CHAPEL HILL (May 6, 2026) – There have been questions in recent years about how much University of North Carolina governing boards and administrators respect the role of the faculty in supporting the university’s reputation.
But UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee Roberts leaves no doubt in the accompanying video.
“Faculty are at the core of everything we do,” Roberts says. “… We need to do a better job telling the story of our extraordinary faculty here. And everywhere you look, there are exceptional things happening.”
Roberts highlights some star faculty:
•Kathleen Duval, who won a Pulitzer Prize last year for her book Native Nations;
•Nabarun Dasgupta won a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” for his work on addiction; and
•Astrophysicist Nick Law received a grant to build the Argus Array, a network of more than 800 telescopes in the Texas desert.1
“This telescope is going to generate more data in the first two weeks of operation than all of the telescopes in the world in the history of humankind,” Roberts says. “Two weeks.
“Every night it will generate more data than is in the Library of Congress.”
Roberts doesn’t stop there.
“Extraordinary accomplishments by our faculty everywhere you look,” he says.
“We have just exceptional scholars and researchers doing groundbreaking work that is going to change the future of humanity for the better. It sounds grandiose to put it that way, but it’s absolutely true.”
ARE THOSE faculty paid well enough?
Once upon a time, UNC-Chapel Hill aimed to have its average faculty compensation rank in the top quartile compared to its peer institutions.
The UNC System’s Board of Governors has asked state legislators to give university employees a raise commensurate with that of other state employees.
“We’d love to see a legislative salary increase in the (General Assembly’s) short session budget for the coming fiscal year. That would obviously make a huge difference to our faculty and staff across the board here at Carolina and across the UNC System,” Roberts says.
“And we’re trying to put more money into faculty recruitment and retention.”
The campus Board of Trustees has set a target of $86 million in budget savings – the university has already achieved $45 million of that, largely through attrition, Roberts says.
The goal is to redirect those savings into faculty recruitment and retention in “particular high-demand areas,” he says.
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