overall plan – crafting a case statement to generate support
from donors, a timeline, a goal, a name, a budget and ways to recruit other
volunteers.
When it is launched, the next campaign will come on the
heels of Carolina’s most successful fundraising campaign ever, the Carolina
First Campaign that ended Dec. 31, 2007, after raising $2.38 billion.
“But we cannot rest on our laurels,” Kupec told trustees.
Carolina envisions
working toward a new campaign that would elevate it among a higher tier of
fundraising peers – universities like
Virginia and Yale with $3 billion campaigns, Johns Hopkins with a $3.2 billion
campaign, and Cornell and Columbia that have $4 billion campaigns.
Other action
In other action, trustees approved a design to add two 10-story exit stairs on the south side of
Wilson Library. The $12 million project, which includes installing sprinkler systems
throughout the building, will bring the library up to fire safety building
codes as set forth by the N.C. Department of Insurance.
Trustees also reviewed a preliminary design for Carolina
Commons, a proposed housing project exclusively for faculty and staff featuring
around 160 dwellings on a 62-acre tract of University-owned land northwest of
Carolina North.
Details have yet to be worked out, but the combination of
single-family, townhouse and condominium units is intended to address a range
of incomes among faculty and staff.
Trustees look at impact of increased enrollment on overall quality
Size matters, but quality – as measured by the number of students in the top 10 percent of their class – matters most of all.
That, in a nutshell, was the message the Art &
Science Group, a higher-education consulting firm, told the Board of Trustees
last week as the University grapples with the prospect of adding more than
4,000 students during the next decade. Carolina’s current enrollment is around
28,500.
“If enrollment grows, you have to work very hard to make
sure that quality doesn’t slip,” said Rick Hesel, a principal with Art &
Science.
All UNC system campuses are planning for enrollment
growth to accommodate the rising number of college-age students within the
state. Carolina, as the flagship university with a national and increasingly
international reputation of excellence, is exploring how it can meet the
obligation to absorb its share of that growth without sacrificing either the
quality of the student body or the quality of the undergraduate experience.
Offering more merit awards would have the “single largest
positive effect” in managing the impact of growth and preventing a decline in
the number of top North Carolinians who apply or enroll, Hesel said.
For instance, he
explained, a $2,500 increase in merit awards could result in an 8 percent
increase in the number of top North Carolinians enrolling, while a $5,000
increase in merit awards would yield a 17 percent boost in enrollment among top
applicants. The findings are based on original research about the effect on
recruiting of increasing Carolina's enrollment to 33,000.
Misperception versus reality
Interestingly, the Art & Science study revealed two
misperceptions about the current size and quality of the student body.
Nearly half of admitted
students and students who inquired about Carolina thought Carolina already had
a student population of 33,000. At the same time, nearly half of both groups
believed a higher percentage of its students graduated in the top 10 percent of
their high school class than actually did.
But the importance of that quality, both real and perceived,
cannot be overstated, the study revealed.
If 85 percent of the students at Carolina graduated in
the top 10 percent of their high school classes, it would result in a 9 percent
increase in the number of top North Carolinians enrolling at Carolina. On the
other hand, if the percentage dropped to 65 percent, it would result in a loss
of 19 percent among those same top students. (In the current first-year class,
79.1 percent of students graduated in the top 10 percent of their high
school classes.)
The implications of the report prompted trustee Rusty
Carter to comment that Carolina could best serve the state, not by adding more
students, but by making sure it retained the ability to attract the best
students from within North Carolina and around the country.
But Chair Roger Perry cautioned against sending a message
to the General Assembly that the University wanted to opt out of accommodating
enrollment growth. He said the concerns Carter raised were real and legitimate,
but argued that the
message would not be well received by legislators.
Chancellor Holden Thorp said it was proper to debate what
Carolina’s enrollment should look like in 10 years, but there were some things
that the University could be doing now to safeguard the ability to attract top
students no matter how large enrollment ultimately becomes.
Continuing to develop innovative programs to attract top
students was first on that list, he said. And second was doing more to get
Carolina’s story out to students who, after hearing and understanding it, would
want to become part of the story.
"We need to start that now,” Thorp said. “That much
we know."
Actually, the first steps have already begun. In July,
Perry asked Student Body President J.J. Raynor and trustee John Ellison to meet
with students, faculty, staff, alumni and others to talk about the University’s
future and how it can become
even stronger.
The pair has already
met with around 140 people to gather information for this Carolina: Best Place
to Teach, Learn and Discover initiative, with more meetings planned during the
year. Their recommendations on how to strengthen Carolina’s position and
enhance its most promising opportunities will be
forwarded to the trustees in the spring. |
