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NEWS SERVICES |
| For immediate use |
Oct. 15, 2003 -- No. 543 |
Photo Note: To download photos, see end of story.
Local angles: Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Wilmington, Winston-Salem;
Washington, D.C.; Kennesaw, Ga.; Cumberland and Williamsburg, Ky.
UNC School of Education honors alumni who achieved firsts, overcame obstacles
By LINDA BAUCOM
UNC School of Education
CHAPEL HILL -- Four prominent educators have received Distinguished Alumni Awards from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education.
Dr. Betty Lentz Siegel, president of Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Ga., won the Peabody Award, the most prestigious award given by the school’s alumni association. Dr. A. Craig Phillips, former N.C. Superintendent of Public Instruction, won the Distinguished Leadership Award.
The Alumni Achievement Award was presented to Dr. Zollie Stevenson Jr., program manager for standards, assessment and accountability for the U.S. Department of Education. Mitzi M. Safrit, a special education teacher at Partnership Elementary School in Raleigh, received the Excellence in Teaching Award.
"We believe that these awards represent high distinction for the recipients," said Dr. Fenwick W. English, interim dean of the school. "We are very proud of these winners."
Alumni, faculty and friends of the school nominated award candidates. A seven-member alumni and faculty committee, co-chaired by Drs. Ben Matthews and Mike Williams of the school’s alumni council, chose the winners. Matthews directs the school support division of the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Williams directs the principal fellows program at the UNC Center for School Leadership Development, a project of the UNC system. Matthews presided at the Sept. 20 awards presentation on campus.
The Peabody Award honors an outstanding individual for extraordinary contributions in education and a sustained and significant commitment to improving education in North Carolina and/or across the nation. Siegel earned her UNC master’s degree in education in 1953.
As president of Kennesaw State since 1981, Siegel is the nation’s longest-serving woman university president. Named Woman of the Year for the State of Georgia in 1997, she was the first woman appointed to lead an institution in the 34-unit University of Georgia system. Siegel was the first woman academic dean at Western Carolina University’s School of Education.
Siegel called her UNC experience a defining point in her life. Coming to Chapel Hill from Kentucky, where she was a coal miner’s daughter, she was the first in her family to pursue a college education. "My education was a window to the world," Siegel said. "It gave new meaning to my life and shaped it immeasurably."
Phillips earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in education at UNC in 1943, 1948 and 1956, respectively. Now a resident of Wilmington, he taught in public schools and was schools superintendent in Winston-Salem and Charlotte.
As state superintendent of public instruction for 20 years, Phillips oversaw the integration of North Carolina’s public schools. Under his watch, the General Assembly funded full-day kindergarten for 5-year-olds, established positions for teachers’ aides in every kindergarten through third-grade classroom and provided support for an $800 million basic education program.
Phillips -- son of the late Guy B. Phillips, also a former school dean -- credited his former professors and colleagues for continuing to question, nudge and push him. He said they taught him to "step out front, take over and get things done."
Stevenson earned his doctoral degree in educational psychology from the school in 1984. After beginning his career with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, Stevenson worked in the District of Columbia, Charlotte, Atlanta and Baltimore before joining the U. S. Department of Education in 2000.
Today, he leads a team in implementing assessment and accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Stevenson expressed his credo through a quotation from Langston Hughes: "Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams." He thanked school professors for supporting him in achieving his dreams.
Safrit, who earned a bachelor’s degree in the school in 1989, was nominated for the Excellence in Teaching Award by more than 20 faculty and staff colleagues at the Partnership School. Parents of her special education students wrote that Safrit touches the lives of their entire family, treating her students not as "square pegs who do not fit into round holes [but as] star-shaped kids whose points need to be polished and cherished just the way they are."
They cited Safrit’s influence beyond the classroom, including her work to meet students’ emotional needs through friends groups and her service as a respite care foster parent for children with autism. Safrit said her family, colleagues and students had taught her that "when you face obstacles in life, you must push on. The people with the biggest hearts are the ones who can really make it through the hard times."
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Contact: Linda Baucom, School of Education, (919) 962-8687
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589
