As its ninth chancellor, Dr. James Moeser
leads the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s efforts to set the standard for excellence among America’s major public research universities.
“Carolina has the potential to enter a new
defining moment – of being not only America’s first public university, but being first among public universities in our nation,” Moeser says. “When people around the world
list the great American universities, we want to make certain Carolina is on the short list. We have set our sights that high. This is a great vision for Carolina, and it is an attainable ambition.”
For Moeser, who started in August 2000, making new history at Carolina began with efforts to help secure North Carolinians’overwhelming approval of the $3.1 billion bond referendum for higher education in November 2000.
The referendum is helping fuel an unprecedented physical transformation of one of America’s most beautiful campuses. The bonds are bringing Carolina $510 million for renovations, repairs and new buildings so that 21st century students can learn in a 21st century environment. Also guided by a visionary master plan for future growth, the university is investing another $600-plus million from non-state sources for other buildings essential to continued excellence. The university is also beginning to plan for a possible mixed-use development called Carolina North on the Horace Williams tract north of the main campus.
Among Moeser’s key duties is to lead private fund-raising efforts. In October 2002 he will publicly announce the goal for and progress in the Carolina First Campaign, a multi-year effort to
position Carolina as the nation’s leading public university. The campaign, the largest in the university’s history, has among its goals the creation of 200 new endowed professorships and 1,000 new scholarships and fellowships. The campaign is already strengthening Carolina’s competitive position among America’s greatest research universities, both public and private.
“Two years ago, I pledged to the people of North Carolina to take the critical investment they made in Carolina’s future through the bond referendum and at least triple it in private support to this
university,” Moeser says. “We shall make good on that pledge at a very minimum.”
Planning strategically for UNC’s long-term future has been the hallmark of Moeser’s administration. Under his leadership, Carolina launched an initiative committing at least $245 million over the next decade to the emerging field of genome sciences.
The public-private partnership positions Carolina to be a national leader in determining how the genomics revolution will change the ways in which doctors treat diseases, scientists design drugs and farmers grow crops. Carolina recently cracked the top 20 list, as compiled by the National Science Foundation, of national universities receiving federal science and engineering funding. That achievement is remarkable considering Carolina has no engineering school.
Such emphasis on science is balanced by an equal commitment to the arts and humanities. “The humanities and social sciences are our historical areas of strength,” Moeser says. “We also have an obligation to provide our students and this region with the finest in the arts, and to preserve the incredible architectural archive of the historic campus. I subscribe to Thomas Jefferson’s view that we teach with the built environments we create in buildings and landscapes.”
Moeser moved quickly to fill key administrative posts. In 2001, he tapped Dr. Robert Shelton, a physicist who led research at the University of California Office of President, to become provost and executive vice chancellor and lead a campus wide effort to determine future academic priorities. Nancy Suttenfield,
former vice president for finance and administration at Case Western Reserve University, joined as vice chancellor for finance and administration. Dr. Tony Waldrop, a Morehead Scholar and track star, returned to UNC as vice chancellor for research and graduate studies.
Other focal points of Moeser’s first two years have included vigorously pursuing efforts to create a more global university, advocating for continued improvements in the quality of the freshman class, expanding growth in research funding and increasing emphasis on technology-transfer activities because of the direct impact faculty research has on the state’s economy.
On campus, Moeser has supported efforts to enhance undergraduate education, advance the Carolina Computing Initiative and its laptop computer requirement for freshmen and review the student judiciary and Honor Court systems. He has also championed the university’s longtime commitment to diversity. Recent accolades include The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education’s survey showing Carolina had the most tenured black faculty – 51 – among the nation’s highly ranked universities. Carolina ranked 14th among the top 50 campuses for African-Americans as listed by Black Enterprise magazine. That ranking, the highest for a major public university, was based on a survey to determine which schools were good social and academic fits for black students.
Moeser was unanimously elected chancellor in April 2000 by the UNC Board of Governors and arrived after four years as chancellor of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.Aconcert organist, Moeser began his career in 1966 at the University of Kansas as an assistant professor and chairman of the department of organ. He became dean of the School of Fine Arts in 1975. In 1984, he was
named Althaus Distinguished Professor of Organ, becoming the first academic dean at Kansas ever to hold an endowed chair. In 1986, Moeser joined The Pennsylvania State University as dean of the
College of Arts and Architecture and executive director of University Arts Services. Six years later, he became vice president for academic affairs and provost of the University of South Carolina, a post he held until becoming Nebraska’s chancellor in 1996.
In 2001, Moeser was named to the National
Board for College Education, part of a national
advisory committee guiding the College Board in
introducing U.S. seventh-graders to the college
admissions process and encouraging them to consider
college.
As a member of the Board of Governors of the Josephson Institute of Ethics, Moeser helped UNC partner with the institute and the North Carolina High School Athletic Association to bring hundreds
of youth coaches from around the state to an ethics seminar in spring 2001. The seminar was part of the institute’s national campaign to implement the Arizona Sports Summit Accord, crafted in 1999 by nearly 50 influential leaders including Moeser.
The chancellor is a past member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges and past chair of its technology transfer commission. He was on the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. In North Carolina, he is a trustee of the North Carolina Symphony Society Inc. and a member of the Greater Triangle Regional Council.
A native of Colorado City, Texas, Moeser received a bachelor's of music degree with honors in 1961 and a master's of music in musicology in 1964 from the University of Texas at Austin. The Graduate School at Texas honored Moeser in 2001 with its Outstanding Alumnus Award. Moeser, a Fulbright scholar, graduated
with a doctorate in musical arts from the University of Michigan in 1967. A past president of the American Guild of Organists, Moeser has chaired several national organ pedagogy conferences.
Moeser is married to Dr. Susan Dickerson Moeser, a fellow concert organist and lecturer in music and university organist at UNC. He has two children from a prior marriage: a son, Chris, a law student at the University of Arizona, and a daughter, Carter, a physical therapist in Tacoma, Wash.
