UNC Charlotte is launching a $500 million fundraising campaign that will increase scholarships, help retain research faculty and improve its performing arts programs, says Chancellor Sharon Gaber.
Increasing scholarship offerings to UNC Charlotte’s record enrollment of more than 31,000 students tops the list in importance, says Gaber, but the university also needs to recruit and retain its top research faculty as it expects to join NC State, Duke and UNC Chapel Hill as a Tier 1 research university next year, says Gaber.
“We have great research faculty but they end up getting plucked up by people who will give them more money,” says Gaber. “We want to keep them here.”
The university already has raised about $243 million of its goal, and hopes to be halfway there by the time it formally launches its “For the Love of Charlotte” campaign on Nov. 16 toward the end of its homecoming week. This will mark the largest UNC Charlotte fundraising campaign and will take four to five years to complete, she says.
Research activity at UNC Charlotte reached record-breaking heights in 2022-23 with new awards totaling $73.2 million, while expenditures topped an all-time high of $55.2 million. These achievements represent growth of 27.7% and 18.7%, respectively, over previous year. UNC Charlotte has increased research expenditures by 272% in the past decade.
UNC Charlotte has North Carolina’s only university-led center for battery research and has the first research partnership in the nation of its kind between a major airport – Charlotte Douglas Internationa – and a major university, says Gaber.
Gaber announced the fundraising campaign while speaking to about 150 members of the Charlotte Rotary Club on Tuesday. Gaber became UNC Charlotte’s fifth chancellor in July 2020 and joked that the last time she spoke to the business group was in 2021 by Zoom during the pandemic.
This time, many Rotary members had western North Carolina residents on their minds and the region’s recovery from Hurricane Helene. Gaber says UNC Charlotte has raised about $111,000 for its counterparts in the western part of the state – Western Carolina University, UNC Asheville and Appalachian State. The university also has sent support staff to the school and other help. About 90 UNC Asheville student-athletes are currently staying at the UNC Charlotte campus, and will remain there until they can return to their own school, says Gaber.
UNC Charlotte’s enrollment of 31,091 students surpasses the previous record of 30,488 students in the fall 2021 semester. Almost 60% of its 178,000 alumni live in the Charlotte region.