WILMINGTON (July 1, 2022) – UNC Wilmington’s outgoing Chancellor, Jose “Zito” Sartarelli, recalls that when he arrived seven years ago, he wanted UNCW to be recognized for excellence, as a global player, and for its community work.

Sartarelli added international programs as well as undergraduate programs such as coastal engineering, respiratory therapy, cybersecurity and intelligent systems engineering that are geared to the economy of Southeastern North Carolina. 

He says his top achievements were that UNCW became a doctoral university, with all the advantages in research that accompany that distinction; and that the university established an engineering program.

“Finally we prevailed and we got Coastal Engineering approved,” Sartarelli says in the accompanying video. “That was our first engineering program.”

Sartarelli also recounts how UNCW became the fastest-growing university in the UNC System, adding 5,100 students to grow by 40% in the past 12 years; and how U.S. News & World Report ranked UNCW as one of the top 100 public research universities in the country from 2018-21.

“There’s 4,500 universities and colleges in this country. To be in the top 100 best – it’s kind of special,” he says with a grin.

Sartarelli also led UNCW’s recovery after Hurricane Florence in 2018. The storm did almost $134 million in damage to university buildings.¹ Sartarelli says that, among other lessons, administrators learned not to put all the university’s laboratories in a single building.

“The best of UNCW’s ahead of us – there’s so much that can be accomplished,” he says.

To the UNCW community, Sartarelli says: “Thank you. I just want to thank the citizens of the state and the people of Wilmington for having supported me while I was here. It’s been a terrific experience.

“I’ve done the best I could. And I think we’ve made this university a better university.”

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¹https://uncw.edu/bot/meetings/2021-22/05_jan/bot-chancellor-report-january-28-2022-na.pdf, p. 48.