Opportunities for Support

Gifts to the Arts and Sciences Fund play a crucial role in funding our highest priorities—recruiting and retaining faculty, enhancing student engagement, deepening academic excellence and achieving global impact. This support helps shape the experience of nearly every student in the College. Learn more.

Department Chairs and Program Directors. Endowed department chair and program director funds provide academic leaders critically needed monies to support the work of their departments and programs in the teaching and learning of students.

Professorships. Professorships enable Carolina to recruit, retain and support outstanding faculty. These endowed funds supplement faculty salaries as well as provide support for course development, research, graduate assistants and equipment.

• Eminent Professorships create and support new faculty positions for teacher-scholars who are highly acclaimed in their fields.
• Professorships recruit rising stars or retain outstanding faculty members whose growing prominence is attracting the notice of other institutions.

Postdoctoral Fellowships. Postdoctoral fellowships enable science departments to recruit research associates who are at the most productive stage in their careers to research projects led by senior faculty They thereby assist these departments in recruiting and retaining superlative teacher-scholars.

Visiting Professorships. Distinguished visiting scholars, writers and artists contribute to the Carolina intellectual environment by bringing new perspectives and experiences to complement the expertise of the College’s permanent faculty.

Institute for the Arts and Humanities Fellowships. Fellowships allow faculty from various disciplines to devote a semester away from the classroom to learn from each other in special seminars and to return to teaching with new perspectives and a renewed commitment to teaching. To learn more, please visit the IAH website.

Dean’s Academic Leadership Funds. Academic Leadership Funds enable the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences to support department chairs and program directors as they work to recruit and retain outstanding faculty.

Faculty Excellence Funds. These highly sought gifts demonstrate Carolina’s commitment to maintaining a world-class faculty by providing crucial non-salary support to faculty for a variety of teaching and scholarly needs, including research assistants, travel and the acquisition of special archival and database materials.

Departmental Excellence Funds. Departmental funds provide needed resources to chairs, enabling them to recognize the work of faculty and provide exceptional learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.

The Institute for Convergent Science. The Institute for Convergent Science is where Carolina aims to tackle the world’s biggest problems by fostering greater collaboration among researchers, students and entrepreneurs across disciplines to speed the application of new discoveries and the commercialization of technological breakthroughs. To learn more, please visit here and here.

The Learning and Writing Center. Relocating the Learning and Writing Center to House Undergraduate Library, a more central location on campus, will make the center’s offerings more accessible to students.

Please contact the Arts and Sciences Foundation at 919.962.0108 for more information.

Chancellor’s Science Scholars. The Chancellor’s Science Scholars Program (CSS) brings the best and brightest students to campus to pursue the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Many of these students are Carolina Firsts (UNC’s first-generation college students) and are under-represented in STEM fields. Chancellor’s Science Scholars join a diverse cohort and participate in the CSS Mentoring Program, allowing them to conduct cutting-edge research with renowned teacher-scholars. After four years in the Program, they leave Carolina with the resources, skills and professional network to move into Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. programs and become part of the next generation of leaders in science and technology.

Merit-based scholarships. Merit-based scholarships are a high priority for the University and the College. They allow Carolina to recruit and support the top students from North Carolina and the nation–students who stimulate the intellectual climate and play a critical role in Carolina’s quest to become the nation’s leading public university.

• The Carolina Scholars Program is a comprehensive academic scholarship program designed to attract the most qualified students from across the state and around the nation. The program provides students with substantial scholarship support, faculty mentoring and social programming opportunities, including automatic participation in Honors Carolina.

Need-based scholarships. Need-based scholarships ensure that no academically qualified student is denied the opportunity to study at Carolina because of inadequate financial resources. These scholarships also provide the campus with a more diverse student body.

Study Abroad scholarships. One of the College’s highest priorities is to encourage more students to spend a semester or year studying abroad. Higher expenses related to transportation, food and tuition often exclude students who depend on financial aid, which is limited for study abroad.

• Carolina Covenant Study Abroad scholarships provide financial assistance to study abroad for academically capable students whose financial need qualifies them for the Carolina Covenant Scholarship Program.
• Study Abroad scholarships provide students with life-changing international study and learning opportunities that can last from a few weeks in the summer through an entire academic year.

Summer Bridge and Carolina Firsts. The College’s Office of Undergraduate Retention seeks to ensure the success of all UNC undergraduates through programs that support and mentor them.

