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UNC-Chapel Hill and the UNC School of the Arts are joining forces to offer more opportunities to students and raise the profile of the arts in North Carolina.
The schools announced the collaboration Tuesday, which will strengthen ties between one of the nation’s leading research universities and a nationally ranked arts conservatory, both members of the public UNC System. The move is not a merger; the schools will retain their own leadership, faculty, and governance structures.
UNC-CH Chancellor Lee Roberts and UNCSA Chancellor Brian Cole signed a memorandum of understanding last week outlining initiatives that could come from the agreement. Possibilities include sharing artistic performances between the two campuses, creating new works together, and holding semester-long exchanges so UNC-CH students can benefit from UNCSA programs such as filmmaking, and arts students can take business or health-related classes in Chapel Hill.
They expect to guarantee admission to UNC-CH for qualified students from UNCSA’s high school. The School of the Arts will also gain access to UNC-CH’s infrastructure for payroll, employee benefits management, dining, and student services. As a small arts conservatory with about 1,400 students, UNCSA lacks the capacity to provide those services as efficiently as a larger campus like UNC-CH, Cole told The Assembly last week.
A task force of faculty, staff, and leaders from each campus will determine the partnership’s scope and how the schools will implement it, and it is expected to begin work immediately.
“You’ve got complementary strengths here at Carolina and the School of the Arts,” Roberts told The Assembly. “When we work together in partnership, we can serve students more effectively, provide them more opportunities, which is what the UNC System is focused on.”
The memorandum states that UNCSA should redirect money saved through the partnership to “expand and enhance student experiences and to invest in critical operational and personnel needs.” Cole told The Assembly he doesn’t anticipate reducing UNCSA’s staff as a result of the changes.
“This is really focused on non-personnel kinds of systems, resources, those kinds of things, that are the most difficult for an institution of our size,” Cole said. “But we still need our teams of people on campus to run those systems and to be there day-to-day working with our students.”
The schools are already collaborating in several ways. UNC-CH’s digital accessibility office has been training UNCSA faculty and staff ahead of an April 2027 deadline to comply with new rules under the Americans with Disabilities Act, since UNCSA doesn’t have a dedicated office overseeing compliance. Starting this year, UNC Health is administering student health services at UNCSA, with a physician from the academic health system overseeing nurse practitioners who care for students. And UNCSA’s Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts recently partnered with UNC-CH’s Carolina Performing Arts to commission a multidisciplinary violin work.
The partnership is the latest in a series of efforts at UNC-CH to strengthen its focus on the arts—even as the university is also seeking to expand programs in artificial intelligence and engineering.
“I think it’s maybe more important than ever, at a time when there’s so much focus on STEM, so much focus on AI, which requires significant investment and attention, to continue to emphasize and invest in the arts here,” Roberts said.
A planned $70 million expansion of the Ackland Art Museum, supported by a $20 million donation from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust, will more than double the footprint of the space and create an arts and culture district. In February, Carolina Performing Arts will host a multiday arts festival that the university described as “the launch of a new long-term initiative” that is expected to “evolve across the Triangle in future years.”
Roberts noted UNC-CH has recently taken steps to overhaul “the way the arts are governed and supported” on campus, including hiring its first vice provost for arts and culture, Elizabeth Engelhardt, who oversees the Ackland, Carolina Performing Arts, the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, and the N.C. Botanical Garden.
Roberts expects Engelhardt and Alison Friedman, executive and artistic director of Carolina Performing Arts, to help determine how the new partnership plays out on the Chapel Hill campus.
Some initiatives, such as establishing new degree programs, could take years, Cole said. But others are likely to come together faster, including offering direct admission to UNC-CH for qualified UNCSA high schoolers. The UNC System Board of Governors approved a similar policy for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics five years ago.
According to data UNCSA provided to The Assembly, over the past five years, the School of the Arts has graduated about 600 students from its high school. About half of them matriculated to UNC System schools, including about a fifth who enrolled in UNCSA’s college programs. Just 28, or less than 5%, enrolled at UNC-CH. While many graduates may seek higher education at arts-focused schools, Cole said, it’s important for them to see UNC-CH as an option.
“The reason why there’s that policy with Science and Math is because you want to keep the best and brightest, most talented students right here in North Carolina,” Cole said, “and it’s the same goal with School of the Arts students.”
As the schools begin working together, the chancellors said they see the partnership as a long-term investment in their campuses and the state.
“As I look 10 years down the road,” Cole said, “I’d love to see just an unbelievable amount of new art that is created for not just our communities, but for the world, that starts here in North Carolina.”
