On Friday, Lee Roberts was officially named the 13th chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Roberts has held the position on an interim basis since January and has already led the university through numerous challenges and controversies, including a pro-Palestinian protest on campus and a mandate from the UNC Board of Governors that all UNC system schools eliminate DEI offices.
A day after assuming the permanent position, Roberts sat down with WUNC's Brianna Atkinson for a one-on-one conversation.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. You can hear the entire conversation at the audio link above.
So, you have been the interim chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill for about eight months. When did you know that you wanted this job on a permanent basis?
"You know, that's a great question. I think it happened over time. It's such an extraordinary place. There's so many remarkable things happening around this campus every day. The passion people have for this institution is extraordinary. It's easy to fall in love."
Was there ever a time over the past eight months that you thought maybe you didn't want this job?
"It's certainly been an active eight months with a lot of interesting things going on, almost all of them positive. Some days are busier than others, sometimes more intense than others, but it's such a remarkable place, and I feel so grateful to be here in this role. I'm just really excited about the fall semester and the year ahead."
Many of our listeners remember your late mother, Cokie Roberts, who is considered one of the founding mothers of NPR. Your family has a long history of public service, both in journalism and government. I was wondering, how does a job in academia fit into that?
"Well, I appreciate your mentioning my mom. Thank you very much. She cared a lot about NPR and about public radio, as you know, and you're right, both my parents and my grandparents talked a lot about the importance of public service. My mother's parents were both members of Congress from Louisiana and they taught us to try to do our best to give back to the institutions that have made this country great.
"And I said yesterday in in my remarks, that there's no higher calling than serving the mission that this university has to the state of North Carolina, to the people of the state. And I really believe that. I think that what is being done here truly is public service, not just by the chancellor, but by everybody who studies and works and does research here. It's a tremendous asset for the families of North Carolina. That's been true for 230 years."
Former UNC-Chapel Hill chancellors have commented that their greatest learning curve has had to do with athletics. What have you learned about big-time college athletics, and what do you still think you need to learn?
"It's certainly a time of upheaval in college athletics. There are people who have worked in the field for decades who have never seen anything like this level of uncertainty. And the role of the chancellor and the athletic director and everyone else involved in in college sports here at Carolina is to make sure that when the dust settles, Carolina is better off. We're extremely well positioned. I wouldn't trade our strategic positioning as it relates to athletics or most other things for that matter, with any other school. But we have a lot to figure out, particularly how to fund the NIL money that every school is going to be able to fund starting the school year after this one. So, by this time next year, we're going to need to know where that money comes from and what the impact is on our athletics program overall."
I know you've mentioned previously that you're passionate about fixing infrastructure on campus. Can you tell me a little bit about some of those campus infrastructures that need to be updated?
"We have a beautiful historic campus, and that means we have a lot of older buildings. The building that we're in right now was built in 1798. People (back then) weren't thinking about handicap accessibility, wheelchair accessibility. In 1798 they weren't even thinking about central heating and air conditioning. And so, our list of maintenance needs, repair, renovation needs, is extensive, and that's always going to be true. There's always going to be greater need for our maintenance dollars than we have funding available, and that means that we need to put a high premium on having a really good system for prioritizing our maintenance projects. There's a reason they call it the University of Non-stop Construction. We always have something going on."
UNC System President Peter Hans called you a “Tar Heel by choice.” It's been brought up quite a bit that you are a Duke University graduate, and the two schools are obviously rivals, but they also work together in numerous ways. How do you view the relationship between the two universities?
"I think it's a great thing for the Triangle area and for North Carolina to have not just Duke and Carolina, but also N.C. State — these three large global research universities in close proximity to each other. Very few other places anywhere in the world have that kind of fortunate placement of these three research hubs so closely together. And you're right, there is an enormous amount of cooperation among all three schools, not just through structures like the Research Triangle Partnership, the Research Triangle Institute, but there's all kinds of informal collaboration happening among researchers and professors all the time. And I want that to continue and to flourish. There's no reason why we shouldn't work together on the grand challenges of the day that we're all trying to solve."
