By Eric Johnson ASHEVILLE (September 26, 2025) – Public universities are equal parts classroom and toolkit. They teach the next generation of students, and they also serve as huge repositories of useful expertise. That’s never clearer than in times of disaster. Last week, UNC Asheville held a multi-day symposium — Remembering, Rebuilding, Reimagining — to… READ MORE
A celebration of community a year after Helene
ASHEVILLE (September 26, 2025) – The one word people repeated over and over was ‘community.’ A three-day symposium last week organized by UNC Asheville faculty to mark the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene’s devastation of Western North Carolina covered a vast array of topics, with nearly 80 events and discussion sessions. And over and over,… READ MORE
UNC Asheville makes hustle plays to reopen
By Eric Johnson ASHEVILLE (January 16, 2025) – On Wednesday afternoon, after more than three months of empty classrooms, UNC Asheville celebrated an extraordinary return for the spring semester. Over a welcome-back dinner of tacos and nachos inside Kimmel Arena, faculty, staff, and students greeted one another, swapped harrowing stories, and settled in to watch… READ MORE
Van Noort named Chancellor at UNC Asheville
RALEIGH (November 29, 2023) – The new Chancellor of UNC Asheville will be no stranger to the UNC System Office. In a special meeting today, System President Peter Hans and the UNC Board of Governors named Kimberly van Noort, an experienced administrator who previously worked in the System Office, as UNC Asheville’s new chancellor. Van… READ MORE
Budget highlights – and lowlights
RALEIGH (September 22, 2023) – To win Medicaid expansion he has sought since he was elected, Gov. Roy Cooper agreed to make it contingent on passage of the state budget. So Republican legislators packed a whole lot of policy into the 1,400-page 2023-25 budget for Cooper to swallow. Here are some highlights – and lowlights. … READ MORE
New beginnings for the Class of 2021
To commence means to begin. And after weathering a worldwide pandemic, commencement for the Class of 2021 indeed felt like a new beginning for thousands of UNC System graduates. AT UNC-CHAPEL HILL, Dr. Anthony Fauci and UNC alum Kizzmekia Corbett spoke to graduates and received honorary degrees. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy… READ MORE
Small UNC System campuses keep COVID in check
(Oct. 6, 2020) – Let’s hear it for the little guys. As several of the UNC System’s largest institutions were forced to quickly shift classes online as the coronavirus erupted on their campuses, many of the System’s smaller institutions – including its Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) – have managed to keep the virus… READ MORE
Recent grads urge students to ‘Embrace the Weirdness’
CHAPEL HILL – Three recent graduates of UNC System schools urge students to “Embrace the Weirdness” and abide by community standard during the pandemic in a lively video produced as a public service announcement. Graduates Annalee Banks of Western Carolina University, Liz Chung of UNC Asheville and Najawa Huntley of N.C. A&T State University worked… READ MORE
UNC Asheville Chancellor: ‘We can do this’
ASHEVILLE – Students and parents want to come back. Faculty and staff want to get back to work. And Western North Carolina’s economy needs it. So with pages and pages of health procedures in place to respond to any number of potential scenarios, “We believe we can do this,” UNC Asheville Chancellor Nancy J. Cable… READ MORE
UNC Asheville helps build broadband in the West
ASHEVILLE – The COVID-19 shutdown revealed glaring gaps in high-speed internet access, especially among rural and minority communities, for both college and K-12 students. And in North Carolina’s mountains, the terrain makes access that much more a challenge. “Inequities in our community relative to broadband are significant,” UNC Asheville Chancellor Nancy J. Cable says in… READ MORE