Coming home: Robin Cummings returns to Pembroke to run one of the most diverse colleges in the South.

• Author: Williams, Allison
• Position: NORTH CAROLINA HIGHER EDUCATION - Interview

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UNC Pembroke was founded after the Civil War to serve American Indians, but in recent years it has quietly but steadily grown, reaching students who have never before heard of the town of 3,000, 45 miles south of Fayetteville. The school welcomed a record freshman class last fall, bringing the total student body to about 6,400. In April, UNCP installed a new chancellor, a native son who grew up in the university's shadow. Robin Cummings spoke to Business North Carolina on the eve of his installation. His comments were edited for brevity.

Q: How do you maintain your legacy of educating American Indian students?

A: One hundred and twenty-nine years ago, this school was started through the efforts of seven American Indian men. Now, go back in your mind--this was just at the end of the Civil War. These were people who put their life, their liberty, their treasure, probably the safety of their family at risk by stepping forth and saying, "We see the need for education for our Indian children." That history you allude to is real. It is something we see as part of our history, as part of our past, but it does not completely define our future. For many years, UNCP was really only the university in North Carolina where American Indians could go and get a higher education, but that changed with integration.... My predecessor, Dr. Kyle Carter, started a southeast American Indian studies program. Part of our vision is to grow that program into a freestanding school.

Q: You're a physician by training. Being a chancellor wasn't necessarily part of the life plan?

A: I was a cardiothoracic surgeon. I trained at Duke. I left Duke in 1992 and went to Moore County and joined a partner there. We set up a cardiothoracic program at the hospital there. I had a very good career, but in 2004, I had an illness ... something called an acoustic neuroma, a benign kind of brain tumor that we were able to resect and remove, but it left me with some fine motor skills deficits.... I made the decision to retire from heart surgery. I left in 2004 and got involved in the administration of health care. At one point [as head of North Carolina's Medicaid program], I oversaw 1.8 million patients, managing a $14 billion budget.

Q: Do those experiences make you a different kind of chancellor?

A: It seems like, as I look back over my life...