Welcome to the new school year!

Dear UNCSA Faculty and Staff,

Welcome to the 2025-26 academic year! It’s wonderful to see campus so alive again with students. Faculty, I hope you return energized from a summer of rest, adventure or meaningful work — whether here, across the country, or abroad. Staff, I hope you enjoyed the quieter campus as a time to plan and prepare for the new year.

This year, we welcome nearly 1,400 students on campus — the highest enrollment in our history — including 525 incoming students who will be looking to all of us for guidance, mentorship and inspiration. We’re also delighted to welcome 12 new full-time faculty members and 13 adjunct and visiting faculty, each bringing a wealth of industry experience and artistic achievement to our community. You can meet these new colleagues and explore their impressive backgrounds in this announcement.

A week ago I had the joy of seeing UNCSA alumni and D&P students at the famed Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, some of them producing bold, original works that captivated international audiences, thanks to support by our Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts and the Semans Art Fund. It was a vivid reminder that new work is not just exciting — it is essential. It was a great lesson in how fresh ideas and daring creativity keep the arts alive, relevant and thriving, even as some companies struggle to survive. This year, I want to spotlight the importance of not only sharing our craft but also advancing it — nurturing the ideas that will push our art forms forward. Championing new voices is at the heart of what we do and one of many “big ideas” that will be a part of our upcoming comprehensive fundraising campaign. Because the next generation of artists won’t just perform the classics — they will also create the works that define the future of the arts.

As we embark on the new academic year, I want to highlight some of our institutional priorities:

Comprehensive Campaign: Many of you have been part of the process to shape transformative “big ideas” that will form the basis of our next comprehensive fundraising campaign, launching in fall 2028. Campaign planning has been an exciting and invigorating process, one that is pushing us to truly envision the UNCSA of tomorrow and all that we can do and be. Just a few of the ideas that have come up include an incubator for new artistic voices; a plan to eliminate financial barriers in launching student artistic careers; arts leadership in Generative AI; and so much more. We look forward to keeping you apprised as these ideas take shape and many new ones emerge.
High School Expansion: We continue to move toward expansion of our High School to better meet growing demand, support enrollment growth, and advance institutional sustainability. We are currently collaborating with Reith Jones Advisors on an updated Housing Master Plan, work that will define the specific requirements of a new High School residence hall. In tandem, we are also working with deans to envision what the High School could offer in terms of expanding or adding new programs and enrollment in Filmmaking, Drama, and Design & Production.
Reaccreditation: Please mark your calendars for an all-important on-site visit by our reaccreditation team Feb. 16-19, 2026. During the visit, we ask that you be prepared to tell our visitors about the theme of our Quality Enhancement Plan, or QEP: Academic Advising: All-Access Pass for Student Success. As most of you know, we are in the process of reaffirming our accreditation, which is required every 10 years by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) Commission on Colleges. This fall, we’ll launch the pilot phase of the QEP, which will teach First-Year-Seminar students how to access and use degree-planning resources. In future phases, continuing education opportunities for faculty advisors and a new Advising Hub website with information and resources will follow.
AI in the Arts: As I reported to the Board of Trustees last spring, I’ve expanded the Faculty Council AI Task Force into a campuswide Chancellor’s Generative AI Task Force, which now includes faculty and staff representatives from across the campus. This group will be working together to ensure that we prepare our students to navigate this new frontier, while keeping humans and the protection of artistic careers front and center. We’ve drafted a vision statement that articulates our position, and soon, we’ll be developing institutional policies that provide clear guidelines and expectations for the use of AI. I am also pleased to report that we have agreed to a partnership with OpenAI that includes a pilot program to provide ChatGPT and Sora licenses for selected groups of Filmmaking faculty and students, training resources for the campus, and the ability to survey users on the effectiveness of using AI platforms in their creative work.
Personnel Infrastructure: To be all that we can be as the UNCSA of tomorrow, we must ensure that we grow and evolve in the right way: sustainably, with actionable plans. We cannot continue to make progress if we do not have the infrastructure in place to support it. For example, I am proud that we are currently in the second year of a three-year plan to eliminate faculty salary compression, helping ensure our world-class faculty choose to remain at UNCSA. I acknowledge that we are navigating an unprecedented economic and political landscape, and I am committed to stewarding our resources wisely. I will continue to ground every decision in our values and our core mission, so that we can adapt with purpose, strengthen our foundation, and position UNCSA for continued excellence — today, tomorrow, and for generations to come.

Strategic Plan progress

We’re now in the penultimate year of UNCSA Forward, our 2022-27 Strategic Plan. We’ve made significant progress meeting many of the goals of our four core strategies: advancing mental health programs such as Uwill and Take 5ive and establishing a survivor advocate position; working to create a new institutional calendar and schedule that prioritizes collaboration, wellness and interdisciplinary work, planned for implementation in fall 2026; formalizing professional industry partnerships, such as with the Dance Theatre of Harlem; and establishing a media publishing arm, UNCSA Media. Visit the Implementation & Progress section for more updates.

Finally, I hope all of you have a great first day of classes (high schoolers have already been here a week!), and I look forward to connecting with many of you at the annual Party on the Plaza that begins at 5 p.m. today and our new tradition, UNCSA Night at the Dash, on Aug. 23. It’s not too late to get your ticket, which is free, and you’re all invited! Please join us.

Thank you for all that you do to shape the arts and artists of tomorrow, and for making UNCSA the special place that it is. Here’s to a productive and inspiring year ahead.

Sincerely,

Brian Cole
Chancellor

August 18, 2025