WILMINGTON — There’s a social media trend circulating that suggests asking ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, to “roast” certain cities or career fields. Prompt it to roast UNCW, and in the first sentence, it says the university “looks great in the brochures, but it’s mostly known for being the school that’s not quite as good as UNC Chapel Hill, but hey, at least it has a beach!”
The UNCW Board of Trustees is now trying to change that perception.
Trustees Kevin Sills, Hugh Caison, Aldona Wos, and Stephen Griffin met with marketing firm Echo Delta this week to gauge how they want UNCW to be recognized. Echo Delta has been tasked with assisting UNCW’s marketing team in this endeavor.
They’ve been hired for $80,000 to help craft a brand awareness campaign that emphasizes UNCW as North Carolina’s coastal university, as called for in its recently adopted strategic plan.
Common themes emerged in the marketing firm and trustees’ meeting, according to the trustees: UNCW’s coastal locale and one-of-a-kind marine science program, health science workforce, successful sports teams and veteran-focused offerings.
According to Wos, UNCW doesn’t have to give up its beach-adjacent lifestyle to offer rigorous academics.
“I can have an IQ of a genius and still be in my bikini,” Wos said in Thursday’s meeting. “It’s all fine — we shouldn’t be shunning away from the location and the lifestyle.”
In fact, UNCW’s locale allows it to offer programs no one else in the state — even the nation — can compete with. The trustees said that is what should spearhead the school’s messaging. It has the only coastal engineering program in the country, along with other unique programs and applied learning experiences — Wave Flume Lab, Center for Marine Science — that set it apart.
“We’re thinking about a lot of things down the road that are sort of skewed towards life sciences and health care,” Sills said. “And I think just saying we’re a waterfront location with a premiere marine biology program opens the door to talk about the rest of it.”
UNCW has also embarked on an effort to expand its health sciences programs, offering more nursing programs the last few years and working with the county’s public schools to establish a health worker pipeline. The campus also has a new state-funded building on the way.
Trustee Griffin indicated the work won’t stop there: “We really need to improve healthcare in southeastern North Carolina and UNCW could be the leader in that and potentially bringing in a medical school for primary health care.”
He added he would prefer the university be allowed to enroll more out-of-state students to help grow the health science programs. Per UNC System rules — designed to prioritize North Carolina residents — UNCW’s out-of-state enrollment cannot exceed 18% of its total enrollment. A year ago, the university reached 27% and was fined $4 million for exceeding the cap. This was the largest penalty ever doled out to a UNC System school.
Sills was also supportive of out-of-state enrollees because of their monetary contributions to the school.
“We are restricted in the system from being able to change a lot about tuition, but we’re not restricted with regard to out-of-state students,” Sills said, referring to the UNC System’s eight-year cap on in-state undergraduate tuition.
The board of trustees just approved a 6% tuition hike for out-of-state students and in-state graduate students. Out-of-state students will now pay $22,597 (undergrad) and $22,646 (graduate) per semester; both groups have seen tuition costs increase by more than $4,000 since 2022.
I don’t want to say they’re paying more proportionally,” Sills said, “but their economic value, from those fees and tuition standpoint, is weighted a little bit because they actually pay more to come.”
Griffin pointed out the university does not need better branding to attract applicants, noting UNCW’s continued growth and number of students turned away (UNCW has a 74% acceptance rate; by comparison, Chapel Hill’s is 17%).
The trustees also spent time talking about athletics and the desire for more celebration regarding their wins and wider acclaim. The Division I school is a regular leader in the Coastal Athletic Association, but does not typically compete against big name schools like Carolina and State. Trustee Sills said he thinks some of this can be accomplished with a streamlined logo and specific color of teal, the university’s color, to be used across all departments.
“I can take you to Nebraska and put up a Carolina blue background and say: ‘What college do you think of?’ and they’re going to say, ‘Carolina,’” Sills said.
UNCW is one of the youngest schools in the UNC System, founded in 1947. UNC Chapel Hill became the United States’ first public university in 1789, N.C. State came a century later, both having decades of program development under their belt before UNCW came along.
Though the trustees are focused on visibility on a national and global scale, they also want to be a larger part of the greater Wilmington community.
“There’s not enough activity of people in the community to know that they can actually take part in something, whether it’s the athletic situation, whether it’s the art situation or the information situation, of lectures on fill in the blank, or adult education or or having the busses from the assisted living facilities,” Wos said.
Though both Wos and Griffin lauded the university’s semi-new chancellor Aswani Volety as the man for the job, they did not elaborate further on specific efforts to increase community involvement. They did say they wanted to continue advertising UNCW’s many services for the military and veterans, pointing out the university has the only “Veterans Hall” in the country, which has dedicated space for military affiliated students.
The trustees put a lot of emphasis on its health sciences programs — which houses four of the university’s 10 largest programs — but little was said about UNCW’s other top programs. The second and third largest — bachelors and masters in business administration — are both in the Cameron School of Business; the College of Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts has two entries in the top 10, communication studies and criminology, white also having its programs mark the top three highest growth (bachelors in interdisciplinary studies, masters in integrated marketing and communication, bachelors in digital arts).
The trustees also didn’t broach another stereotype marring UNCW’s brand — the “UNC-White” nickname, which refers to UNCW’s lack of diversity. As of fall 2024, the university’s demographic makeup remains over 75% White — Hispanic are next with 9%, Black students at 6% and Asian at 2%.
UNCW has made incremental strides at improving its diversity of students, though many of those efforts have been stymied by authorities outside its control. In the summer of 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled affirmative action in college admissions unconstitutional and earlier this year it gutted the leadership at all of its cultural centers after the UNC System Board of Governors voted to rid all campuses of diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Echo Delta will continue to meet with trustees and other stakeholder groups until August 2025, when it is expected to provide a firm strategy to advance UNCW’s brand.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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