By Dan Nonte, University Relations
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has classified The University of North Carolina at Greensboro a research university with “high research activity.”
The foundation recently overhauled its classification system, creating three categories of doctorate-granting institutions – research universities with “very high research activity,” research universities with “high research activity” and doctoral/research universities.
In the previous system, doctorate-granting institutions were divided into two categories, doctoral/research extensive and doctoral/research intensive. UNCG had been classified doctoral/research intensive.
“I’m very pleased that UNCG has achieved this new classification as a research university with high research activity,” said Provost Edward Uprichard. “Achieving research status has been a goal of UNCG for more than eight years.”
Uprichard is optimistic the Board of Governors will, in its 2007-09 biennial budget request, seek to obtain transition funding for UNCG from the North Carolina General Assembly, as it did for UNC Charlotte and East Carolina University when they moved to new Carnegie classifications.
Transition funding is scheduled to add $10.7 million in recurring money to UNCC’s annual budget by 2007. The additional money has been earmarked for faculty, library resources and technology infrastructure. ECU received an additional $1.5 million in each year from 1998 to 2002 for a recurring budget increase of $6 million.
“UNCG has great need for these funds to support graduate students and the research enterprise,” Uprichard said. “For graduate students, we need to increase graduate assistantship stipends, which currently are below many of our peer institutions, and award additional in-state and out-of-state tuition waivers.”
The “high research activity” category includes universities such as Auburn, Clemson, Georgetown, Rutgers, and Wake Forest. The College of William & Mary and Boston College are also in this category. The designation is expected to help UNCG attract even more outstanding faculty and graduate students, and to raise the university’s profile in North Carolina and beyond.
N.C. A&T State University joins UNCG as a research university in the “high research activity” classification. Recognition for the volume and quality of research performed at UNCG and A&T should add momentum to the development of the Greensboro Center for Innovative Design, a joint millennium campus and research park being developed by the two universities, Uprichard said.
The new system classifies 4,382 colleges. There are 94 research universities with “very high research activity,” 102 research universities with “high research activity” and 82 doctoral/research universities.
Carnegie’s classification of doctorate-granting universities includes six of North Carolina’s public institutions. UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University are research universities in the “very high research activity” classification. UNC-Charlotte and ECU are classified as doctoral/research universities.
