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Institute to expand programming with extra space in new Hyde Hall

By L.J. Toler
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- When state legislators chartered the University of North Carolina in 1789, they expected a lot of the fledgling institution.

Now, part of their charge is inscribed on a mantel in Hyde Hall, the new building for the university's Institute for the Arts and Humanities: "To consult the happiness of a rising generation, and endeavour to fit them for an honourable discharge of the social duties of life, by paying strictest attention to their education."

Ruel Tyson Jr., institute director and a UNC religious studies professor, takes the 213-year-old charge seriously. "That's what we want to keep in mind as we discuss and complete our projects: meeting the requirements of our charter," he said.

He will have just that in mind Saturday (Oct. 12), when the university holds a free public ceremony at 11 a.m. to dedicate the building. It is the first new structure in 50 years on McCorkle Place, the university's oldest outdoor quadrangle, giving the institute a hallowed and scenic setting in which to fulfill that mission on the mantel.

Built and furnished with $6.8 million in private contributions, the building is named for donors and alumni Pitt and Barbara Hyde of Memphis, Tenn. Gifts for the building are part of Carolina First, the historic, multi-year private fund-raising campaign that aims to position Carolina as the nation’s leader among public universities.

Hyde Hall's 15,409 square feet of space compare with 1,100 in West House, where the institute has operated since its founding in 1987. The new building will let the institute grow existing programs and add new ones.

All are privately funded fellowships that give faculty members one-semester breaks from teaching to pursue special projects they design. An institute advisory committee of faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences reviews fellowship applications, choosing winners on the merits of their proposals. The fellowship programs encourage faculty to collaborate, to improve teaching and to engage in research and public service that benefit the people of North Carolina.

The institute already has started two new faculty fellowship programs, in leadership training and the teaching of ethics, already have started, given the promise of the extra space.

Fellows may develop new courses and update old ones, engage in professional reading or other projects to keep up with new knowledge in their fields, write books or learn the latest from education experts and colleagues on how to insert the basics of chemistry, art history and other subjects into undergraduates' minds.

With none of the faculty sabbaticals offered by many of its peer universities, Carolina looks to the fellowships to help UNC recruit and retain top scholars. The institute's three oldest programs are:

• Institute for the Arts and Humanities Fellowships, for faculty in the fine arts, humanities and social sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, offered since the institute began in 1987.
  
• Chapman Family Faculty Fellowships, for all faculty who teach undergraduates, offered since 1994 to recognize distinguished teaching. Five fellows are chosen annually; their projects usually relate to teaching but also can be internships in schools, businesses or community organizations.
  
• Public Fellowships, awarded since 1997 to members of the public seeking expertise and scholarship for their own projects, often undertaken to solve problems in their communities. Public fellows, each of them paired with faculty acting as consultants, usually work on their projects part time for a year while keeping their regular jobs.

Since those programs began, the institute has awarded 235 institute and Chapman fellowships and 37 public fellowships. This fall it hosts eight institute fellows and two Chapman fellows. This year's public fellowships, managed by anthropology professor Dr. Catherine Lutz, will begin in November.

With the new building, "we've got great potential to increase all of these programs," Tyson said.

Dr. John McGowan, an English professor and now associate institute director, used his Chapman Fellowship in the fall of 1999 to help a small Durham business by sharing his expertise in communications and writing. The firm, Alliance Architecture, specialized in renovating downtown structures for new commercial uses, contributing to inner-city renewal, McGowan said.

"They were doing an internal review of their effectiveness," he said. "They said it helped to have someone involved who did not share their professional specialty."

McGowan observed that while architects knew how to design and build things, they didn’t always know how best to obtain as much information as possible from clients, so that the finished building would meet all their needs. Conversely, clients knew what they wanted but sometimes had difficulty expressing it to the architects, or knowing what questions to ask.

So McGowan wrote a set of procedures for the architects to follow in interviewing clients, as well as a list of issues for clients to address.

The institute's new leadership fellowships, with seven participants last spring and 10 scheduled next spring, offer training to all UNC senior faculty who may become campus leaders: deans, department chairs, administrators and program directors, Tyson said.

The second new program, of ethics fellowships, began this semester with seven participants from the schools of journalism and mass communication, nursing, medicine, public health and social work and the College of Arts and Sciences.

"There are more than 140 courses concerning ethical issues at this university, and we want to create a community of ethics teachers across the campus," Tyson said. "We anticipate creating an ethics consulting service which will be available to profit and non-profit clients."

UNC ethics courses range from those focusing on classical texts in philosophy and religious studies to applied ethics, those relating to specific fields, Tyson said: "We want to equip our students not only to be able to analyze a business or medical problem, but also to evaluate the potential human consequences of decisions they may have to make. Crucial to success in any field is the ability to make good judgments."

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Photo URL: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/obj/iahbuilding.jpg

Note: Additional background is available from News Services upon request.

Contacts: Ruel Tyson, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, (919) 962-6831

L.J. Toler, UNC News Services, (919) 962-8589