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TAR HEEL TOURING Faculty and administrators enjoy the sites during the 1998 Tar Heel Bus Tour. Applications for this year's tour are due Feb. 26. The tour will run from May 17 to May 21. |
Preparations now are under way for the third annual Tar Heel Bus Tour, a five-day jaunt across North Carolina designed to give new faculty members and administrators a deeper understanding of the state and the people the University serves.
Full-time faculty members with tenured, tenure-track or fixed-term positions who have come to the University in the last three years are invited to apply for the tour. This year's tour will run from May 17 to May 21.
In exchange for their commitment of time and energy, participants will get a sweeping view of the state's varied geography -- from the coast to the Piedmont to the mountains -- and make invaluable connections to the state's people, according to veterans of last year's tour.
"I'd say that even for someone who thought he knew the state pretty well, the bus tour was an eye-opening educational experience as well as an unparalleled chance to meet colleagues in other departments," said Richard Whisnant, associate professor at the Institute of Government. "I can't imagine a better, quicker, more enjoyable way to get insight into key features of the state we serve."
Whisnant was one of 29 new faculty members or administrators to attend last year's tour. The group also included Chancellor Michael Hooker and Faculty Chair Richard "Pete" Andrews.
Last year's tour had 19 stops, including parachute training at Fort Bragg, seafood dining in Manteo, a walk across the mile-high bridge at Grandfather Mountain and a visit with Seagrove's potters. The stops for the 1999 tour still are being determined, said Linda Brown Douglas, community relations director for the University.
The tour -- which is funded by the chancellor's office -- not only allows participants a chance to see the state, but to make connections with residents across North Carolina.
That includes meeting people and organizations with long-standing connections to the University, said Gregory Newby, assistant professor in the School of Information and Library Science.
"At some locations we were much more than another tour group passing through," Newby said. "We visited a breast cancer group, potters and the state zoo, places where the group we were visiting had deep ties to Carolina and they were able to make our visit much more relevant."
The connections worked both ways, Newby said, by showing tour participants what the state was like and letting people across North Carolina get acquainted with faculty members.
Dean Bresciani, associate vice chancellor for student services, said the bus tour provided a unique chance to get to know colleagues as well as the state.
"Being a non-native, it would have taken me years to have as comprehensively toured the state and met its people," Bresciani said. "Even then the intensity, focus and comparative nature of a week-long tour would have been lost. Further, the opportunity to collectively experience and process that experience with colleagues who represented a wide variety of disciplines and interests -- and familiarity with the state -- was rather unique."
"I came away feeling as if I had -- through some accelerated process -- become a native North Carolinian," he said.
Applications for the 1999 Bus Tour have been mailed to all University departments. To apply online, visit the bus tour web site at http://www.dev.unc.edu/pubrel/bustour
Applications are due Feb. 26.
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