RALEIGH (November 29, 2023) – The new Chancellor of UNC Asheville will be no stranger to the UNC System Office.

In a special meeting today, System President Peter Hans and the UNC Board of Governors named Kimberly van Noort, an experienced administrator who previously worked in the System Office, as UNC Asheville’s new chancellor.

Van Noort already has served as the university’s interim chancellor and interim provost. She will succeed Nancy Cable, who stepped down as chancellor last year to become executive director of the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust in Chapel Hill. She will officially assume the new role Jan. 1.

Van Noort previously served in the UNC System Office as Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Chief Academic Officer since 2018. She noted that UNC Asheville was the first UNC campus she visited when she came to North Carolina in 2016.

“I remember vividly how it struck me as a very special place with incredible potential,” she said. “Seven years later, after serving first as interim provost and now interim chancellor since the start of the new year, I can easily report that my first impression has been confirmed ten-fold.”

UNC Asheville is the UNC System’s designated arts and sciences university, with 2,925 students. System President Peter Hans noted that van Noort has undergraduate and graduate degrees in French and French literature.

Hans also noted that van Noort has focused on rebuilding enrollment and financial aid as interim chancellor. UNCA saw a 25% increase in first-year students this fall and a 90% retention rate among all students, he said.

Like UNC Chapel Hill, UNCA announced last month that as a matter of access and affordability, it will cover all tuition and fees for North Carolina students from families that make less than $80,000.

Hans also noted there were 130 applicants for the chancellor’s job.

At the System Office, van Noort has led efforts to improve student success – including efforts to smooth transfers – and mental health support, Hans said. And she led a team that developed online courses and support for faculty as they rapidly switched to online courses during the pandemic.

“UNC Asheville is an extraordinary place with a unique role among public universities,” Hans said. “It deserves a chancellor who can celebrate and expand the mission of a public liberal arts and sciences university, and Dr. van Noort is absolutely the right leader for the job.”

Before she came to North Carolina, van Noort spent 20 years as a professor and administrator at the University of Texas at Arlington, which today has 37,000 students. She is a native of Nebraska, with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Nebraska and a doctorate in French Language and Literature from Boston University.