Program Spotlight: UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
Business With Heart: Inside UNC's Undergraduate Business Program
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, business education is more than academics. It’s about bold experiences, global perspective, and leadership grounded in character. The UNC Kenan-Flagler Undergraduate Business Program embodies this vision. With a legacy of excellence and a mission rooted in experiential learning, global immersion, and values-driven leadership, this program isn’t just a degree. It’s a launchpad for impact.
Associate Dean Shimul Melwani is an award-winning educator, researcher, and leader at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, where she serves as Associate Dean of the Undergraduate Business Program and teaches organizational behavior. A recipient of the prestigious 2025 Chapman Family Teaching Award, Melwani is recognized for her commitment to transformative teaching and student mentorship. Her mission: to create inclusive, empowering spaces where students grow not only as professionals, but as people. With her Chapman Award, she plans to expand leadership education and real-world service opportunities for all undergraduate business majors.
A Legacy of Leadership
UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School traces its origins back to 1919, when the university began offering formal business education. Over a century, it has grown into one of the top public business schools in the country. The undergraduate program, in particular, has built a strong reputation for preparing students not just to enter the workforce, but to shape it. Today, Kenan-Flagler continues to evolve to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world. In doing so, it has centered its undergraduate experience around three pillars that prepare students for more than just the job market: Experiential learning, global immersion, and leading with purpose, passion, and character.
THE 3 PILLARS: Experiential Learning, Global Immersion, Leading with Purpose, Passion, and Character
“It is vital for you to see how business works, not just in class. ”
Leading with Purpose, Passion, and Character
From day one, students are encouraged to reflect not just on what they want to do, but who they want to become. The program emphasizes leadership rooted in integrity, accountability, and community. Collaboration isn’t just encouraged, it’s expected. Students support one another, share resources, and celebrate each other’s wins, creating a culture where values and ambition go hand in hand.
Global Immersion
In today’s interconnected economy, global fluency is essential. That’s why UNC Kenan-Flagler offers over 40 study abroad and immersion programs tailored for business students. These experiences go far beyond sightseeing. Students engage directly with local business leaders, gaining a firsthand understanding of how culture shapes commerce. They return with broader perspectives and the tools to lead responsibly in a global context.
Experiential Learning
Learning doesn't stop at the lecture hall. Students dive into hands-on projects, real-world client work, and high-stakes decision-making simulations. Programs like STAR pair undergraduates with MBAs to tackle challenges for real companies, from scrappy startups to multinational firms. Through case studies, business competitions, and simulations, students build confidence, sharpen critical thinking, and learn from both success and failure.
BUSI 100 | Intro to Business | Connecting Theory to Practice From Day 1
This commitment to learning by doing starts early, from the very first semester. One standout example is BUSI 100, a first-year intro to business course that challenges students to think deeply about the role of business in society. Co-created by Associate Dean Shimul Melwani and taught by Dr. Bradley Hendricks and Dr. Jeffrey Mittelstadt, the course blends liberal arts and business fundamentals in a way that’s both thought-provoking and practical.
Students explore the philosophical, historical, and ethical dimensions of business through classic thinkers like Plato, Thoreau, and Du Bois. It covers the world of business, the major disciplines, and how those disciplines fit together, as well as how business can drive positive change in a rapidly changing world. To bridge theory and practice, the course incorporates the Market Games simulation.
Why Market Games?
The Market Games business simulation is an online exercise that introduces students to the realities of running a business through a fast-paced, team-based environment where they make real-time cross-functional decisions (product, marketing, operations, and finance) in a simulated business environment. By competing for market share and profits, students experience firsthand the pressures, tradeoffs, and interdependencies that define modern enterprise.
The simulation plays a key role in achieving key course learning objectives:
Identify Interconnected Business Functions
The simulation gives students a hands-on experience of how businesses leverage the core business disciplines to drive goals. In the simulation, teams must coordinate their marketing plans with their production capacity, align product quality with customer expectations, and manage finances, all under the pressure of competition. This interconnectedness mirrors the real business world and helps demystify how firms function.
Critically Evaluate Firm Behavior.
Students also experience how key performance metrics influence business decisions (e.g, market share, revenues, gross margins, ROI) and what those metrics may obscure, prompting rich discussions about the limitations of performance measurement and the unseen costs of certain strategies. This back-and-forth between reading and doing deepens learning.
The simulation brings intensity, excitement, and urgency to the course. Students leave with a visceral understanding of how businesses operate, but more importantly, with a framework to ask better questions:
How should we define success?
Who are we accountable to?
What kind of leaders do we want to become?
By pairing timeless readings with the real-world complexity of the Market Games simulation, BUSI 100 creates an unforgettable first-year experience, one that doesn’t just teach business but challenges students to rethink it entirely.
Business With Purpose
At UNC Kenan-Flagler, business education is more than a set of skills. It’s a mindset rooted in purpose, perspective, and practice. From the first semester to graduation, students are challenged to think critically, lead ethically, and act with intention. With immersive experiences like BUSI 100 and a curriculum grounded in real-world learning, the program equips future leaders not only to thrive in today’s global economy but to shape it for the better.
That’s why we’re proud to support the program. Because at UNC Kenan-Flagler, business isn’t just a career path, it’s a calling.