NEWS

By SUSAN PHILLIPS
News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Two University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professors have been found to exemplify the "ideals and objectives" of Thomas Jefferson and both have been tapped to receive the 2002 awards founded in his name.

Recipients of this year’s Thomas Jefferson Awards are Chuck Stone, Walter Spearman professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and lecturer in the School of Law’s annual Festival of Legal Learning, and Ruel Tyson, professor of religious studies and director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities.

The annual Thomas Jefferson Award, which includes a monetary prize, was created in 1961 by the Robert Earll McConnell Foundation to honor a faculty member who "through personal influence and performance of duty in teaching, writing and scholarship has best exemplified the ideals and objectives of Thomas Jefferson."

Candidates are nominated by Carolina faculty, and a seven-member Faculty Committee on Honorary Degrees selects the winner.

A man of many talents and eclectic knowledge, Stone first and foremost is an outstanding teacher whose classes fill semester after semester –- often with a waiting list.

According to his nominating materials submitted by Boka W. Hadzija, professor of pharmacy, he is "one of the university’s most popular professors … known for his outgoing personality and warmhearted friendliness that he extends to everybody, regardless of their station in life."

Stone is a highly sought-after speaker. In April, he will be one of two American professors invited to lecture at a symposium on "Free Speech in a Time of Fear" in Nuremberg, Germany. In May, he is scheduled to visit Haiti as part of a Rotary Club delegation to evaluate its dental program. 

Stone is the author of several books, most recently: "A Southerner Ahead of His Time: The Life and Works of Walter Spearman,"; "My Friend, Squizzy, The Black Squirrel," a children’s book on racial tolerance; and a work-in-progress, "Free Speech, Jealous Mistresses and His Honor’s Eloquence," a chronology of 389

U.S. Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment since 1896. And he has written a textbook, "Black Political Power in America."

Among the recognition he’s received at Carolina are Senior Class Teaching Award, 1992; Favorite Faculty Award, 1997, 1998; and induction into the Order of the Golden Fleece, 1996.

In his nominating letter for Tyson, Dr. Lloyd Kramer, professor of history and associate director of the institute, wrote about two of Tyson’s qualities that he feels he shares with Thomas Jefferson. Tyson has "a rare ability to translate high ideals into a language that other people understand and act upon" and "a determination to build new institutions that embody those ideals and ensure their future development," he wrote.

These are qualities which have caused former students to call him "a visionary teacher" -- one who "changed their lives by provoking them to think critically about their own beliefs" to help them to "develop a vision for their future."

Tyson has been with the university since 1967, and since that time he has taken on increasing amounts of administrative leadership. Among other responsibilities, he was chairman of the department of religious studies from 1975 to 1980, was the founding director of the Carolina Seminar Program from 1991-1997 and is serving a fourth, four-year term as director of the institute.

Other awards that Tyson has received include the 2000 Faculty Service Award, given by the board of directors of the General Alumni Association, and a 1998 Chancellor’s Award. Like Stone, Tyson also was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1996.

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Photo URLs: To download photos of the recipients, go to: www.unc.edu/news/pics/faculty/tyson_ruel.jpg and www.unc.edu/news/pics/faculty/stone_chuck.jpg

Contact: Mike McFarland, (919) 962-8593, mike_mcfarland@unc.edu