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Public Service

As the first public university, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a long and proud history of service. This tradition of service for the common good has evolved into a commitment to deeper engagement that involves mutually beneficial partnerships between the University and communities throughout North Carolina. The Carolina Center for Public Service is a major hub connecting the energy and expertise of both the University and the community through engaged scholarship and service.

Centers and Institutes

A number of the centers and institutes at the University also have strong public service missions, including:

  • Carolina Public Humanities offers engaging and innovative public seminars and lectures on a variety of topics and themes throughout the year, drawing upon the humanities to nurture a deeper understanding of history and culture, enrich the life of the mind, and contribute to the development of a more humane world.
  • Center for Banking and Finance plays a leadership role in the continual evolution of the financial services industry through support to banking lawyers nationwide.
  • Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility brings together a broad group of environmental health researchers to understand the mechanistic basis of chemical toxicity and integrate this knowledge with epidemiology in order to reduce the burden of environmentally related disease.
  • Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention addresses pressing health issues through community collaboration. It seeks to reduce health disparities through an emphasis on community-based participatory research to ensure that the community is involved in various stages of research.
  • Center for Maternal and Infant Health focuses on helping patients with high-risk pregnancies and families with medically fragile infants to navigate a complex health care system, working with them to make sure they are receiving the best care and support available.
  • Environmental Finance Center is dedicated to enhancing the ability of governments and other organizations to provide environmental programs and services in fair, effective and financially sustainable ways.
  • Institute for the Arts and Humanities strengthens UNC’s commitment to the liberal arts by supporting and honoring UNC faculty’s innovative research, inspirational teaching and imaginative leadership.
  • Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise strives to develop key partnerships—with universities, government agencies, and private industry—that will connect entrepreneurs, researchers, leaders, organizations and residents, create new ideas and entities and accelerate economic growth.
  • N.C. Poverty Research Fund is a non-partisan, interdisciplinary institute designed to study, examine, document, and advocate for proposals, policies and services to mitigate poverty in North Carolina and the nation.
  • North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center(part of the Department of Surgery) combines the expertise of multiple UNC specialists with the state-of-the-art facilities and technologies to UNC Health Care to provide burn patients with high quality and compassionate care.
  • Parr Center for Ethics serves as a hub for ethical discussion at UNC Chapel Hill by bringing together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff and other members of the local and national community.
  • UNC Kidney Center is dedicated to reducing the burden of chronic kidney disease through discovery about the pathophysiology and therapeutics of kidney disease and through the development and assessment of educational programs about kidney disease for North Carolinians and their primary care physicians.
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