Gillian Kepley
Photo by Jon Gardiner
Gillian Kepley
Senior tour guide, UNC Visitors Center
Class year
2025
Scholarships and enrichment programs
N.C. home
Apex and Kill Devil Hills
Giving tours of Carolina strengthened Gillian Kepley’s love for it
Working at the UNC Visitors Center helped the new graduate afford a college education that will allow her to serve North Carolinians.
If there was a record book for most campus tours given by a Carolina student, Gillian Kepley ’25 would probably find her name at the top.
The senior has worked at the UNC Visitors Center for four years, introducing prospective students, their families and curious visitors from the state, country and world to the nation's first public university.
“I’ve given close to 250 tours,” says Kepley, an aspiring civil rights attorney who grew up in Apex.
Kepley embraces the responsibility of presenting Carolina to its visitors. “This is their first time on campus, and I want to make it just as special for them as every day is on this campus for me,” she says. (Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)
The chance to attend her mother’s alma mater appealed to Kepley. As did UNC-Chapel Hill's academic excellence and affordability.
“I was thinking, ‘What is going to be the highest quality education for the price I’m paying?’ and without a doubt, it was Carolina,” Kepley says. “A little tour guide fun fact: Carolina has been ranked No. 1 in best academic value in higher education for the past 20 years.”
This Federal Work Study role serves a practical purpose for Kepley, helping her cover expenses as she pays her way through college along with some help from her parents.
"I was thinking, ‘What is going to be the highest quality education for the price I’m paying?’ and without a doubt, it was Carolina.”
But she also cherishes the job itself. Kepley gets to walk around the beautiful campus she calls home and tell people the story of the University she’s grown to love. She enjoys answering questions from high schoolers and interacting with grandparents of current students and alumni returning to campus with children of their own.
“I find myself going back because I genuinely love the work,” says Kepley, a political science major and member of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most honored college honorary society.
That love shines through on a mid-April tour. Kepley guides a group of 40 visitors through various campus landmarks and attractions, from the Old Well and Wilson Library to the Frank Porter Graham Student Union and Bell Tower.
The tour ends in the stands of Kenan Stadium. Kepley’s brought them here, she explains, not only to talk about Carolina athletics but also highlight the place where students become alumni at Commencement.
Her graduation day fast approaching, Kepley will return to this tour stop in May, this time with a Carolina Blue cap and gown.
“Looking back on my last four years here,” Kepley says, “I don’t think I could have had a better experience anywhere else.”
Although Kepley (right) never took a college tour herself, she received an unofficial one from her older sister, Camryn ’21, ’22 (MA), and was sold on Carolina. (Submitted photo)
Coming to Carolina
For as many tours as Kepley’s given, she never took one herself because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Kepley’s older sister, Camryn ’21, ’22 (M.A.), gave her an unofficial tour of Carolina. “We got Med Deli on Franklin Street, brought it to campus, ate lunch and she showed me around a ghost town,” she says. “But I fell in love with the ghost town.”
Kepley came to Carolina with a good idea of who she was and what her vocation might be.
Nearly
of undergraduate students graduate from Carolina without student loans.
Nearly
UNC-Chapel Hill alumni live in North Carolina, 54% of total living alumni.
“I do think public service is my calling,” she says. “I always grew up volunteering. My parents instilled that in me.”
Many of her classes have been fulfilling and have informed her calling to law, Kepley says. Outside of the classroom, experiences with her service fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega — from serving in food pantries to tutoring children — have solidified her passion for public service.
She’s also found friends and fun experiences through Lutheran Campus Ministry and Carolina’s club rugby team.
At the Visitors Center, Kepley’s work equips her with numerous soft skills she knows will remain valuable. Public speaking is perhaps the most important for her.
“You have to be able to get up in front of a judge or a jury and speak the truth and your argument,” Kepley says.
In addition to leading tours at the UNC Visitors Center, Kepley has found community through Lutheran Campus Ministry and Carolina’s club rugby team. (Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)
Helping North Carolinians
Before law school, Kepley will spend a year with the Carolina College Advising Corps, assisting students in Dare County at First Flight High School and Cape Hatteras Secondary School. CCAC, run by Carolina’s enrollment division, has a mission to help low-income, first-generation and underserved North Carolina high school students attend college.
The program builds a college-going culture by placing advisers like Kepley in 65 partner high schools in 34 counties.
“I've really enjoyed my time at Carolina, and I want to be able to make it known that college is possible for students who might not think it is,” Kepley says.
After four years of giving tours, there’s one fun fact Kepley hasn't grown tired of sharing.
“I've really enjoyed my time at Carolina, and I want to be able to make it known that college is possible for students who might not think it is."
When stopping at the iconic Davie Poplar tree on McCorkle Place, she explains how in 1993, during Carolina’s bicentennial, the University gave away saplings to school children so Davie Poplars can grow in each of the state’s 100 counties.
In a similar way, Kepley and many of her fellow graduates will soon spread across North Carolina, using their UNC-Chapel Hill education to enrich the state and help its people.
“I don't think I realized it until I came to Carolina just how lucky I am to be in this state,” she says.
Story by Brennan Doherty, University Communications. Video by John Roberts, University Communications.
Before embarking on a law career, Kepley will spend a year working with the Carolina College Advising Corps, a program with a mission to help low-income, first-generation and underserved North Carolina high school students attend college. (Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)
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