News Release

Local angles: Chapel Hill, Greensboro, Huntersville, Pittsboro, Salisbury, Statesville, New York City

Photo: To download a photo, see end of story.

CHAPEL HILL – Service to the welfare of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was the common thread among four recipients of the General Alumni Association’s 2005 Distinguished Service Medals.

Association Chair Anthony Harrington presented the awards at the Annual Alumni Luncheon to UNC professor of English emeritus and author Doris Betts of Pittsboro; Dr. Richard Cole of Chapel Hill, dean of the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication for 26 years; Julian Robertson Jr. of New York, N.Y., who endowed a pioneering scholarship program; and Richard "Stick" Williams of Huntersville, chair of the UNC Board of Trustees.

"The inspiring service to Carolina by this year’s recipients enriched the educational experiences of our students and should encourage others who look for ways to give back to our university and its alumni association," said Doug Dibbert, association president.

Betts, a Statesville native, studied at UNC-Greensboro and UNC-Chapel Hill. She has been awarded many honorary degrees. She has written six novels, three short story collections and numerous book reviews and articles.

Betts joined UNC’s English department faculty in 1966 as a creative writing lecturer. In 35 years of teaching, she advanced to an endowed professorship,

directed the freshman composition program and was an assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in charge of the honors program.

In 1982, she became the first woman elected chair of the faculty, a post she held until 1985. She won several UNC awards for teaching excellence. She began a phased retirement in 1998.

Betts has been faculty representative to the alumni association’s board of directors and won its Faculty Service Award. She has been inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece, UNC’s oldest and highest honorary society.

Betts’ many awards include the North Caroliniana Society Award for contributions to the state’s literary and cultural heritage; the Southern Book Critics Circle Award; the N.C. Award for Literature; the American Academy of Arts and Letters Medal; an Academy Award for "The Ugliest Pilgrim," a short story made into a film; three Sir Walter Raleigh Awards, for the best book of fiction by a North Carolinian each year; and the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature from Longwood College in Farmville, Va. Betts also was inducted into the N.C. Literary Hall of Fame.

Cole joined the faculty of the UNC School of Journalism in 1971. He became graduate studies director in 1976 and dean in 1979, at age 37. Stepping down this year, Cole has served longer than any dean in Carolina history.

He led the school to national and international prominence. In virtually every ranking, UNC’s school is among the top journalism-mass communication programs in the country. The latest Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications report on the school said it is recognized by academics and media professionals as perhaps the best program in the nation.

On Cole’s watch, the school grew from 265 juniors and seniors to more than 850 now, and from two sequences in which students could major – advertising and news-editorial -- to five, adding electronic communication, visual communication and public relations. Accordingly, Cole spearheaded changing the school’s name to the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Cole engineered the school’s move from cramped, outdated quarters in Howell Hall to its new, state-of-the-art home in Carroll Hall. He convinced university leadership that the school needed the building; then raised more than $5 million to supplement a $5.2 million state appropriation for renovations. Cole also raised millions of dollars for professorships and other programs.

He has won a UNC award for teaching excellence and holds the John Thomas Kerr Jr. Distinguished Professorship in the school. After a sabbatical this year, Cole will return to teaching in the school.

Robertson, a Salisbury native, is a 1955 business administration graduate of UNC. He is the founder and former head of Tiger Management LLC, which grew into the world’s largest hedge fund group. Today, he devotes much of his time to philanthropy.

Four years ago, Robertson and his wife, Josie, brought a radical idea to life at UNC and Duke University — the Robertson Scholars Program. Scholars take classes on both campuses, gather for cultural events, use each other’s libraries and work together to build academic and social bonds between the two schools.

The Robertsons have served on the UNC Board of Visitors, which advises the chancellor and trustees on university issues. They recently built more Carolina ties with Duke by contributing half the endowment for the Nannerl O. Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professorship at the two universities.

Robertson was on the alumni association’s board, endowed a master’s in business administration fellowship in UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and was executive in residence there.

He has worked on behalf of the National Development Council, an economic development organization, and the Medical Foundation, which promotes public health nationwide. Robertson is on the boards of trustees of the Cancer Research Institute, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He is on the executive committee of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the National Board of Advisors of the Children's Scholarship Fund.

As a boy in Greensboro, Richard Williams earned the nickname "Stick" for being one of the best hitters in sandlot baseball. The name has been with him since — even as a corporate officer for Duke Energy, chair of the alumni association and UNC Board of Visitors, and now, the first African-American chair of the UNC Board of Trustees.

He came to Carolina on an academic scholarship, but his plan was to earn a living in professional football. After injuring his knee his freshman season, though, he re-focused on his academic talent — and the academic opportunity at Carolina he might have let slip past. He graduated in 1975 with a bachelor of science degree in accounting and passed the certified public accountant exam on his first try.

Williams has served on the UNC-Chapel Hill Foundation board, the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on the Black Cultural Center and the search committee that recommended James Moeser as chancellor. Before moving from Chapel Hill to the Charlotte area in 2001 for his career, Williams was well known locally for community volunteer service and work on town-gown issues.

He chaired the Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Durham chambers of commerce and the Public-Private Partnership, a group of UNC and Chapel Hill-area government, community and business leaders who collaborated on town-gown challenges and community needs. Williams also was on a mayor-chancellor panel that developed a process leading to town approval of UNC’s development plan.

Williams has led the UNC trustees through tough decisions by asking, in each case, what would raise Carolina’s standing as a leading public university.

The association has awarded the medals since 1978 to individuals who have provided outstanding service to the association or the university. The association, a self-governed, nonprofit organization, serves UNC alumni and friends.

- 30 -

Photos: For a group shot of the winners, visit http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/alum/GAAAwards/2005/GAADSMrecips2005.jpg

For a list of past award winners, visit http://alumni.unc.edu/awards.  

GAA contact: Doug Dibbert, GAA President, (919) 962-7050, doug_dibbert@unc.edu

News Services contacts: Print, L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589; broadcast, Karen Moon, (919) 962-8595