CHAPEL HILL – Whether it’s his boat-building company or the 48,000 faculty and staff of the UNC System, Randy Ramsey knows the most important part of any operation is the people.

“The University is very large and very complicated,” Ramsey, Chair of the UNC Board of Governors, says in the accompanying video. “But regardless of that, our biggest asset and our most-prized asset are our people here.

“We as a board and at the campus level have got to ensure that we can keep our faculty here. We’ve got some of the brightest people in the world here doing research, educating the next group of researchers and leaders across our country and across the world. And we’ve got to ensure that we are competitive in the marketplace and keep them here at home.

“It is a huge challenge for us,” Ramsey says.

UNC System employees have received no salary increase in two years and haven’t received a raise equivalent to other state employees in three years.¹ 

“And boy, they’ve been hard at work – never more so than over the past year,” System President Peter Hans says.

The System has asked state legislators to grant UNC faculty and staff the same raises they give other state employees for 2021-23. The universities put together a series of brief profiles of employees across the 17 campuses who go above and beyond in their work.

“It’s incumbent on us to ensure that we keep ‘em here by using any method we can,” says Ramsey.

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¹ https://www.northcarolina.edu/wp-content/uploads/reports-and-documents/finance-documents/unc-system-2021-budget-and-legislative-priorities.pdf, pp. 7-8.