UNC plans for steady growth

As the UNC system calls for the N.C. General Assembly to guarantee annual funding for enrollment growth, University officials are considering plans for expanding the student body.

"UNC-Chapel Hill is on a slow but steady growth path at the undergraduate, graduate and professional level," said Jerry Lucido, vice provost for enrollment management and director of admissions.

The Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost has projected that there will be a total of 468 more undergraduate students on campus two years from now.

UNC-CH will enroll 16,652 undergraduates in fall 2005, 127 more than it has now. In fall 2006, officials expect to educate 16,933 undergraduates.

The numbers represent UNC-CH's plans for a steady increase in growth.

The University lacks excess capacity for the new students, unlike other system schools, which are focused on rapid-growth paths, said Steve Farmer, director of undergraduate admissions.

"There are other schools in the university system that are planing for a much more rapid growth," he said.

And unlike those schools, the University isn't dedicated to taking such a track.

"I think the number of students that we prepare with bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, Ph.D.s and professional degrees is one of the ways to meet our mission," Lucido said. "It's certainly not the only."

The combination of statewide enrollment pressures, a lack of state funding and a campus already at its physical capacity requires that UNC's enrollment increases only modestly and that it maintains and enhances academic quality.

"We continue to grow as long as we can maintain the kind of quality and character that students have come to expect from us," Lucido said.

"We should only grow as much good strong quality education allows. We should do good what we do."

The University's Academic Plan states that expansion should occur only as adequate infrastructure, faculty, staff and funding become available.

"When we enroll the few new students each year, we do after making room for them," Farmer said.

One way campus administrators are trying to address the space crunch is the University's widespread construction of buildings - including classrooms, the Ramshead Center, the Sonja Hanes Stone Center for Black Culture and History and housing on South Campus.

"The number of students won't have near the influence which our preparations to serve them will," Lucido said.

Officials said that despite the accommodative changes, the University is committed to retaining the true essence that defines UNC - the quiet of a peaceful college town, the beauty of the green spaces.

"It's important that as we grow modestly, we do not grow in such a way to lose what we treasure about Carolina," Farmer said.

Doug Shackelford, senior associate dean for academic affairs in the Kenan-Flagler Business School, said enrollment increases at his school would bring in more brilliant students.

He said there were a large numbers of qualified business school applicants who were turned away because of the constraints.

"We would like to expand, but it is a little more complicated than that," Shackelford said.

"For one thing, we have a space problem. The second thing is for faculty and staff to take more students."

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.