NEWS

Former provost to lead Robertson Scholars Program advisory board

Dr. Richard J. Richardson, former UNC provost, recently has been appointed chair of a new external advisory board committee for the Robertson Scholars Program, a joint scholarship program at Carolina and Duke University.

The 13-member advisory board meets twice annually to review policies, procedures and programs. Board members interact with scholars as well as work with alumni and others to advance the program.

Richardson, a Chatham County resident, played a key role in helping plan the Robertson Scholars Program as UNC provost, a post he served in from 1995 until his retirement in mid-2000. He joined the Carolina faculty in 1969, chaired the political science department for a decade, served as an acting vice president for the UNC system and led Carolina’s Bicentennial Observance in 1993-94.

The Robertson Scholars Program is funded by a joint $24 million gift from UNC alumnus Julian H. Robertson Jr. and his wife Josie. It brings together outstanding Carolina and Duke students for special seminars, service-learning projects and study-abroad opportunities. Robertson Scholars spend much of their time on both campuses, including one semester in residence at the other university. The program provides full tuition and other stipends and academic support on both campuses. The first class of Robertson Scholars enrolled at UNC and Duke last August.

Photo URL: www.unc.edu/news/pics/faculty/former/richardson_richard.jpg

###

Local experts to lead workshops at Piedmont Organic Gardening School

The 2002 Piedmont Organic Gardening School, co-sponsored by UNC’s North Carolina Botanical Garden, will be held March 9 at Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro.

The day of workshops, designed to meet the needs of the home gardener and environmental educator, will feature local experts covering a wide range of topics, including insect and disease management, heirloom vegetables, seed saving, soil building, permaculture, "growing your own salad bar," composting, building a passive solar greenhouse and much more.

Cost is $40 for members of the public and $35 for members of the North Carolina Botanical Garden and the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. Lunch is included.

Other sponsors include the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, the Chatham County Center of the North Carolina Extension Service, the Sustainable Farming Program at Central Carolina Community College and Southeastern Efforts Developing Sustainable Spaces.

For more information, call (919) 542-2402.

###

Sociologist studying pro-democracy wave named visiting scholar at Princeton

A UNC sociologist is studying a pro-democracy wave that started in Russia, was reported by emerging international telecommunications media and soon spread to other countries. It may sound like the velvet revolution of the late 1980s, but Dr. Charles Kurzman is focusing on another movement begun in 1905 that may hold important lessons for understanding the democratic forces that emerged near the end of the century.

Kurzman, an expert on reform movements, including those in modern Islam, has won a yearlong appointment to the prestigious Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University to continue work on a book about a series of short-lived democratic experiments in Russia, Iran, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Mexico and China.

Although much has been written about these early individual revolutions, they have never before been connected or analyzed in a comparative, international context, Kurzman said. "The wave began on Oct.30, 1905, when Tsar Nicholas II of Russia signed a one-page document promising to respect civil rights, share power with a parliament, and hold free election," he said.

This was the first revolution to be reported by international telegraph service, Kurzman said. By midnight, the news was all over Europe, and within the week it was reported in the chief Iranian pro-democracy newspaper, published in India.

The movement that started in Russia and spread to five other countries followed parallel trajectories, he said. In each case, the revolution was led by a group of intellectuals. Democracy succeeded when the intellectuals gained the support of the business class, the workers and the Great Powers (including the United States), and it failed when that support collapsed.

"The new democracies that began in 1905 may be seen as a dress rehearsal for the ones that emerged in 1989," said Kurzman. "Understanding the emergence of democracy has always been an important and prominent academic enterprise, but it has taken on an added urgency as new democracies around the world struggle to survive."

The book, "Democracy Denied, 1905-1915: Intellectuals as the Social Basis of Democracy," is based on seven years of research. With a team of assistants, Kurzman reviewed literature in English, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. He has pored over activists’ publications, memoirs, newspaper coverage and archival records in Istanbul, Lisbon, London, Mexico City, Tehran and Washington.

Kurzman is interested in the reform movements of modern-day Islam, an expertise that has attracted media attention since Sept. 11. This spring he is teaching a freshman seminar on the sociology of the Islamic world. He is editor of "Liberal Islam," an anthology presenting the work of 32 prominent Muslims who share concerns with western democracies. He co-edited "Modernist Islam: A Source Book, 1840-1940" (forthcoming, Oxford University Press).

- 30 -

Robertson Scholars Program contact: Dr. Eric Mlyn, (919) 843-7506
College of Arts and Sciences contact: Dee Reid, College of Arts and Sciences, (919) 843-6339
News Services contact: Mike McFarland (919) 962-2091