Montreal — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill opened a global-education building last year that has helped to ground and unify the various international programs on campus, an administrator told a crowd at the Society for College and University Planning’s annual conference.

UNC has had aspirations for global education, but its international programs and departments were scattered and hidden all over the campus, said Raymond B. Farrow III, the executive director of the university’s Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and the former director of development for international studies. The problem became apparent to Mr. Farrow when foreign dignitaries visiting the university had to be shuttled from building to building all day long.