19 to recruit UNC chancellor

UNC-CH panel will be led by former trustee Chairman Nelson Schwab III

CHAPEL HILL -- A 19-member committee will get to work next month in the search for a successor to UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser.

The panel, composed of trustees, professors, students, staff and alumni, will be led by Nelson Schwab III of Charlotte, former trustee chairman and current trustee.

The group was named Thursday by UNC-CH Trustee Chairman Roger Perry, a day after Moeser announced his plans to step down as chancellor on June 30. The search for UNC-CH's next leader will be national in scope, Perry said, but won't overlook qualified candidates close to home.

Schwab has served on the UNC-CH board since 2001 and has close ties to UNC President Erskine Bowles. The two were classmates at UNC-CH and business partners at Carousel Capital in Charlotte, a merchant banking firm.

"Our objective in the search is to attract the very best candidates that we can," Schwab said. "We don't plan to leave any stone unturned in that quest."

UNC-CH's next leader will take over a campus in better financial shape, but one that faces growth pressures and an aging faculty. The university will conclude a campaign in December that has so far raised $2.2 billion and doubled the endowment. A $2 billion building boom has modernized and expanded the main campus.

"James is leaving us in extraordinary shape," Perry said.

But there is plenty of work ahead. The trustees on Wednesday approved the concept plan for Carolina North, a satellite research campus two miles north of the main campus. The plan is sure to meet with tough questions and a long approval process from the town of Chapel Hill.

The university is also facing a new call to expand its student body. The UNC system expects to absorb 80,000 more students on its 16 university campuses by 2017. UNC-CH leaders have said the campus must step up its growth projections to meet demand. This fall, UNC-CH enrollment surpassed 28,000 students for the first time.

But students' academic qualifications are at an all-time high, according to a report Thursday from Stephen Farmer, director of undergraduate admissions. A record 20,064 students applied for spots in the freshman class this year -- with about half of the North Carolina applicants winning an acceptance letter.

The freshman class posted a record average SAT score of 1302, and more than three-quarters were in the top 10 percent of their high school class. "This class is the strongest and most diverse in university history," Farmer said.

The key will be taking on more students while maintaining academic quality, say UNC-CH leaders. That is bound to be one goal for the next chancellor, along with managing a complex institution with a medical center, more than 250 degree programs and 3,200 faculty members.

"It's a big, big job," Perry said, "and it's a hard job."

The chancellor search panel will hold its first meeting Oct. 12, when Bowles will give the group its marching orders. On Oct. 16, the committee will interview three consultants who assist with presidential searches. Public forums will follow on Oct. 24 and Oct. 30.

The search will take months, but there is no specific timetable other than to have someone in place when Moeser steps down.

The committee will send a slate of finalists to the board of trustees, which will vote on finalists to recommend to Bowles. Bowles will then take one finalist to the UNC Board of Governors, which officially elects the chancellor.

A university web site, www.unc.edu/chan/ special, will post updates on the process.