GREENSBORO – Chancellor Frank Gilliam boils what makes UNC Greensboro  great down to two words:  Opportunity and excellence.

“Historically, we’ve always provided opportunity, even when it was a woman’s college,” Gilliam says in the accompanying video.  “Today, we provide opportunity to a lot of first-generation students and other students who may not (otherwise) go to college or may in fact be the first in their family to go to college.”

UNCG is considered the most diverse institution in the University of North Carolina system, with substantial communities of non-traditional, working, African-American, LGBT, veteran and adult students.

Gilliam also hearkens back to UNCG’s origins as a woman’s college to describe its emphasis on achievement, noting that alumnae referred to it as “the school for the smart girls.”

“Today, we’re still about excellence,” he says, listing high-achieving programs in the performing arts, nursing, education, UNCG’s Honors College, and consumer, apparel and retail studies.

UNCG students also get the attention they deserve, he says.

“Our faculty believe in being scholar-teachers.  There’s a lot of places where the faculty’s primary emphasis is on being a scholar,” he says.  “Here we have people who are committed to doing both – they’re committed to being good scholars and being great teachers.”

Between the emphasis on opportunity and the emphasis on excellence, UNCG helps transform students’ lives, Gilliam says.

“UNC Greensboro is the future of American prosperity.”