Lee Roberts is betting the future of a flagship public university on two risky assets: artificial intelligence and Bill Belichick. At the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the new chancellor is moving with New York City C.E.O.-style elan, arguing that A.I. fluency is table stakes for graduates and a marquee football hire can be an anchor point in the business model supporting dozens of other sports. It’s a daring, divisive experiment to overhaul the playbook of a modern research institution under pressure.
An AI North Star With Corporate Urgency
Roberts, a former investment manager and state budget director, has made AI the unifying principle of UNC’s academic vision. He has promoted Jeffrey Bardzell, a professor with deep roots in both technology and the humanities, to be vice provost for AI, signaling that the university wants to promote technical rigor in social context rather than treat AI as a discipline isolated from other fields.
UNC will also merge its School of Data Science and Society and the School of Information and Library Science into a single AI-focused entity. Administrators cast the maneuver as additive rather than a cost-saving one, but some students and faculty have concerns about identity and governance — and what will become of existing degree paths. The concerns echo tensions that have cropped up on other campuses reinventing themselves around data and computing.
The broader trend is unmistakable. A dozen or so U.S. universities now grant undergraduate AI degrees, and schools like Arizona State University have widely disseminated AI development tools among their faculty across disciplines to speed adoption. The University of Florida’s campus-wide commitment to AI infrastructure, leveraging its HiPerGator system, demonstrates how research universities are moving quickly in coupling compute, curriculum and industry collaboration.
Faculty Divide And The New Literacy In AI
Within UNC, the debate isn’t whether AI is important — rather, it’s how to teach with it. Roberts describes the range: “For some instructors it’s assigning with AI workflows already assumed; for other people who are considering chatbots, they consider them as contraband.” That friction is widespread; surveys conducted by EDUCAUSE and the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning have found uneven policies as faculty members weigh concerns about academic integrity, equity and rapidly changing tools.
Roberts is betting that a ban on AI in the classroom doesn’t square with what happens at work. Employers across the spectrum, from consulting to health systems, are test-driving generative AI for drafting, analysis and support. McKinsey calculates that the potential automatable or augmentable work involved in advanced economies, particularly knowledge tasks, could end up representing a large share of hours. Readying students for that world, Roberts argues, demands incentives, training and shared norms — not bans.
Funding Shocks And A Strategic Consolidation Play
UNC’s pivot is taking place against the backdrop of crosswinds on the finances. The university recently forfeited 118 federal research grants totaling $38 million, part of a broad culling of thousands of awards across hundreds of institutions. Roberts finds the hit painful but tolerable — it amounts to about 3.5% of UNC’s research portfolio — while emphasizing increased outreach to policymakers on the public value of stable research funding.
That context makes urgent structural changes make sense. Pooling schools to focus AI capacity will clear university branding, align grants according to needs and expedite curricular innovation. But library science students and some faculty have expressed skepticism about process and pacing. It’s on UNC to demonstrate that the new school will safeguard disciplinary strengths and support an expanding array of interdisciplinary research (which funders increasingly prefer).
The Belichick Bet And The Business Of Football
Roberts’ other throw isn’t just as old as campus athletics but also as new as a name, image and likeness deal. UNC is believed to be paying Belichick around $10 million per year on a five-year deal, which would make the payroll one of college football’s most prominent. The math seems simple to me: At big public universities, football generates the media, donations and ticket money paying for non-revenue sports. The Knight Commission has demonstrated that, at power-conference schools, football and men’s basketball provide nearly the totality of athletic income.
Early returns have been bumpy on the field, with numerous reports questioning whether an NFL legend’s style fits on campus. Roberts is supporting the process, for his part. He cites Belichick’s attempt to connect more with the wider community, and suggests that passing judgment about a program-wide reset over a handful of game results and stories overlooks that universities have an extended horizon.
A System Under Pressure, And A Compressed Timeline
The structural squeeze on higher education is real. The enrollment declines in recent years tracked by the National Student Clearinghouse came after years of decline — a modest uptick has only just occurred — and demographic headwinds will remain through the next decade. Families became more price-sensitive, and skepticism about the return on investment of a degree blossomed as graduates faced uneven job markets.
AI is the accelerating risk and opportunity. Recent jobs analyses from the World Economic Forum shine light on extensive skill disruption, with emerging AI-related roles offering a degree of protection. Only a very small proportion of workers around the world have the opportunity to work remotely. That premium might be paid to graduates by universities that can integrate AI literacy, as well as ethics and domain-specific application, in their core coursework. Those who are behind risk that the value proposition will no longer be there.
Measuring The Wager On AI And Athletics At UNC
Roberts’ game plan will be judged in the concrete output: growth of sponsored research, employer demand for UNC graduates with AI skills, faculty acceptance without loss of rigor, and an athletics program that maintains broad-based success without destabilizing its economics. The playbook mingles consolidation, incentives and marquee branding — maneuvers that are more the stuff of corporate turnarounds than campus panels.
It’s a high-variance wager, but UNC’s chancellor is betting that getting out in front on AI — and standing up to a headline-grabbing coach — will put the university ahead of the curve. So in an age when tradition won’t pay the bills by itself, the winner’s formula might reasonably be identified as speed and integralism.
