UNC Societies
Honor Planetarium Donor
News and Observer, Friday
Morning, May 19, 1950
John Motley Morehead, University alumnus and widely known philanthropist, industrialist and diplomat, was presented tonight the Di-Phi award by the University's two debating societies for making the greatest contribution to the university, the state, and the nation.
The highest honors bestowed by the dialectic Senate and the Philanthropic Assembly, the award takes the form of an elaborate scroll bearing the citation and a handsomely inscribed medal with an engraving of the Old Well on it.
Senator frank Porter Graham was the recipient of the award last year.
Also honored by the two societies at a banquet session in the Morehead Planetarium Building, a gift of Morehead to the University was A.T. Brauer of the mathematics department, who was the recipient of the Institute of Nuclear Studies last fall for "outstanding contributions to science in the South." Dr. Brauer received the Di-Phi faculty award for "having done the most outstanding work among faculty members during the past year."
Graham Jones of Winston-Salem, speaker of the Phi Assembly, presented the awards. In his citation Jones said that Morehead is being honored "for his contributions of the planetarium, the Morehead building, and the Morehead scholarships, three acts which have and will in the future advance the education of all ages of people in this State and region, both in peace and in war, and for his labors as a pioneer in American industry and technology."
Charles Long of Thomasville, president of the Di Senate, presided.
University administrative officials and a number of faculty members were present.
Morehead related the history of the Zeiss planetarium instrument and described how he procured the university instrument from the Royal Swedish Astronomical Society.
Comparing the planetarium in its relation to astronomy with that of the phonograph to music, Morehead said, "the planetarium has recorded the heavenly bodies and reproduced them and their movements in their paths for our contemplation and study."
Pointing out that 180,071 people to date have witnessed the Morehead Planetarium shows, he said "It is indeed a callous person who can contemplate the infinite shadows of heaven and not appreciate the sublimity, he strength, the beauty, the truth, the dignity, and the splendor of one of the greatest passages in our language, and which has come down to us through 3,500 years-the utterance of perhaps the greatest poet whoever lived--"the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork, day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge."
Dr. Bauer said that he was impressed by the Di Senate's and the hi Assembly establishment of an award to honor the university faculty "because it shows the students' interest in work being done by faculty members.'
Discussing the teaching of mathematics in the university, he said he believed all freshmen should study mathematics 'because it gives them the ability to think in a logical way.'