The Board of Trustees met on Thursday, here's what happened

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated an incorrect number of students had taken APPLES service-learning courses. It also misidentified the position of one student who spoke. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error. 

The UNC Board of Trustees met in full on Thursday. Here’s what you need to know:

Anna Wu, associate vice chancellor for facilities, was announced as spearheading the architectural vision for the campus master plan. The plan will serve as the physical component of the University’s strategic framework, Blueprint for Next. 

Over the past year, the team has been gathering information about the goals of campus organizations.

“The facilities planning and real estate team, together with our consultant, has spent the last year going around campus and engaging strategically and really understanding what their needs were and what physical manifestation of those needs might be in that plan,” Wu said.

The team is seeking to identify how synergy, transportation resources and physical structures can facilitate and realize the initiatives of the strategic plan, Wu said. Areas of interest include researching where creativity hubs can best facilitate research on campus and integrating Arts Everywhere initiatives across campus. Student body demographics will also be considered for their effects on the residential experiences. 

“Where can we leverage these existing assets to create this dynamic mixed-use spaces?” Wu said. 

Lynn Blanchard of the Carolina Center for Public Service spoke about the lasting participation of Tar Heels in public service. 

Blanchard serves on the faculty of the Health Behavior and Health Education Department of the Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she integrates philanthropy into academics. She oversees the APPLES Service-Learning, Buckley Public Service Scholars, and Thorp Faculty Engaged Scholars program.  

More than 1,700 students have taken APPLES Service-Learning courses, Blanchard said, representing a total of 81 courses across 45 departments. In the graduating class of 2017, 33 percent of the graduating class graduated with at least one service learning credit. In addition, 53 total faculty members have participated in the Thorp Faculty-Engaged Scholars program, which allows them to strengthen their research through community engagement. The faculty members have come from more than 10 schools within the University and represented more than 20 departments. 

Two students, the former vice president and current president of APPLES Service-Learning program, shared their stories of involvement with the program, both citing their aspirations to integrate service into their professional careers. 

These initiatives of the Center for Public Service align with the University’s Blueprint for Next, Blanchard said. She described the mission of the Center as to connect the expertise of the University with the needs of the community. 

“Our work is really inextricably connected to all parts of this campus’s mission,” Blanchard said.

The Board of Trustees Committees gave reports updating the board on their recent individual meetings.

Dwight Stone, chairperson of the Finance, Infrastructure and Audit Committee, presented three design items to the board that were approved, including renovations to residence halls and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Faculty Recruitment Lab, as well as the construction of a UNC Health Care Surgical Tower. He said the cost of the renovations for the Faculty Recruitment Lab are higher than usual, due to some wet lab space and the 26 hundred feet of lab space being renovated. 

Stone also applauded the Board of Governors for approving the business school fee and said he thinks the fee will significantly increase the amount of students able to be admitted into the program.

William Keyes, chairperson of the External Relations Committee, discussed the Campaign for Carolina. He said the College of Arts and Sciences raised $83 million of its $75 million campaign, which will go toward student and faculty support, leveraging innovation for experiential education and capital, and unrestricted support, which help grow research efforts.

Keyes also praised the University’s new website and said he thinks the interactive nature of the site enables storytelling.

“The website is great because it’s able to give us in very short videos, a lot of really interesting information that a lot of us would probably never know otherwise,” he said.

Charles Duckett, vice-chairperson of the board, gave the report for the University Affairs Committee. 

He spoke about the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) provided for students, and said CAPS demands have risen nearly 100 percent in the last 5-year period and that 14 percent of the student body are projected to use CAPS services this year. The report said the University must continue to understand the rise of student needs when looking at the budget and what money it allots to CAPS.

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