Carolina Counts

Carolina Counts is a program initiated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to address a pervasive challenge facing higher education. Over the years, the cost of providing these services have far outpaced the rate of inflation to the consternation of consumers, taxpayers, or private donors. The continuing economic woes and the consequent reduction in fianncail support has exacerbated the issue, begging ofr a short-term as well a long term solution. Carolina Counts provides a roadmap to managing the infrastructure costs judiciously without having to sacrifice the core mission of the instituation. The program examines the administrative infrastructure including the organization structure, cost efficiencies, and performance effectiveness. It was instigated by a year-long study of the university operations done by a consulting company. Their report suggested that there were millions of dollars in operations that could be saved that could be redirected towards sustaining and enhancing the faculty excellence.
To help meet the challenges of severe budget reductions in higher education the universities have resorted to cutting faculty and academic program as a major share of the reductions. Carolina Counts, however, is designed to be a model to conserve and enhance academics by trimming the burgeoning administrative infrastructure. The cost structure targeted by the program is typically a result of outdated policies, duplicative processes, and bloated organizational structure. This is considered to be the first such program in higher education to introduce the private industry practices to academia. Some of the tools used by the program are process simplification, measurements and metrics, and performance benchmarks and continuous improvement. This initiative by the University of North Carolina was covered as an innovative way to trim budgets in The New York Times (11/14/2009) and Trusteeship (March/April 2010), and mentioned by President Obama in his speech on Higher Education and Economy on August 9, 2010. Besides the significant financial benefits, the program has also targeted and implemented ways to increase organizational responsiveness through reduced bureaucracy and comparative benchmarks. The program was presented in the AACP, NACUBO, and EduCause conferences as an innovative way to solve the long term challenges for universities.
After the University of North Carolina program was kicked off, Cornell University and University of California, Berkeley started on similar programs. Cornell program, similar to Carolina Counts, is called Reimagining Cornell. All three programs remain loosely connected.
Mission and Objectives
The program mission was stated very simply as to make the UNC Chapel Hill the most collaborative, well-managed university in the country. The program expects to achieve that by streamlining the operations, simplifying systems and processes, and reducing bureaucracy to create a more satisfying work environment for faculty and staff.
Organization
The program Carolina Counts reports directly to the chancellor of the university. It is led by Joe Templeton, a distinguished professor and former chair of the Department of Chemistry and Mike Patil, former associate dean at the University’s School of Pharmacy. The program has identified ten major improvement areas such as Human Resources, Information Technology, and organizational strategy. For each of these areas the chancellor has appointed an executive responsible, or champions, to lead the initiatives and implementations in that area. The program has over 100 initiatives underway in various areas of the university's operations. In the first two years alone, it has saved over $30 million in State funding.
Roles and Work Underway
Carolina Counts evangelizes the program and acts as an internal consultant to identify and help the area executives in collecting and analyzing data, guides the champion in developing initiatives and options, and offering technical and logistical support. The champions select the appropriate initiatives as projects, appoint project leads, develop solutions, and ensure their successful completion. In this effort, Carolina Counts actively solicits input from the campus community and keeps it informed through meetings, presentations, and a comprehensive website. On program's website over 120 initiatives are identified and about half of them are already completed for significant savings.

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