News Release

UNC announces 2006-07 recipients
of endowed distinguished professorships

CHAPEL HILL – In the past year, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill named 35 faculty members to endowed professorships – designations that are created through gifts to the university and that recognize excellence in teaching and research.

A key goal of the university’s Carolina First Campaign is to create 200 new endowed professorships. Including the most recent designations, the university has created 193 endowed professorships thus far in the campaign, which began July 1, 1999, and will end Dec. 31, 2007.

With an overall goal of $2 billion, Carolina First is a comprehensive, multi-year private fundraising campaign to support Carolina’s vision of becoming the nation’s leading public university.

Gifts for endowed professorships are invested, and a portion of the investment income supplements the professor’s salary. Endowed funds provide a permanent source of income because the principal is not spent.

Overall, the university has 532 professorships in place or being funded. Gifts to establish professorships may be supplemented with matching funds from the state’s Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund, established by the N.C. General Assembly in 1985.

The oldest continuously endowed chairs at Carolina are the Mary Ann Smith professorships in chemistry, established in 1891. Smith made her will in 1861, leaving half of her estate to Carolina for endowment of “such a chair as shall teach both the science of chemistry and its experimental application to the useful arts.”

The largest number of endowed professorships available to the university come from the Kenan professorships, which have been credited with attracting or retaining a large number of outstanding faculty members and adding substantially to the university’s high academic standing.

These include the Kenan professorships, the Graham Kenan professorships, the Sarah Graham Kenan professorships and the William R. Kenan Jr. professorships.

The $3 million Kenan eminent professorships, part of a $27 million commitment to the Carolina First Campaign from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust, are among the largest endowed professorships in the university’s history.

Following are the distinguished professorship designees approved by the Board of Trustees from February 2006 through January 2007, listed by academic affiliation. Kenan professorships are listed separately.

Kenan professorships

School of Medicine

• Channing J. Der, professor, as Sarah Graham Kenan professor of pharmacology.
• Nancy Raab-Traub, professor, as Sarah Graham Kenan professor of microbiology and immunology.
• Park W. Willis IV, professor, as Sarah Graham Kenan professor of medicine.

Other distinguished professorships

College of Arts and Sciences

• Valerie Ashby, associate professor, department of chemistry, as Bowman and Gordon Gray distinguished term associate professor.
• Arthur Champagne, professor, department of physics and astronomy, as Class of 1989/William C. Friday distinguished professor.
• Patrick Conway, professor, department of economics, as Bowman and Gordon Gray distinguished term professor.
• Jonathan Hess, professor, department of Germanic languages and literatures, as Moses M. and Hannah L. Malkin term professor of Jewish studies.
• Dinesh Manocha, professor, department of computer science, as Phi Delta Theta/Matthew Mason distinguished professor.
• Vonnie McLoyd, professor, department of psychology, as Stephen Baxter distinguished professor.
• Michael Rubinstein, professor, department of chemistry, as John B. Barker distinguished professor.
• Martin Bland Simpson III, associate professor, department of English, as Bowman and Gordon Gray distinguished term associate professor.
• Rachel Willis, associate professor, curriculum in American studies, as Bowman and Gordon Gray distinguished term associate professor.

School of Government

• David Ammons, professor, as Albert Coates distinguished professor.
• Robert Joyce, professor, as Charles Edwin Hinsdale distinguished professor.
• David Owens, professor, as Gladys H. Coates distinguished professor.

• William C. Rivenbark, associate professor, as Albert and Gladys Hall Coates term associate professor for outstanding faculty achievement.
• Jessica Smith, associate professor, as Albert and Gladys Hall Coates term associate professor of public law and government for teaching excellence.

Kenan-Flagler Business School

• John R.M. Hand, professor, as H. Allen Andrew professor.
• David Hartzell, professor, as Steven D. Bell and Leonard W. Wood distinguished professor.
• Edward Maydew, professor, as David E. Hoffman distinguished professor.
• Jayashankar Swaminathan, professor, as Kay and Van Weatherspoon distinguished professor.

School of Journalism and Mass Communication

• Richard Beckman, professor, as James L. Knight professor.
• George Cloud, associate professor, as Julian Scheer term associate professor.
• Christopher Roush, assistant professor, as James H. Shumaker term assistant professor.

School of Medicine

• Robert Orlowski, associate professor, department of medicine, as Mary Elizabeth Thomas associate professor.
• Dhavalkumar Patel, professor, department of medicine, as Joseph P. Archie Jr. eminent professor of medicine.
• William L. Roper, professor, department of pediatrics, and dean of the School of Medicine, as Stuart Bondurant distinguished professor.
• Jonathan Serody, associate professor, department of medicine, as Lenvil Lee Rothrock associate professor.
• Nicholas Shaheen, associate professor, department of medicine, as Ray ’62 and Christine Hayworth medical alumni distinguished teaching term associate professor.
• Patrick Sullivan, professor, departments of genetics and psychiatry, as Ray M. Hayworth and Family distinguished professor of mood and anxiety disorders.
• William J. Yount, professor, department of medicine, as Reeves Foundation distinguished professor in arthritis research.

School of Public Health

• Joseph Ibrahim, professor, department of biostatistics, as Alumni distinguished professor.
• Barry Popkin, professor, department of nutrition, as Carla Smith Chamblee distinguished professor of global nutrition.
• Hazel June Stevens, professor and chairwoman, department of nutrition, as American Institute for Cancer Research distinguished professor.

School of Social Work

• Kimberly Strom-Gottfried, professor, as Smith P. Theimann distinguished professor.

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News Services contact: Lisa Katz, (919) 962-2093, lisa_katz@unc.edu