|
NEWS SERVICES |
NEWS
| For immediate use |
May 6, 2003 -- No. 265 |
Photo note: To download photos, see end of the release.
Three with Carolina ties elected fellows of American Academy of Arts and Sciences
By DEE REID
College of Arts and Sciences
CHAPEL HILL -- Two members of the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and C.D. (Dick) Spangler Jr., president emeritus of the 16-campus UNC system and a Carolina alumnus, have been elected fellows of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences in recognition of "preeminent contributions" in their fields.
New faculty fellows at Carolina, honored for their contributions in the humanities and arts, are Drs. Thomas E. Hill Jr., Kenan professor, department of philosophy, and Alan R. Shapiro, William Rand Kenan Jr. Distinguished professor, department of English.
Among the 187 fellows and 29 foreign honorary members named to the prestigious academy this year are United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, journalist Walter Cronkite, and software executive Bill Gates. With the election of the newest fellows, Carolina now has 26 members in the Cambridge, Mass.-based academy, considered the nation’s oldest and most illustrious learned society.
"Election to the American Academy is an honor that acknowledges the best of all scholarly fields and professions," said Academy President Patricia Meyer Spacks in announcing the new inductees. "Newly elected fellows are selected through a highly competitive process that recognizes those who have made preeminent contributions to their disciplines."
Hill, a member of the philosophy faculty since 1984, has written extensively on ethics, the history of ethics and political philosophy. He is the author of numerous journal articles and four books including most recently "Moral Worth and Human Welfare: Kantian Perspectives (2002) and "Respect, Pluralism and Justice: Kantian Perspectives" (2000), both published by Oxford University Press.
He was a National Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa as an undergraduate at Harvard University, and a Rhodes Scholar as a graduate student at Oxford University. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1966. He previously taught at the University of California, Los Angeles and Johns Hopkins University. He has been a member of the editorial board of the journal Ethics since 1976.
Shapiro, the author of six collections of poetry, has won many national awards for his work, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for the best collection by an emerging poet. He has also won the O.B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize from the Folger Shakespeare Library and he has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Last year he received the Roanoke-Chowan Award for his volume "Song and Dance: Poems," for the best book of poetry by a North Carolinian. That collection documents reactions to the death of his brother, a Broadway actor who had brain cancer. Shapiro joined the English faculty in 1995.
Spangler -- a successful Charlotte business executive, former chairman of the State Board of Education, and former president of the 16-campus UNC system -- was recognized for business, corporate and philanthropic leadership.
During his UNC presidency from 1986 to 1997, he championed low tuition and opened doors for minorities, hiring former NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney Julius Chambers to become chancellor at N.C. Central University. Spangler also hired the system’s first female vice president and two female chancellors. He led a successful campaign for a $310 million bond referendum in 1993 for UNC facilities – at that time, the largest in system history.
Under his leadership, the Spangler Foundation has supported institutions of culture, public service and higher education, contributing more than $10 million toward creation of 38 distinguished professorships within the UNC system.
Among Spangler’s honors are the UNC Board of Governors’ highest recognition, the University Award; the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees’ highest honor, the William Richardson Davie Award; and the N.C. Citizens for Business and Industry Citizen for Distinguished Public Service Award. He received his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Carolina and a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School. He will receive an honorary degree from Carolina at commencement May 18.
The academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and others to cultivate the arts and sciences. Fellows have included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill.
- 30 -
Photo urls:
College of Arts and Sciences contact: Dee Reid, (919) 843-6339
News Services contact: Mike McFarland, (919) 962-8593
