Education

What we can learn about UNC’s Civic Life investigation by looking at the receipts

Higher Stakes is a weekly newsletter about higher education from The News & Observer and reporter Jane Winik Sartwell.
Higher Stakes is a weekly newsletter about higher education from The News & Observer and reporter Jane Winik Sartwell. File images; graphic by Rachel Handley
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways

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  • UNC hired K&L Gates for a Civic Life investigation costing more than $1.2 million.
  • K&L Gates invoices show rate increases for lead investigators during 2025–2026.
  • Invoices record $364,845.75 in contracted or agreed discounts to UNC.

Hello, reader! An NC State University professor, political scientist Steven Greene, is a contestant on Jeopardy! His episode will air May 11. I’m a huge Jeopardy! fan, so I can’t wait to watch.

Welcome to Higher Stakes, The News & Observer’s higher education newsletter. I’m Jane Winik Sartwell.

NC State’s director of strategic communications and media relations, Mick Kulikowski, was fired last month, after working for NC State for more than 25 years. His first day was in 2000. Kulikowski’s separation from employment, according to NC State, was a “dismissal from at-will employment.” I’m working to understand more about what happened there.

Now, let’s get into it.

What we can learn about the SCiLL investigation by looking at the receipts

UNC-Chapel Hill recently concluded an investigation into its School of Civic Life and Leadership, but the university won’t release the results. That’s a choice that’s caused both outrage outside the school and discomfort inside it. The university hired the Raleigh law firm K&L Gates to conduct the probe, spending more than $1.2 million on the sealed investigation.

Records obtained by The News & Observer show itemized invoices for the work done by K&L Gates in 2025 and 2026. The invoices are heavily redacted, but examining them still yielded some interesting takeaways.

  • The investigation continued to expand late in the game. The investigation was structured in three phases, and Phase III included a “scope expansion.”
  • K&L Gates’ rates changed during the investigation. The lead investigator, Nate Huff, initially charged $990/hour, but his rate went up to $1,170/hour. Same with K&L Gates partner McNair Nichols, whose rate increased from $900/hour to $1,280/hour. Certain K&L Gates employees, though, had their rates cut over the course of the investigation.
  • UNC got a discount. The invoices include $364,845.75 in “contracted/agreed discount[s].”
  • There is a summary of the investigation’s findings. In mid-February, Nichols was preparing a “revised summary chart of findings,” according to the invoice.
  • What the school and the firm wanted to say about the report was a live question. Conversations about “messaging” started in October 2025 and revisions to public statements took place over multiple weeks in February 2026.

An NC State professor is celebrating America’s 250th by following in the footsteps of Lewis & Clark

This week, NC State research professor Roland Kays embarked on a road trip that retraces the route of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. He and his team will compare the pair’s historic wildlife observations to what can they see today as they travel the country by van. Kays will install cameras along the route to document wild populations of bison, coyotes, bears, and other animals.

“Lewis and Clark were the first scientists to document the wildlife of the country as they went west,” Kays told me. “We have all the records of their journals of when they saw buffalo, when they saw elk, when they saw wolves.”

They’ve digitized those early observations, and will compare the Lewis and Clark data to the new data they collect on their trail cameras.

The team is on the road, having gone through Pennsylvania, and now to St. Louis, then onto Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, ending up at the Pacific Ocean. On the van, the team is hauling kayaks and canoes to travel down the Ohio and Missouri rivers.

“Let’s go retrace it and tell the stories of how wildlife has changed,” Kays said. “Because there’s also our country’s 250th birthday, right? It’s a good time to reflect back. A lot of the stories are actually good stories, too. Like bison: we almost caused them to go extinct, but we didn’t. We stopped. We saved them, and now they’re doing much better.”

Kays says he’s most excited for Yellowstone and the American Prairie Reserve.

The trip is a partnership between NC State, The Smithsonian and National Science Foundation, and multiple Native American tribal colleges along their route. In addition to teaching at NC State, Kays also runs a lab at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.

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In some higher education news of personal interest, Leon Botstein, the president of my alma mater, Bard College, retired after 50 years in light of revelations about his relationship with Jeffery Epstein. Botstein has run the school since he was 30 years old, and his name is practically synonymous with the school’s. It’s a huge blow to the institution, and I’ll be watching closely to see what follows.

Thank you for reading Higher Stakes! See you back here next week.

— Jane Winik Sartwell

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Jane Winik Sartwell
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Jane Winik Sartwell covers higher education for The News & Observer. 
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