The UNC System Board of Governors unanimously permitted Heather Hulburt Norris because the chancellor of Appalachian State College.
Norris, who has been serving as interim chancellor of App State, is the college’s ninth chief. UNC System President Peter Hans named Norris to the interim function in April 2024 when Sheri Everts, who served as chancellor for a decade, stepped down.
“Dr. Norris has been a broadly revered chief and scholar within the App neighborhood for greater than twenty years, and her service as interim chancellor since final April has been exemplary,” Hans stated at a Board of Governors assembly Thursday.
Previous to turning into interim chancellor, Norris labored at App State in numerous tutorial management management roles for twenty years. She began on the establishment in 2003 as an assistant professor within the division of finance, banking, and insurance coverage.
Norris rose via the ranks of college management, serving in a number of tutorial dean roles over the subsequent decade. In 2016, she turned the dean of the Walker School of Enterprise. Norris was named interim provost in 2020 and assumed the function formally in 2021.
“Interim Chancellor Norris has been a gentle and therapeutic presence via the very troublesome months following Hurricane Helene.”
Peter Hans, UNC System president
“I used to be first drawn to App State due to the college’s dedication to scholar success, which stays robust right this moment,” Norris stated in a press release. “It’s my nice honor to proceed to serve this college, and the communities we serve. Collectively, we are going to proceed constructing upon a robust basis of educational excellence and dedication to the folks of our area.”
In his nomination speech, Hans referred to as Norris somebody who is aware of the establishment “from high to backside” and brings an formidable imaginative and prescient for the mountain college. He additionally cited Norris’s management after Hurricane Helene swept via Western North Carolina and precipitated injury all through the area, together with the Boone campus.
“Interim Chancellor Norris has been a gentle and therapeutic presence via the very troublesome months following Hurricane Helene,” Hans stated. “Simply seeing the information protection of this college within the weeks after the catastrophe, you bought a transparent sense of the neighborhood coming collectively, leaning into the mission of serving the broader area, and drawing power from a shared ordeal. It’s proof of actual management.”
The choice of Norris makes her the third UNC System interim chancellor prior to now two years to safe the highest job completely, alongside UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee Roberts and UNC-Asheville Chancellor Kimberly van Noort.
In just a little greater than a 12 months, 5 new chancellors have assumed everlasting roles within the UNC System. (Hans has beforehand attributed the variety of openings to delayed retirements from the pandemic and pure turnover.)
Two chancellor searches stay underway within the system. Elizabeth Metropolis State College started its search in December after Karrie Dixon left to grow to be chancellor of North Carolina Central College. North Carolina State College’s search can also be in progress following Randy Woodson’s announcement that he plans to step down in June after 14 years as chancellor.
Erin Gretzinger is the next schooling reporter at The Meeting. She was beforehand a reporting fellow at The Chronicle of Greater Training and is a graduate of the College of Wisconsin at Madison. You’ll be able to attain her at erin@theassemblync.com.
