UNC has a new chancellor. Why interim Lee Roberts got the permanent job.

Lee Roberts, a business executive and interim University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill chancellor who earned the support of top lawmakers for his leadership during campus protests in the spring, will be the university’s permanent chancellor.

UNC System President Peter Hans selected Roberts from a small group of finalists. The UNC Board of Governors, on which Roberts recently served, approved the selection Friday morning at a meeting in Raleigh, wrapping up the chancellor search months before the initial timeline anticipated.

"This university stands, above all else, for the ideal of public service, for helping the people of this state and those who are touched by this place to achieve their greatest potentia," Roberts said Friday afternoon at a introductory event on campus. "As chancellor, I promise to be guided by that principle as we work together to carry North Carolina into the future."

Hans, a UNC grad, outlined his reasons for choosing Roberts in a lengthy statement to the board, saying he wanted to someone with the right combination of reverence for the university's history and aspiration for its next chapter.

"Carolina can be and should be the very best public university in the country," Hans said, "I believe we need a leader who shares that vision and can help us fully realize it."

Roberts replaces Kevin Guskiewicz, who left UNC for Michigan State in January. Roberts was appointed interim chancellor at that time.

“He’s done an excellent job as interim chancellor,” said Richard Stevens, a former chairman of the UNC Board of Trustees. “Lee’s a very good motivator. He’s decisive. He listens extremely well before he makes his decisions.”

Who is Lee Roberts?

Roberts, a Duke graduate who earned his law degree at Georgetown, spent his career in finance and private investment. He served as former Gov. Pat McCrory’s budget director from 2014 to 2016 before starting his own private investment firm in Raleigh. Roberts taught at Duke and was appointed to the Board of Governors in 2021 by Republican state lawmakers.

“A brilliant, brilliant guy with an incredible sense of maturity, listening skills and very stable in the way he communicates and reacts,” said McCrory, who wasn’t involved in the selection process. “He’ll bring a new, fresh, but mature voice to the university system.”

McCrory credited Roberts for putting together the $2 billion Connect NC bond package — passed by voters in March 2016 — to fund higher-education facilities in economically strategic fields such as health care, engineering and sciences. Two-thirds of the package went to UNC System and community college facilities, and it passed with more than 66% of the vote.

“His listening skills are absolutely incredible,” McCrory said. “He makes a point to listen to all viewpoints and makes the best decision he can based upon a profound basis of facts and knowledge. That’s what he did in putting the bonds together. He has a sense of financial acumen in addition to intellectual acumen. He’s a very down-to-earth guy, but at the same time extremely smart.”

Roberts’ most public actions as interim chancellor came during pro-Palestinian protests on the Chapel Hill campus in April. After several days of protests and encampment, protesters took down the American flag in the main quad and replaced it with a Palestinian flag. Roberts, followed by security, walked from the administrative building into the protests as the American flag was placed back up.

“To take down that flag and put up another flag, no matter what other flag it is, that’s antithetical to who we are, what this university stands for and what we have done for 229 years,” Roberts said, while being shouted down by protesters who accused him of supporting genocide in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

“That flag will stand here as long as I’m chancellor,” Roberts said, pointing toward it.

Dozens were arrested, and the encampments broken down

Support from lawmakers

Roberts’ actions — and words — earned him immediate praise from top Republican lawmakers, who endorsed him for the permanent job, vital support from a key constituency. Republicans lawmakers, who have been in the legislative majority since 2011, have appointed all 24 members to the Board of Governors. The board oversees UNC and other public universities in the state.

“This is a state-supported university and a significant portion of funds come from the legislature, through its budget process, rules and regulations and things it initiates,” said Stevens, who Roberts appointed as co-chair of a committee to determine the future of the Campus Y. “Having a good relationship with the General Assembly is important for any university leader. Having those kinds of contacts will be helpful.”

The influence of conservative lawmakers into the governance at UNC, often seen as left-leaning, has been a concern to some, particularly after Guskiewicz left.

"I would classify as not just meddling, but undermining," former Chancellor Holden Thorpe told WRAL at the time.

Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said at the time that due to lawmakers "seizing" power of appointments and installing "hard right" appointees that "our reputation is beginning to suffer."

Roberts said he understood that some people might be skeptical about the search that led him from member of Board of Governors to interim chancellor to permanent job. But he said it was a given.

"Nobody promised me anything," Roberts said Friday in a question-and-answer session with reporters. "The process felt pretty rigorous from my standpoint as a participant."

