Education

UNC trustees to discuss School of Civic Life, Carolina North and budget pressures

By Jane Winik Sartwell

March 24, 2026 5:00 AM

AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.

UNC-Chapel Hill trustees will hear from 3 students on School of Civic Life and Leadership.
Duke University launches a $203 million community investment.
NC Central University faces shortage of more than 530 beds.

Hello subscribers! Welcome to The News & Observer’s higher ed newsletter, Higher Stakes. I’m your host, Jane Winik Sartwell.

There’s one question that’s top of mind in the college sports world this week: Is UNC men’s basketball coach Hubert Davis finished after the team’s untimely exit from the NCAA tournament? My colleague Shelby Swanson has the latest. Plus, how far can the Duke Blue Devils take their tournament run? Sports columnist Scott Fowler says maybe all the way. I saw them play in Greenville this weekend, and as I’m sure you can imagine, it was a lot of fun.

But there’s plenty going on in the North Carolina higher ed world that doesn’t relate to basketball, believe it or not. Read on to find out what.

What to expect from UNC’s Board of Trustees this week

I’m getting ready to attend the UNC’s Board of Trustees meetings in Chapel Hill this week. They haven’t had a full meeting since my very first week here at The N&O. Would it be too nerdy to admit I’m pretty excited? Anyway, here’s what the trustees are looking at this month:

Students will share their perspectives on the School of Civic Life and Leadership, or SCiLL. SCiLL is a controversial campus inflection point, both because of the conservative values that informed its creation and the faculty drama that has swirled ever since. This month, UNC announced it wouldn’t release the results of an investigation into the school. On Wednesday, trustees will hear from three students regarding SCiLL.
Lee Roberts and his director of real estate development, Tiffany Lacey, will provide an update on Carolina North. UNC is moving forward with the development of an 230-acre tract of land 1.5 miles north of the main campus. Phase 1 of development includes 2,200 undergraduate beds, plus academic, research, retail and housing space. The UNC community is waiting with bated breath to hear a decision on whether the school’s basketball arena will be relocated to the new campus expansion.
The new provost, Magnus Egerstedt, will be formally introduced. Egerstedt assumed the role earlier this month, taking over from interim provost Jim Dean. He’s a robotics engineer born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden. He spent most of his career at Georgia Tech, and is coming off a short stint at the University of California, Irvine. He’s inheriting a lot of faculty dissatisfaction and policy upheaval. Following a chummy introduction at the last Faculty Council meeting, Egerstedt was grilled on the administration’s decision not to release the results of the SCiLL investigation at a recent Faculty Executive Committee meeting.
UNC is expanding its capacity to work with potentially lethal infectious diseases. The school will reconfigure the ninth floor of its Burnett-Womack academic building with the goal of bringing together researchers working on emerging infections, enabling access to specialized equipment for high-containment research, and creating a “core space” for the recruitment of new infectious disease investigators. UNC has previously faced questions over a potential lab leak in China related to the COVID-19 virus.
The school’s daycare center for the children of faculty and staff is in poor condition. The trustees will vote to lease out the child care facility to Bright Horizons Children’s Centers, which has managed the facility since 2021. Because the building is in poor condition and requires $2.2 million in deferred maintenance, UNC won’t be charging the tenant any rent for the first year.
UNC has strong fundraising momentum. The school has received $377 million so far in the 2026 fiscal year, or 72% of its $500 million goal for the year. That’s well ahead of where the school was last year at this point. Some schools/units are performing remarkably well: Eshelman School of Pharmacy is at 261% of its goal, while University Libraries is at 243%.
Trustees will continue discussion of budget pressure and reviews of academic programs. The school is working towards a savings goal of $87 million. UNC is currently reviewing 28 programs flagged for low degree production and 19 departments flagged for enrollment decline. Possible outcomes could include mergers, faculty attrition, reduced tenure-track hiring, and program closures.

The trustees have canceled their May meeting, making this the last full meeting of the school year. They won’t get back together until July.

Duke makes a big community investment

Duke recently announced a $203 million investment in the economic vitality of Durham and Wake counties, a move the school hopes will increase opportunity and mobility for residents. The school is calling the initiative HomeGrown, and it’s focused on four major areas:

Employment pathways. Duke plans to expand local hiring for entry-level roles, moving from 69% local to 80% local. The university and health system will increase the number of formerly incarcerated employees from 50 to 100.
Construction opportunities. Duke plans to spend $120 million with Triangle-area construction firms.
Local business partnerships. Duke says it will make its “purchasing power more accessible to Durham and Triangle-based businesses.” It plans to increase spending with local and regional businesses by $45 million.
Affordable housing and home ownership pathways. Duke plans to spend $60 million to support affordable housing development and support Duke employees who are first-time home buyers with down payment assistance.

I asked the school a question about how all this is possible given the budget pressure the school appeared to be under last year, when it parted ways with 650 employees. Here’s what Duke’s associate vice president for economic development, Adam Klein, told me:

“HomeGrown is a joint commitment between Duke University and Duke University Health System. It’s important to understand that both organizations operate as distinct financial entities. Duke University Health System is financially self-sustaining and employs the majority of Duke’s workforce,” Klein wrote.

“More broadly, universities and academic health systems across the nation have faced challenges over the past year. Community investment isn’t optional for an institution of Duke’s scale — it’s essential to our mission and values, and it allows us to recruit and retain the workforce that makes this work possible.”

Duke has faced criticsm before for its failure to engage with Durham residents. The school hopes that HomeGrown will change that narrative. The university will track and publicly share the project’s progress at homegrown.duke.edu.

A 500-bed shortage & $10 million for science at NC Central

NC Central University faces a shortage of 534 beds on campus. It has 3,438 beds but will need 3,981 to keep up with year-over-year incoming class growth and its requirement that freshman live on campus.

The school has waived the requirement for sophomores to live on campus to alleviate the shortage. But it’s not enough. The school is seeking a $20 million loan to renovate Richmond Hall, which would add 277 beds — enough to squelch 51% of the shortage.

In other news, NC Central has received a $10 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for research into how to translate medical research into better health outcomes. The research is a collaboration with Duke, and the money is part of a wider $69 million package the NIH awarded Duke.