Sometimes it feels weird to write this newsletter knowing that we aren’t covering the story most of you are thinking about. In this case, that’s the Charlie Kirk shooting. 

It’s obviously the dominant story in higher ed and national politics right now, but it’s mostly not a North Carolina story. Still, it’s hard to read our lead piece this week, about the two-year anniversary of the shooting of Zijie Yan at UNC-Chapel Hill, without thinking about Kirk as well.

All this is to say, things are hard out there, and our goal, as ever, is to help you make sense of it. If you have questions or thoughts about how Kirk’s death will affect North Carolina, get in touch: highered@theassemblync.com.

— Matt Hartman […]

Matt Hartman is a higher education reporter for The Assembly and co-anchor of our weekly higher education newsletter, The Quad. He was previously a longtime freelance journalist and spent nearly a decade working in higher ed communications before joining The Assembly in 2024.