Many people have pointed out that the governance structure of public universities in North Carolina can be difficult to navigate. There's a board of governors, a board of trustees — all political appointees. How do you plan to manage all of those different relationships?
"You know, in one way, you're right. We do have a complex governing structure. But in one important sense, it's very simple. I and every other chancellor report to one person, to the system president, Peter Hans. I don't report to a board. I don't report to anybody else other than the single system president. And so, there are a lot of constituencies, a lot of voices, and I think that's true across higher education and across public higher ed in particular. But the reporting structure is very straightforward and hopefully easy for everyone to understand."
No one comes to this job without being a target of criticism. You faced some of that with how you handled the pro-Palestinian protest on campus. If those protests arise again this year, how do you plan to manage them?
"We not only support student protest, we actively encourage it. We want our students to be engaged in the world around them, to have passion around political and policy issues, and we're delighted to see students protesting and feeling strongly about the issues of the day. We have a long tradition of that here at Carolina. We have some very simple, I think, very reasonable rules around protest activity, as you'll find at every university. Please don't vandalize our historic buildings. You can't turn the quad into your private campground. And you can't threaten, harass or intimidate students or employees or faculty or anybody else. And as long as folks abide by those rules, which I think are very clear guardrails and hopefully easy to comply with, I think we'll have a really positive semester."
The UNC Board of Governors recently mandated the elimination of DEI offices. Chancellors like you have to send their reorganization plans to the UNC system in a few weeks. What changes can students, faculty and staff expect to see?
"So, it's a system-wide policy, as you say. And I've tried to make clear that everybody here feels very strongly that the university exists in a kind of moral trust with the people of the state. Everyone who lives here knows how quickly our state is growing and changing, and we have a responsibility to reflect that here at Carolina. That's who we are. We have to reflect the state as it continues to grow and change. And we can't just reflect it on paper. We need to make sure that when students come here, they feel welcome, they feel as though this is a place where they belong. We're doing our best to make sure that they can flourish and thrive. And we're going to continue to do our best to achieve that. We'll obviously comply with the requirement that we report back to the system on Sept. 1. I'm not sure I can preview the changes before then, because we're still working on it, but our commitment to making sure that Carolina reflects the state isn't going to waver."
And I know you just said that you aren't able to preview the changes, but I wanted to ask: Do you have any plans for layoffs?
"Again, I think we're going to have to wait until we get closer to the Sept. 1 deadline."
I want to read you something that your parents, Steve and Cokie Roberts, wrote in one of their syndicate columns. It was back in 2013, and it was after the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action in college admissions.
They wrote this: “Critics often see affirmative action through a very narrow and distorted lens as a gift or favor to one person at the expense of another. That's simply wrong. Diversity enriches the educational experience of everyone, even those who oppose affirmative action.”
Of course, the landscape is different now that the current Supreme Court has ended affirmative action in college admissions. But I wonder if you agree or disagree with what your parents wrote.
"Appreciate you reading a column they wrote in 2013... but no, of course I agree... There's no question that that we need to continue to work hard to make sure that that we're reflecting the state as it grows and changes. That takes effort. That doesn't happen by itself, and there's multiple tools we have to do that, but it's something that you have to be vigilant about.
"I actually think it's more important than the quote that you that you read off. So, when people say diversity is a strength, of course, that's true, but when I talk about the university having a moral compact with the people of the state, to me that's more profound than just the strengths that the diversity brings to our organization, or any organization. It's a more fundamental responsibility that we have to reflect the state, and we do that through affordability, through outreach, through trying to broaden our access as much as possible, and to working hard to make sure that students feel welcome here and as though they belong."
How will you judge your own success as chancellor? How will you know that you're doing a good job?
"It's a great question. Thinking long term, I really want folks to see us as the number one public university in America. And we have a strong reputation, we've always had one. It's a competitive world out there, and we need to continue to raise our game. And I look forward to doing my part in helping Carolina raise its game."
