After two years of striving to streamline the University’s administration, members of Carolina Counts initiative told the Board of Visitors Thursday that they are on target to achieving their five-year goal.

In the freshly painted Franklin Street offices of Carolina Counts, three consultants are crunching data on UNC’s operations. Their mission: spend January and February there to try and save UNC millions of dollars that can be rerouted to education and research.

This article was published in the 2009 Year in Review issue of The Daily Tar Heel.

When UNC administrators write a new academic plan this year, they will determine the University’s priorities and how millions of dollars will be allocated during the next few years — money that might not be as abundant as it was during the last decade.

When consulting firm Bain & Company finished its study at UNC, it estimated that its recommendations could save the University up to $161 million a year.

Now, the University of California-Berkeley has hired Bain & Co., hoping for similar results.

On this day 216 years ago, UNC laid the cornerstone for a model of public education.

Rooted in state support, the University was to become a place where students would learn to apply knowledge to the people of North Carolina, paying back dividends on the state’s investment.

Employees aren’t sure what to make of the changes suggested by a consulting firm’s recent review of UNC operations.

In talks during the past few months, staff members have expressed concern that the management consulting firm Bain & Co. — hired in February with an anonymous donation — has suggested changes without understanding the University’s nuances.

Joe Templeton spends a lot of time explaining things these days.

The affable and well-respected professor and former chairman of the Faculty Council now has the job of selling faculty and staff on recommendations from Bain & Co.’s study of UNC’s operational efficiency.

Last year, University officials turned heads with their decision to hire Bain & Company, a global business consulting firm.

Now, universities nationwide are following UNC’s example by hiring consultants to help deal with administrative organization and unprecedented budget deficits.

Bain & Company concluded its study at UNC this summer — funded through an anonymous donation — and found that the University was administration-heavy and decentralized, which added costs and made day-to-day operations less efficient.

Spurred by a report released this summer, University officials will spend the year working to reduce bureaucracy, eliminate redundant functions and reverse a trend of expanding administrative costs.

Story reprinted from July 9 issue of The Daily Tar Heel.


Chancellor Holden Thorp has told the University to prepare for a $60 million cut to University funding.

Story reprinted from July 16 issue of The Daily Tar Heel.

After hundreds of interviews and months of campuswide research and analysis, financial consulting firm Bain & Company has boiled down its findings into a 15-page PowerPoint presentation.

This presentation, specially prepared for the Board of Trustees’ meeting later this month, is the first look at Bain’s final report.