Invest in the Future Today

Mark your calendars for our Groundbreaking Ceremony

Thursday, September 29, 2022

The power of education to improve lives is a universal story. We celebrate this momentous occasion for our top-ranked business school: a new state-of-the-art building to meet the changing needs of business education. Because of space constraints, demand has outpaced our ability to serve talented UNC students and the community certainly responded to our call for support. Thanks to you, we have raised our goal for a new building to meet the increased demand for business education at Carolina.

Our keynote speaker Jamie Dimon, board and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., will join us to share in the excitement of this endeavor for the future of business and building leaders of tomorrow.

Construction is about to begin on this expansion that is designed for today and the future of learning at UNC with increased space for student life and community interaction, as well as enhanced technology that will meet LEED Gold standards as a baseline for sustainability.

This is our opportunity to share our appreciation for your support in helping us achieve our mission to develop leaders who make the world a better place. We are excited for you to begin to see it start to come to life!  

The Need

We are at full capacity. For more than 100 years, students have come to Carolina to study business. We prepare them to become extraordinary leaders who grapple with and solve critical issues with wisdom and courage.

Today we have approximately 1,000 Undergraduate Business, 400 Master of Accounting, 1,600 MBA and 70 PhD students. Ever since the founding of the Business School in 1919, student demand has grown. In recent years, it outpaced our ability to serve talented UNC students who want to major in business, and in the last decade we doubled our graduate enrollment.

We can’t meet the growing student demand for our Undergraduate Business Program (UBP). We can accept only half of our applicants each year despite their impressive qualifications. We simply don’t have enough space.

The new building will make it possible for us to:

• Ultimately double the size of UBP enrollment
• Attract more top students from around the globe to our graduate programs
• Enhance learning and collaboration for all students
• Alleviate serious space challenges

At the heart of our enterprise is our faculty

A world-class business education begins with a world-class faculty – professors who ensure the teaching and research excellence that sets UNC Kenan-Flagler apart from other business schools. Hiring new faculty is a top priority for Dean Doug Shackelford. For years there has been a shortage of business faculty, especially those who excel at both teaching and research. We need to hire an additional 10 to 12 full-time faculty by 2030, a move that will add about $5 million annually to the School’s operating budget.

Here are primary ways you can support Dean Shackelford and the outstanding work of UNC Kenan-Flagler Faculty.

The future of learning

We are designing the new building for learning – flexible classrooms, more space for teamwork, and enhanced technology – to build community and a sense of belonging. The ambitious project will help us accomplish the following:

• Double the available teaching space
• Create outdoor greenspaces
• Increase space for student life and community interaction by 48% with a new entrepreneurship and innovation suite
• Meet LEED Gold standards as a baseline for sustainability with the goal of achieving LEED Platinum
• Leverage the surrounding natural environment to reduce our energy use
• Facilitate greater connections across the entire UNC campus with a new orientation towards Blythe Drive
• The new social and study spaces will provide students more opportunities to gather on campus and will position the Business School as the epicenter of South Campus, providing students across the University a place to study, socialize, and grab a cup of coffee.

Investment in North Carolina

In June 2020, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a bill to provide $75 million in funding to expand and enhance the UNC Kenan-Flagler campus. To receive these funds, the School needed to raise $75 million in private funding by June 30, 2022, and the community accepted the challenge.

Steven D. Bell (BA ’67), chairman of Bell Partners, has spent his life investing in people and real estate. Now he’s made his greatest investment ever in both: He pledged $25 million to support the new building.

His goal: Make North Carolina even better.

“More graduates will benefit our entire state for decades to come and ultimately create dramatic change,” he says. “UNC graduates become better employees, employers, entrepreneurs and contributors to our state. Having one of the best business schools in the U.S. right here in Chapel Hill is a precious resource for our state and our region.”

We received a second $25 million pledge by an anonymous donor to support the new building.

“These two incredible gifts will allow us to expand our Undergraduate Business Program, giving us the opportunity to teach more students and spur economic growth in our state,” says Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz.