ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) — From Chapel Hill to Forsyth and Skinker, there’ll soon be a new academic boss in town at Washington University.

48-year-old Holden Thorp is coming from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He was chancellor there. He’ll be provost here. UNC’s enrollment is more than twice as large as Wash. U., but Wash. U. is ranked higher academically.

Thorp said in an email he was sending Monday to students, faculty and staff that the new job would allow him to teach and do research while serving as chief academic officer of Washington University.

Thorp has been chancellor at UNC for five years.

For the past two, he’s been affected by a sprawling scandal that began with improper benefits for football players and spread to academic fraud in the African and Afro-American Studies Department.

He was planning on stepping down as chancellor there anyway, to return to the classroom.

He tells The Daily Tar Heel that he knows a lot about the inner workings of universities — and “it would be fun to try to apply all that at a new place.”