Interview: Kevin Guskiewicz

Kevin Guskiewicz

Chancellor UNC-Chapel Hill

What industries do you see influencing your programs moving forward?

Public-private partnerships will prove critical. We’re closely examining the way we build our curricula. Our general education curriculum prepares students not only with the soft skills they need to adapt to the jobs and careers of the future but also for jobs that do not even yet exist. Our Gillings School of Global Public Health, the School of Medicine, School of Pharmacy and the School of Nursing have seen increased applications over the pandemic as a result of what we have called the Fauci Effect. Essentially, students are galvanized to join these programs to learn how they can help the world prepare for future pandemics.

There are several pharma industry connections here locally, and we are leveraging those in preparing the next generation to be able to contribute to those fields. In parallel, Apple’s new campus in the Triangle is going to foster data science programs. We’re launching a new data science minor in the fall of 2021 and a graduate certificate in applied data science. We’re aligning to where the greatest needs are given the industry opportunities.

What developments are you looking forward to?

We have a new initiative that is going to be a wonderful public-private partnership, North Carolina’s Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI). It’s leveraging the incredible researchers here who have led throughout the recent pandemic. It operates as a nonprofit that will progress new treatment options for COVID-19 patients and the 1 million North Carolinians who will suffer from the long-term effects of COVID-19. READDI’s scientists are world leaders in this area and we need to be focusing on new treatments that are urgently needed to overcome the limitation of existing drugs and the emergence of virus strains resistant to our current vaccines. READDI is going to work to provide answers to this while also stimulating economic development, providing in parallel a global recognition of excellence in pandemic preparedness for the future.

Raleigh-Durham produces 65,000 graduates per year.

( ) into 2021 and for the remainder of the first semester. This, of course, raised concerns about school funds and laid bare the vulnerabilities that educational institutions across all levels have in terms of a lack of diversification in their funding.

It also laid bare the issue of the region’s digital divide. As of August 2020, 11.9% of U.S. households reported having no internet access. Wake County, Durham County and Orange County stand below the national average at 7%, 11% and 8%, respectively, but that still represents an aggregate of 45,574 homes across the Triangle’s core counties without internet access.

Moreover, potential learning gaps are feared by the state’s educational leaders as North Carolina’s public schools, which service 1.5 million students, are showcasing increased absences and lower grades, meaning an increased number of students is liable to repeat the school year due to the pandemic.

On the higher education front, the Raleigh-Durham triumvirate — NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke — was impacted by the pandemic-induced limbo imposed on out-of-state and international students, translating into a hefty cut in revenues. This held particularly true for Duke as close to 80% of its students are out-of-state. For NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill, the combined proportion of out-of-state and international students reaches 15 and 18%, respectively. Although tuition does not make up the