The Chancellor’s Advisory Committee met Wednesday to discuss new initiatives regarding public safety and the advancement of the University’s position as a leading global public research university, as well as discussing elections for a new interim faculty chairperson.
Interim Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz prefaced the meeting by emphasizing to the committee members how important he thinks transparency is, assuring them that he values what’s on their minds and that he will be able to speak with them about their concerns. Guskiewicz then turned to his plans for the University.
“We’ve got a lot of momentum right now, and I want to help us drive the momentum in a few areas,” Guskiewicz said. “Bob Blouin and I have already, in the last three or four days, made some significant decisions about moving some initiatives forward.”
Some of these initiatives included operational improvements in areas like human resources and hiring processes, which he said they have made great progress on already and analytical improvements to improve efficiency, which are to be discussed more in later meetings.
Guskiewicz said the University plans to send out an RFP, or request for proposal, within the next two weeks about digital learning and being able to improve access to it for faculty. Though no decisions have been made yet, he said they are also planning initiatives regarding data science, or “big data,” at the University.
“There’s great work on our campus being done in this area — every school could talk about the way in which they are working in this space,” Guskiewicz said. “We need to find a way to bring it together so that we can really work in a more collaborative way. It’s a little, right now I think, inefficient, the way we’re handling data science.”
The committee also discussed focusing more on the impact the research being done at UNC is having through restarting the Tar Heel Bus Tour, possibly under the name the “Listening and Learning Tour.”
The committee also spoke about the events of March 16, when a Confederate came to campus, some carrying weapons. Though not the only inciting incident, this event helped facilitate further discussion among committee members about the creation of a public safety commission, in effort to help those on campus feel comfortable voicing their opinions about law enforcement.
“The objective is to provide a sounding board for our campus community when they feel we could be doing something different, and or saying that, ‘I witnessed an event on Saturday and really like the way it was handled,’ and, ‘Let’s make sure that if a situation like that shows up again, let’s model what we did the last time,’” Guskiewicz said. “So, it goes both ways.”
