UNC Forward

• Mission first: Every recommendation should strengthen UNC’s ability to deliver exceptional student experiences and advance its academic, research, and service mission. 
• Student success at the center: Decisions should improve outcomes, expand opportunities, and create lasting value for current and future students. 
• People closest to the work should help shape solutions: Faculty and staff expertise is critical to identifying challenges, opportunities, and practical paths forward. 
• Think beyond incremental change: UNC Forward is not simply an efficiency exercise. The process should seek opportunities for innovation, growth, collaboration, and transformative improvement. 
• Evidence and impact: consider relevant data, costs, benefits, risks, trade-offs, and implementation requirements. 
• Build on UNC’s distinctive strengths: Resources should increasingly align with the programs, capabilities, and areas of excellence that differentiate UNC and advance its strategic future. These programs could include current programs or future programs in which UNC could lead. 
• Challenge assumptions with courage: Long-standing practices and structures should be thoughtfully examined to ensure they continue to serve the university’s mission and goals. 
• Act strategically, not uniformly: Decisions should be guided by institutional priorities, student needs, impact, and opportunity rather than across-the-board approaches. 
• Move from ideas to action: Recommendations should be actionable, evidence-based, and designed to support informed decision-making and measurable results. 
• Invest in long-term vitality: Near-term financial realities should be addressed in ways that strengthen UNC’s capacity to innovate, compete, and thrive for decades to come. 

• What decision or action is being recommended? 
• What problem or opportunity are we addressing? 
• What does the available evidence tell us? 
• What are the realistic options, including maintaining the current approach? 
• What would change operationally, academically, financially, or organizationally? 
• What are the expected benefits, costs, risks, and trade-offs? 
• What dependencies, stakeholders, or implementation issues must be addressed? 
• What can be done now, what requires additional analysis, and what should be considered longer term? 

• More effective, efficient, and coordinated operations across the university. 
• Resources increasingly aligned with programs, people, and priorities that have the greatest impact. 
• Improved financial sustainability while maintaining academic quality and mission. 
• Greater capacity for growth, partnership, innovation, and strategic investment where supported by evidence. 
• A clearer path from ideas and analysis to decisions and action. 

 The goal is not change for its own sake, but thoughtful choices that strengthen UNC over time. 

This group will consist of cabinet members including the faculty senate chair, college deans, unit administrative leaders, and faculty. Three seats will be filled by faculty who self–nominate or are nominated. Nominee eligibility will be confirmed by the faculty senate chair, in consultation with the appropriate program chair and college dean, based on capacity to take on the expected time commitment and college policies. The faculty will then elect these three members, with the top vote-getters selected and no more than one representative per college among these three representatives. If two or more candidates from the same college are among the top vote-getters, only the highest-ranked of them will be selected, and the next highest vote-getter from a different college will fill the remaining seat(s). 

Each task force will be led by the appropriate dean or division leader and include a defined number of faculty, staff, and other participants selected from self-nominated or nominated candidates. Membership should reflect the work being examined and include people with direct knowledge of the relevant programs, processes, and operations. 

• Examine issues from a university-wide perspective. 
• Bring forward relevant facts, experience, concerns, and ideas. 
• Test assumptions and consider alternatives. 
• Identify practical implications for students, faculty, staff, programs, operations, finances, and other stakeholders. 
• Develop recommendations rather than simply identifying problems. 

Academic Portfolio 

• Program viability 
• New markets 
• Interdisciplinary opportunities 
• Course evaluation 
• Faculty courseload 

Enrollment and Student Success 

• Recruitment 
• Retention 
• Student support services 

Administrative Excellence 

• Shared services 
• Process redesign 
• Technology optimization 

Workforce and Organizational Design 

• Staffing models 
• Leadership structures 
• Professional development 
• Re-envision mission and who we are as a university 

Revenue Growth 

• Online education 
• Corporate partnerships 
• Research expansion 
• Philanthropy 

Physical and Digital Infrastructure 

• Space utilization 
• Facilities 
• AI and digital transformation