Graduate Student Excellence Funds. Graduate Student Excellence Funds enable the College to compete successfully for the best and brightest graduate students by leveraging state-funded stipends to raise the total fellowship award available to top students. Graduate students are vital to the recruitment and retention of top faculty and to the University’s reputation as one of the nation’s premier research and teaching institutions.

Summer Enhancement Fellowships. These provide stipend and summer support or travel and research monies to graduate students. Dissertation fellowships provide valuable support to graduate students as they research and write their dissertations.

Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowships. Undergraduate research fellowships enhance students’ classroom experiences by enabling them to work closely with faculty in a focused area. In-depth research also provides important preparation for many careers, as well as for graduate school.

Honors Carolina. Ranked among the top programs in the country, Honors Carolina makes a promise to students, “Come Here. Go Anywhere.” Funding needs include:

• Honors Carolina Scholarships. Endowing a scholarship is a direct investment in academic excellence. The scholarships connect remarkable students with distinguished faculty and committed alumni who serve as mentors.
• Honors Carolina Go Anywhere Initiative. The goal is to develop a new model that connects academic advising and career services to prepare students for lives of purpose and consequence. This includes programming, alumni networking and mentoring events, and professional development workshops.
• Honors Internship Stipends. Enable deserving students to gain invaluable work experience that will prepare them for successful employment or post-graduate study.
• Honors Study Abroad Scholarships. Ensure that Honors Study Abroad is available to all students, regardless of financial need. Recent programs have been in London, Rome, Cape Town, Chile, Ghana and Thailand.
• Honors Summer Research Fellowships. Provide students with the opportunity to work with a faculty mentor during the summer.

To learn more, please visit Honors Carolina’s website.

Dean’s Innovation Funds. Dean’s innovation funds provide critically needed support for new, emerging disciplines that apply theoretical knowledge to solve real-world problems, such as the College’s new departments of biomedical engineering and applied physical sciences, its highly recognized minor in entrepreneurship, and BeAM, its cutting-edge makers’ space for faculty and students.

Learning Innovation Funds. Learning innovation funds support new learning and teaching initiatives that cut across disciplines and potentially affect how learning occurs across the College. Among other things, these funds support new student-centered, academic success pedagogies, course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) and general education curriculum revisions and updates, such as the new ideas, information and inquiry (Triple I) courses.

Departmental Lectureships. Lectureships enable academic departments and curricula to bring nationally and internationally acclaimed scholars to campus to address issues at the forefront of intellectual discussion and debate.

The College of Arts and Sciences is a place of diverse talents, backgrounds, interests and experiences. This diversity — among our 19,000-plus undergraduate and graduate students and nearly 1,600 faculty and staff — is one of our greatest strengths. Below is a list of funds that support diversity, equity and inclusion within the College of Arts & Sciences.

Carolina Firsts
Supports programming and initiatives designed to ensure first-generation college student success at Carolina and beyond. Give now.

The Summer Bridge Program
A six-week program that helps incoming students, many from underserved backgrounds, transition to college life. Give now.

Minority Advisory Program
Assists incoming first-year minority students with their adjustment to life at Carolina. Give now.

 The Center for Student Success
Promotes university environment that fosters individual success for all students, including many from diverse backgrounds. Give now.

The Chancellor’s Science Scholars Fund
Supports the program’s most pressing and strategic needs, including research and other experiential learning opportunities. Give now.

The Carol L. Folt Chancellor’s Science Scholarship Fund
Supports students from diverse backgrounds as they explore fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Give now.

The Dean Hayden Renwick Fund for the Minority Advisory Program and Academic Achievement Awards
Supports a peer-mentoring program and annual awards for outstanding students from diverse backgrounds. Give now.

Latina/o Studies Gift Fund
Supports initiatives that enhance the study of Latina/o culture and history at Carolina. Give now.

The Ishna J. Hall Excellence Fund
Awards study abroad scholarships with preference for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and students who have not traveled internationally. Give now.

Study Abroad for All Carolina
Supports Carolina’s mission to expand and diversify study abroad opportunities and increase access and affordability. Give now.

University Commission on History, Race, and a Way Forward
Explores and teaches the University’s history with race and advises on reckoning with the past. Give now.

To learn more about the College’s efforts in promoting diversity and inclusion please visit our website.

Promoting diversity and inclusion in science and technology fields.

Executive Director. Endowing and naming the executive director position provides critically needed monies to support the work of the Chancellor’s Sciences Scholars Program in recruiting, teaching and mentoring students.

