Holden Thorp: How Federal Research Cuts Impact Us
Thank you to those of you who answered last week’s call to share personal stories of how recent cuts at NIH and USAID are affecting you, your colleagues, your friends and your family. We are still collecting stories from the community, so please send us a note at contact@coalitionforcarolina.org if you have a story you […]
The Stories Behind the Stats
Science and research are under attack. We know about the sweeping layoffs and funding freezes happening at research institutions across the country. Yet for many of us, because this is so unprecedented, so drastic and so immediate, it’s hard to grasp what this truly means for Carolina today and in the future. According to a […]
A Message from Mimi
Dear friend, I was proud to be part of founding the Coalition for Carolina Foundation in 2021. It was a very different time then, just four years ago. Some of the challenges we faced then seemed insurmountable – many days, you wondered how things could possibly get worse. Fast forward to 2025, and you have […]
Making Sense of the Senseless with NIH
“Chaos” is not a word you want associated with scientific research. But it’s gracing countless headlines as the Trump administration pulled the plug on National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding that powers our research institutions, including UNC. As NC Health News detailed in a Jan. 27 article about North Carolina funding by NIH: “UNC Chapel […]
Application Status: Rejected Due to Preyer Commitments?
The response to last week’s piece about Bill Belichick and faculty salaries was overwhelming. If you missed it in your inbox, you can check it out here. Whether or not you think Belichick is the right fit for UNC, it’s clear there is concern about UNC’s priorities when weighing sports versus academics – and the […]
UNC Trustees Exposed for Inappropriately Meddling in Admissions
Just in time for the holidays, a story broke about the secret gifts a few UNC Trustees have been giving their well-connected friends: improper and unfair advantages in the UNC admissions process. In December, the publication The Assembly attained a slew of text messages through a public records request that exposed the undue influence Trustees […]
News You Can Use
We’re all inundated with emails and texts about the election which can get overwhelming, so we thought we’d pick a few newsworthy items to share with you this week. ______________________________________________________________________________ From the Assembly “Two UNC-Chapel Hill trustees are running for state office. Their campaigns are one more sign that the politics of public higher education […]
Something to Hope For
By Mimi Chapman Please note, the Coalition for Carolina does not have a stand on the on-going war in the Middle East. We are concerned for the well-being of all on our campus and recognize the complicated factors at play in the choices campus leadership makes in such unsettling times. The post below is meant […]
SCiLL Looks Like What We Feared: Origins May be Destiny
We vowed to keep an open mind about the new School of Civic Life and Leadership that was mandated at UNC by trustees and the legislature. But the school looks more and more like what we were told it wouldn’t be: a center for right-wing views and something removed or exempt from normal university hiring […]
UNC Takes a Step Backward on Racial Diversity
UNC has taken a serious step back from its commitment to fairness and equal opportunity. Black student enrollment in this year’s freshman class dropped from 10.5% to 7.8%, Hispanic enrollment dropped from 10.8% to 10.1%, and Native American enrollment dropped from 1.6% to 1.1%. This is the first class to be admitted since the U.S. […]