Search process

A chancellor advisory search committee, led by UNC Medical School Executive Dean Cristy Page, interviewed candidates in person last week and prepared a report with a list of at least three finalists. The UNC Board of Trustees approved a slate of finalists Monday. The search committee, which included Hans, was filled with several trustees and governors and aided by Parker Executive Search.

The committee or the external search firm reached out to more than 100 people and the job attracted high-quality candidates, Page said throughout the process. She previously called the small group of finalists approved by the committee “the best of the best.”

"I believe Lee Roberts is the very best person to lead Carolina at this time," Page said Friday. "And I know that he will be the person to continue our unparalleled legacy with a steady hand and a public servant's heart."

Roberts’ presence as interim chancellor with the endorsement of top state leaders “doesn't seem to have dissuaded people from their interest and commitment to pursuing our great university. Every single one of them started off with their admiration for the strength of our university,” Page said.

That includes Roberts, who praised the university — chartered in 1789 as the first public college in the nation — and its role in the state. UNC has more than 30,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students. Fall semester classes begin Aug. 19.

"If you care about public service and you care about the state of North Carolina and care about higher education, we don’t have a more important institution in the state than Carolina,” he told WRAL in January when he was appointed as interim chancellor. “Who wouldn’t be excited about that challenge?"

Growing the university

Among those challenges is one handed down directly by Hans on Friday: growing UNC.

In a state whose population continues to grow, Hans said he expects the university to expand and said the new leader must "deliver on the promise of operational excellence to match its academic prowess."

"It’s time for Carolina to welcome more talent from across the state and across the country," Hans said. "And Roberts brings pragmatic understanding of what it will take to expand this university’s service to a vibrant state."

With the population increase and no corresponding growth in UNC's freshman enrollment numbers, Roberts said that UNC is admitting a decreasing number of North Carolina high school graduates.

"We used to be about 5%," he said. "Now we're 3.5%, 30% drop. The question is should that continue."

One of four strategic working groups on campus was tasked with handling the issue. its report was filed August 1.

"How should we grow?" Roberts said. "If we are to grow, what are the implications on our infrastructure, our faculty, our housing, our fitness facilities, dining facilities, things like that?"

A series of challenges

The size of the school is just one of a host of issues the new chancellor will have to face — some expected, some arising in a moment's notice.

The campus was rocked by a fatal shooting about a year ago, and the new chancellor will have to implement the after-action plan developed in response. Also, the Board of Governors passed a repeal-and-replace of the System’s diversity and inclusion policy, pushing schools to revamp their policies — and remove funding for diversity and inclusion positions — before Sept. 1.

Roberts, without getting into specifics, said the university would meet that deadline. He touted the benefits of Project Uplift, a summer program designed to help economically disadvantage high school seniors in the admission process. Roberts praised other inclusion programs designed to make a college degree accessible — low tuition, Carolina Covenant, Carolina's Global Guarantee, Blue Sky Scholarships and the Carolina Veterans Resource Center.

"This university exists in a compact, a trust with the people of this state, with the community around us and with all the people who chose to work, study and reserch here," Roberts said.

In July, UNC announced that its honor court system, led by students for more than a century, would shift to a staff-run board model system, saying such a change was “consistent with peer institutions across the country and in the UNC System.” Roberts, as interim chancellor, had the authority to make the change.

In May, Roberts faced a series of questions about diversity and inclusion, while, in the same media session, responding to UNC Board of Trustees’ criticism of athletics director Bubba Cunningham and potential athletic conference realignment. Roberts defended Cunningham, breaking with some on the board.

“He’s done a good job of balancing the conflicting demands on the chancellor’s time and attention,” said James Moeser, who served as UNC’s chancellor from 2000 to 2008.

During the search process, some committee members highlighted fundraising prowess as one of the top characteristics for any new chancellor. The school raised more than $5 billion during its five-year Campaign for Carolina, perhaps setting a baseline for annual fundraising.

“One of the major challenges is going to be financial challenges,” McCrory said. “That acumen may be the most important of all. If you haven’t got the money and the plan to use dollars in the most efficient way, that, to me, might be the No. 1 skill needed in the future to be a chancellor.”

In raising money for investment funds, Roberts had to sell investors on what the long-term return would be, not dissimilar from a chancellor’s role in outline that vision and attracting donors.

Said McCrory: “He has that ability, too.”