News Release

CHAPEL HILL -- David Lanier began working in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Office of the University Registrar in 1981 as associate university registrar and took over as university registrar in 1985.

He has seen a lot of changes and amassed many fond memories in his time at UNC, memories that were much on his mind in the days before his official date of retirement, Friday (July 29).

He has been thinking about the days when students stood in line at Woollen Gym to register for classes, a Carolina tradition that inspires a lot of alumni memories and that ended in fall 1990.

UNC students were introduced to telephonic registration later that fall (for spring pre-registration). So many calls were made to the system on its first weekend, Lanier said, that a defect in the phone circuits surfaced that had not been detected in earlier testing. After a bumpy start, these problems were solved, he added.

The registrar’s office quickly worked with the telephone system officials to enlarge the telephone switch, subdivide the student population for registration and add phone lines.

Then came yet another progression: the switch, in the mid-1990s, to the Web. "Now, 3,000 students can register in less than 30 minutes. They can see all of the info they need – including grades and schedules – and they don’t have to stand in line anywhere," Lanier said.

Working with the students has been the most satisfying part of his job, Lanier said, adding that graduation meaningfully demonstrates the purpose of his office. "We look at those students and know they’ve gone through all of those registrations and clearance for graduation. This office is a part of their life until the end of their time here. And we try to be a part of their life without interfering."

Lanier’s announcement of his retirement, back in January, did not escape the campus community’s attention. In response to that news, the Faculty Council on April 22 passed a "resolution of special appreciation" for all that he has done for the university through the years, and all that he has meant to them.

When Lanier took command, the registrar’s office was entirely paper-based, said Joseph S. Ferrell, secretary of the faculty, in reading the resolution. "Long-time faculty members recall the long, hot days of organized chaos when student registration took place in a sweltering Woollen Gym under the hum of electric fans; paper class rolls; a course numbering system that defied logic; the difficulty of retrieving transcripts from dusty file cabinets; and the confusing, uncoordinated and decentralized methods of gathering and storing information about students.

"David Lanier changed all that and brought the registrar’s office into the age of information technology," Ferrell said.

Then Ferrell proceeded to read a detailed list of Lanier’s accomplishments: reorganizing the office for better customer service, leading the Student Information System Project, creating the UNC One Card Office, installing Web applications for the online directory of classes, StudentCentral, and Faculty-Staff Central, implementing Web-based registration and chairing the Course Renumbering Committee.

Faculty members probably already knew something about these accomplishments, Ferrell said, but many are unaware of other facets of this "multi-dimensional yet quiet and unassuming man."

He was a member of the 1967 4-A state championship football team at Ralph L. Fike Senior High in Wilson. As a U.S. Air Force ROTC student at UNC, he was a founding member of the UNC Sport Parachute Club in 1969. He graduated from UNC with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1972. He served as an aviator with the U.S. Air Force from 1972 to 1976 and participated in Operation Babylift after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

While in the Air Force, he earned his master’s degree in education at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.

From 1976 to 1977, he was Veterans Affairs coordinator for N.C. State University; he became assistant registrar at N.C. State in 1977 before joining UNC in 1981.

A founding member of the University Managers Association, Lanier was instrumental in initiating the Employee Appreciation Fair in 1991.

"David Lanier’s life work has contributed immeasurably to the accomplishment of Carolina’s educational mission," Ferrell said. "He has been a true and loyal friend to the faculty, our students, his staff colleagues and generations of Carolina alumni."

After Ferrell read the resolution in its entirety at the April Faculty Council meeting, Lanier was given a standing ovation. And then Lanier stood to speak.

Lanier said it had been a privilege to work with faculty members whose creativity and energy kept him on his toes.

"We really are a faculty-service office," Lanier said at the time. "The services we provide for students are really on your behalf. Everything we do for students we do for you."

Later in the meeting, that point was hammered home when psychology professor Dr. Peter Gordon was in the middle of his report of the Educational Policy Committee that was filled with data supplied by Lanier’s office. He will be "greatly missed," Gordon said, "and fondly remembered."

Luckily, though, Lanier has plans to return part-time in a few months to work on special projects concerning institutional research and admissions and enrollment.

"We’ve built a real service reputation for this office," Lanier said of the registrar’s office he will soon vacate. "We have a good relationship with the students and faculty on campus. I feel like I finished what I was hired to do, and the next person coming in is stepping into a very good situation."

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Photo URL: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/staff/lanier_david_2_05.JPG

Note: Contact Lanier through Friday at (919) 962-8291 or david_lanier@unc.edu.

UNC News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu