Inside UNC-Chapel Hill’s Scrapped Plan to Open a Michigan Campus

The University of North Carolina System already includes campuses from Cullowhee to Elizabeth City. This spring, it seemed like a UNC campus in Flint, Michigan could be next.

Last year, the N.C. House of Representatives proposed that UNC-Chapel Hill open an engineering school, which it has not had since 1935. The Assembly obtained emails and reports showing that the university considered an unorthodox plan to fast-track the new school: purchasing Kettering University, a private school in Flint that General Motors once owned.

“KU’s deep automotive DNA, robust co-op programs, and ABET-accredited Mechanical/Automotive Engineering track all offer UNC a turnkey solution,” reads a March proposal drafted by the so-called Prometheus Task Force convened by then-Provost Chris Clemens. 

“Operated as a standalone UNC satellite campus, KU could become the UNC School of Engineering — Kettering Campus of Automotive Excellence.” (The formatting is in the document.)

Founded in 1919 as The School of Automotive Trades, today Kettering is an independent college with about 1,400 students and a focus on mechanical and automotive engineering. The proposal called for UNC-CH to acquire the school and provide oversight, while allowing for “day-to-day autonomy.” 

But the plan was “paused” in April, documents show, and UNC-CH said it won’t go forward. 

“The task force met a few times beginning in the spring semester,” a university spokesman told The Assembly. “After discussions with the chancellor, the University decided not to move forward. Carolina is not pursuing an acquisition or partnership with Kettering and continues to discuss the possibility of establishing a future school of applied sciences on campus.”

Clemens confirmed the plan was not moving forward but declined to comment on “any confidential negotiations we were having about engineering.” Kettering University officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Prometheus Unbound

In June 2024, N.C. House Republicans introduced legislation calling for a new engineering school to better support the state’s economy.

“STEM is the fastest-growing profession and is where we have been unable to meet the job needs, and so we believe that UNC-Chapel Hill can be a key part of that,” said Tim Moore, who was speaker of the state House at the time.

The 2024 Appropriations Act would have required UNC-CH to establish a School of Applied Science and Technology that would “expand academic programming in areas critical to supporting research, industry partnerships, and the workforce needs” in the state. The bill specified that the new school should include programs in natural resources and conservation; computer and information sciences; engineering; biological and biomedical sciences; math and statistics; parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies; and physical sciences. Existing programs in those fields would have been reorganized into the new college. The proposal was stripped from the mini-budget eventually passed by the General Assembly.

The Prometheus Task Force, a group of eight university leaders and consultants from UNC-CH’s business school, was tasked with exploring options for the college. Paul Friga, a clinical professor of strategy and entrepreneurship, led the effort. (Friga did not respond to interview requests.)

According to the Kettering proposal, UNC-CH already had a plan to attract 1,600 students over the next 15 years by building on Chapel Hill’s existing strengths. In that plan, the college would have five departments: biomedical engineering, environmental engineering, applied physical sciences, computer science, and statistics/operations research.

Missing from that list of departments is mechanical engineering, one of the strengths of North Carolina State University less than 25 miles away. 

That difference was by design. Some legislators worried about conflicts with N.C. State, even though Moore said Chapel Hill would focus on “a different type of engineering.”

But documents show the Prometheus Task Force members worried that a new engineering school would falter without offering mechanical, the No. 2 engineering concentration nationally behind electrical. “By excluding this second most popular engineering discipline—projected to grow 11% annually through 2033—UNC may risk undermining its competitiveness, reputation, and capacity to meet industry needs,” the proposal says.

Enter Kettering.

The Michigan school would accelerate UNC-CH’s timeline, providing “approximately 600+ additional engineering students, $200M+ in Net Assets, and relationships with over 500 engineering companies within 2-3 years,” the proposal states. It would also allow UNC-CH to expand into mechanical engineering without antagonizing N.C. State by locating its department 700 miles away in Michigan. The documents don’t show how the task force settled on Kettering as a target.

The task force proposed maintaining Kettering’s mechanical and automotive engineering program as a standalone department in Flint while “streamlining” what the documents called its “non-core programs,” potentially by moving them “into UNC’s expanding departments…if they align with university needs and meet professional qualifications.”

The task force also projected the acquisition would increase Kettering’s mechanical engineering program from 600 students today to 3,000 over the next 15 years, bringing in a $50 million surplus over that time. The proposal recommended that Chapel Hill “stress the minimal impact on student recruiting within the state of North Carolina.”

Though the report acknowledged both the complexity of the plan and potential pushback from the UNC System and the legislature, the Prometheus Task Force concluded that buying Kettering would “pursue bold engineering ambitions — launching a top-tier program that delivers national impact, drives student opportunity, and fuels economic development across two regions.” It also pointed to Boston-based Northeastern University’s acquisition of Mills College in Oakland, California, as a model.

Discussions progressed far enough that Kettering President Robert McMahan provided Clemens with a draft of a non-disclosure agreement in mid-April. “It is the next logical step,” McMahan wrote, adding: “It was written with the NC Public Records Act in mind.”

Prometheus Bound

But not everyone was so positive about the idea.

The plan “leaves out several potential downsides,” interim Vice Provost Elizabeth Bakanic wrote to Clemens at the end of March. 

She noted that the task force didn’t include an analysis of Kettering’s debts, writing, “If they were financially healthy, they wouldn’t be looking at a deal.” The growth projections also struck her as “unrealistic” given that Kettering’s flagship automotive program has seen its enrollment fall 30 percent in the past three years, and she said the difficulty of the arrangement would be immense.

“We struggle to fund, operate, and control the Institute for Marine Sciences in Morehead City,” she wrote. “This would be that on steroids.”

Bakanic also argued that it isn’t clear how training engineers in Michigan serves North Carolina’s interests—the General Assembly’s stated goal in requiring the school.

Later that day, Clemens met with Chancellor Lee Roberts, and the Prometheus plan was on the agenda, according to emails The Assembly obtained. By mid-April, the plan had been halted, the emails show. 

“There have been some surprising twists here since we met, which would best be described in a call,” Clemens wrote to McMahan on April 16, two weeks after Clemens announced his surprise resignation as provost.

“Chris has informed us that he and the Chancellor are putting the project on hold and want things wrapped up, at least for now,” Friga wrote to the rest of the Prometheus Task Force on April 21. In May, Friga wrote to Roberts and the new interim provost, Jim Dean, to provide the final reports, saying that Roberts was the one who “paused” the project.

“Thank you for the opportunity to serve UNC and for the great leadership that you will provide during the turbulent times ahead. 😊,” he wrote.

A previous version of this story incorrectly said the General Assembly required UNC-CH to open an engineering school. The proposal never became law.