Chancellor’s Science Scholarships. Merit-based scholarships support students throughout their four years at Carolina.

Chancellor’s Science Scholars Excellence Fund. An excellence fund enables the director to support the most pressing and strategic needs, including research, experiential learning and other co-curricular opportunities.

Summer Internships and Mentored Research Fellowships. Proving Scholars with stipends enables them to participate in hands-on experiences that prepare them for further learning and careers after Carolina.

Solving the world’s most challenging problems.

Director. Endowing and naming the Institute director will provide critical monies to recruit and retain globally recognized research scientists and enable them to participate in international scientific symposia.

Project Catalyst Fund. A project catalyst fund will deliver essential support to fund qualifying research projects, allowing researchers to develop projects up to the commercial demonstration phase within the Institute’s Innovation Framework.

Associate Director. In addition to funding the salary of the associate director, endowing the position will provide leadership funds to establish and grow the programs and community of teacher-scientists.

Professorships. Professorships enable the departments of biomedical engineering, applied physical sciences and others to recruit, retain and support outstanding faculty by supplementing salaries as well as funding their interdisciplinary research.

Emerging Scholars. Fellowships for a new generation of extraordinary graduate students, interns and postdoctoral fellows will enable them to conduct career-defining research and work closely with research teams to ensure they reach goals and stay on track.

Innovation Fund. Innovation funds provide monies necessary to pilot select projects that will lay the operational foundation for the Innovation Framework.

The Program for Public Discourse develops students’ capacity for civil argument, balanced discussion and contentious conversation by building a culture of informed discussion and rational deliberation around philosophical and political topics of controversy and consequence.

Academic Director. Naming and endowing this position will ensure the College is able to recruit and retain a renowned recognized teacher-scholar and public intellectual who will lead this exciting and innovative program.

Distinguished Lectureship. An endowed distinguished lecture fund will enable the Program to demonstrate civil discourse in action by bringing to campus pairs of public intellectuals who will model intellectual friendship even as they respectfully disagree about the topic they are addressing.

Executive Director. The executive director will be appointed as a term teaching assistant professor with a joint appointment in one of the departments of the College and will manage the day-to-day operations of the Program as well planning and oversight. Endowing the position will also provide leadership funds.

Fellows Program. This valuable and unique experiential learning opportunity will allow a cohort of up to eight undergraduate fellows to work closely with the Program leadership on programming logistics.

Internship Fund. An internship fund will support one recent graduate in working closely with the executive director.

Course Development Awards. These awards will enable faculty to work on developing courses that are based on academic success pedagogies in a sustained manner over the summer or during the academic year.

Building a future where all southern communities can flourish.

Southern Futures Undergraduate Scholarships. Attracting the best and brightest with a desire to study the American South is a critical pillar to the success of this initiative. These scholarships will provide students with financial support, faculty mentoring, social programming, and opportunities to partner with southern communities.

University Libraries Fellowships and Research and Teaching Awards. The community archives and digital learning spaces UNC Libraries offers are essential to the teaching, learning, and research needs of the University’s students, faculty, and larger networks engaged in the study of the South. Fellowships will provide financial support and an intellectual community for undergraduates, emerging scholars, and faculty.

Post-graduate Community Awards. These awards will provide financial support and enable promising young scholars and future southern leaders to complete a scholarly project and produce new knowledge about the American South.

Multidisciplinary Collaboration Awards. These campus-wide awards will help build intellectual bonds and deepen the understanding of key issues emerging in the South by bringing together and providing resources for UNC-Chapel Hill faculty and students across campus as they take a collaborative and creative approach to reimagining the American South through performance, visual art, oral history, literature, and other creative practices.

University Libraries Artist Engagement Awards. Growing out of UNC Libraries new Incubator Awards program, which provides research grants for UNC students to use historical and rare library items as source material and/or inspiration toward projects in the arts, University Libraries seeks to expand such artist engagement to include an annual artist-in-residence program that will activate the special collections in the creation of artistic outputs in the visual and performing arts.

University Libraries Curatorial Endowments. A curatorial endowment will produce recurring funding that will enable curators to meet pressing priorities or seize emerging opportunities in its continued work to develop and provide access to deep and rich research collections that document the history and culture of the American South.

Center for the Study of the American South Directorship. Endowing and naming the director position for the Center for the Study of the American South recognizes the Center’s contribution to our understanding of the South and the entirety of Southern Futures, and will facilitate the creative and intellectual work of the Center’s leadership.