The diplomat: UNCC Chancellor Jim Woodward turned a commuter school into a research university by making sure it knew its place.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Feature - University of North Carolina Charlotte

On a February morning in 1999, Gov. Jim Hunt, state Commerce Secretary Rick Carlisle, UNC President Molly Broad and other dignitaries strode onto a stage in a UNC Charlotte auditorium. They came to praise the $100 million service center that TIAA-CREF would build a few miles away. "Once again," Hunt boasted, "our geographic, business and citizen climates have attracted a firm of international stature."

Few knew the behind-the-scenes drama that led to the public performance. It opened when the $250 billion, New York-based pension fund began looking for a Southeast site. By the fall of 1998, it was tilting toward Tampa, Fla. Repeated efforts to steer it to the Triangle crumbled when CEO John Biggs concluded that the labor market there was too tight. He was wary it would worsen with the dot-com frenzy.

So Broad called UNCC Chancellor Jim Woodward. "We knew," he recalls, "the only way to keep from losing it was to get in front of John Biggs." While Broad pulled strings to arrange that, Woodward marshaled faculty members. TIAA-CREF, which serves educators, wanted a cozy relationship with a university and a nearby site. UNCC, with its University Research Park, could offer both. As for the 1,000 workers it needed, Woodward had his geography department map how far it would have to cast its net. Then he, Broad, former First Union CEO Cliff Cameron and several others flew to New York to twist Biggs' arm. He agreed to send his site-selection team, which already had dismissed Charlotte, to take another look.

When it returned, Woodward shepherded members into his fifth-floor boardroom. TIAA-CREF trumpets diversity, so he had Provost Denise Trauth, a woman, lead the program. Another principal was United Way of Central Carolinas President Gloria Pace King, a black woman. "We wanted to show them we weren't just another bunch of white guys," Woodward explains.

Swayed, Biggs said yes. "It was Jim Woodward's plan that got them here," says H.C. "Smoky" Bissell, chairman of UNCC's board of trustees. "He was the point man. He was the key."

It was a typical mission for Woodward, an aerospace engineer and MBA who mingles academics with big business and backroom finagling. The man Broad calls "the best manager in the system" recently announced that he will retire next year at 65. Major growth has marked his 15-year tenure--the longest of any chancellor in the system. Enrollment is up nearly 50%, the $84.5 million endowment is six times what it was, there are 12 doctoral programs where there were none, and there are nine new buildings, with another nine under way. The school's research has spawned 24 companies.

Despite what he sees as his greatest accomplishment--hoisting the school into the ranks of Ph.D.-granting research universities--others laud his prowess as a diplomat, working effectively within the 16-campus UNC system, ever mindful of the concentric circles of statewide politics surrounding it, while at the same time cementing the school's ties with Charlotte's business establishment. This feat is akin to climbing a greased pole, and Woodward has demonstrated an uncanny knack for knowing when to press on and when to slide back.

In a state where gnarly educational rivalries, some of them a century deep, root beneath ivy-twined gentility, UNCC often is seen as an arrogant kid who grew up too fast in the big city. It wasn't a four-year, state-supported college until 1963 and didn't become part of the UNC system until two years later. But it is eyed suspiciously as its size and stature increase. N.C. State University had 29,854 students...