University Day Address of UNC President Tom Ross
Read the speech transcript here.History
University Day is an occasion to remember the University’s past and celebrate its future. The date, October 12, marks the laying of the cornerstone of Old East, the institution’s first building and the oldest state university building in the nation. The Carolina community first celebrated University Day in 1877, after Governor Zebulon B. Vance, as chair of the Board of Trustees, ordered that the day “be observed with appropriate ceremonies under the direction of the faculty.”
Subsequent celebrations have featured speeches from distinguished members of the faculty and honored visitors. President John F. Kennedy spoke in 1961, as did Bill Clinton in 1993. North Carolina governors have made University Day a traditional stop during their first term of office – including Luther Hodges, Jim Hunt, Terry Sanford, Jim Martin, Mike Easley, and Bev Perdue.
Since 1971, the faculty has presented the Distinguished Alumna and Alumnus Awards on University Day to recognize those Tar Heels who have made outstanding contributions to humanity.
Beginning in 1957 with William B. Aycock, University Day became the traditional inauguration day for new chancellors: Paul F. Sharp in 1964, J. Carlyle Sitterson in 1965, N. Ferebee Taylor in 1972, Christopher C. Fordham III in 1980, Paul Hardin in 1988, Michael Hooker in 1995, James Moeser in 2000, and Holden Thorp in 2008.
Public higher education began in Chapel Hill in 1793, and for more than two hundred years Carolina has symbolized the importance of education in a democratic nation. It remains a place defined by those values, as noted by Governor Terry Sanford in 1987, of “freedom and liberty and tolerance, the search for truth, the defense of dignity, courage to arrive freely at convictions, and the personal courage to stand for those hopes and truths.”
Processional Information
Classes will be cancelled from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. to allow faculty, staff and students to participate in University Day.
Faculty who are participating are encouraged to wear their academic regalia and line up at the Old Well at 10:30 a.m. for the processional. The staff processional, coordinated by the Employee Forum, will also form at the Old Well at 10:30 a.m. In case of rain, faculty and staff should gather in Phillips Hall.
Faculty who would like to rent regalia for the University Day processional should contact (962-2427) at Student Stores by October 3.
Guest Speaker
Thomas W. Ross, Sr. President, University of North Carolina System
Thomas W. Ross became president of the 17-campus University of North Carolina on January 1, 2011. Born and raised in Greensboro, N.C., he earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Davidson College in 1972 and graduated with honors from the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law in 1975.
After a short stint as an assistant professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government, Ross joined the Greensboro law firm of Smith Patterson Follin Curtis James & Harkavy. He left the firm in 1982 to serve as chief of staff in the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Congressman Robin Britt. The following year, at the age of 33, he was appointed by Governor Jim Hunt as the youngest North Carolina Superior Court Judge at the time, a position he held for the next 17 years.
In 1999, Ross was appointed director of the state's Administrative Office of the Courts. Two years later, he became executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and in 2007 he was named president at Davidson, serving in that role until he assumed leadership of UNC.
He has served on the boards at several institutions of higher learning in North Carolina, including Davidson's Board of Trustees and UNC Greensboro's Board of Trustees and Board of Visitors, as well as the Board of Visitors of Wake Forest University and UNC-Chapel Hill.
His many honors include Distinguished Alumni Awards from Davidson (2001) and the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law (2005), as well as an honorary doctorate from UNC Greensboro (2008).
Distinguished Alumna/Alumnus Award Biographical Sketches
Alan Bergman
Alan Bergman, Class of 1948, and his wife, Marilyn, have collaborated as a songwriting team for the last 50 years. They have won Oscars for “The Windmills of Your Mind” (1968), “The Way We Were” (1973) and the score for “Yentl” (1984). The Bergmans have been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and have received the Clooney Foundation Singers Salute to the Songwriter Award, the Songwriter’s Guild of America Aggie Award, the Songwriters Hall of Fame Johnny Mercer Award, the Cultural Medal of Honor (Spain) and the National Music Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, to mention but a few of their honors. They have been awarded honorary degrees by Berklee College of Music and the University of Massachusetts. Alan sits on the Library of Congress National Film Preservation Board, the Johnny Mercer Foundation Board, the Artists’ Rights Foundation Board and the Jazz Bakery Board of Directors. He and Marilyn serve on the Executive Committee of the Music Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Denise Jean Jamieson
Denise Jamieson is research team leader for unintended pregnancy, STD and HIV intervention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and clinical professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Emory University School of Medicine. Jamieson holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (B.A., 1987), Carolina (M.P.H., 1991) and Duke (M.D., 1992). She is a national leader in the promotion of women’s reproductive health, as evidenced by a series of prestigious awards from the United States Public Health Service, including the Commissioned Corps Outstanding Service Medal, the Commissioned Corps Commendation Medal, and the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service. She has conducted landmark research on HIV/AIDS in women. Her work on the Mother-Infant Rapid Intervention at Delivery (MIRIAD) study led to CDC and American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) guidelines on implementing programs for rapid HIV testing during labor and delivery. Jamieson has also made many important contributions to understanding women’s health on issues as varied as ectopic pregnancy, preeclampsia, postpartum depression, emerging infectious diseases, contraception and hysterectomy.
Frederick Otto Mueller
Fred Mueller, who holds three degrees from Carolina (B.A. Educ. [1961], M.Educ. [1964], Ph.D. [1970]), is professor emeritus of exercise and sport science. He joined the Carolina faculty in 1968 and served until full retirement in 2009. During his 10 years as chair (1995–2005), Mueller propelled his department to the top of the discipline by his far-sighted faculty hires and astute management. Today, Carolina’s Ph.D. program in human movement science, a program Mueller helped start in 1997, could fall within the top 10 percent of programs in the nation in National Research Council ratings. His research interest is in the area of the epidemiology of athletic injuries. Even in retirement, he continues to conduct his research, currently serving as the director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, which is headquartered in Chapel Hill. The center collects catastrophic (fatalities and permanent disability) injury data for high school and college athletes on a national level. Mueller also serves as the director of research for the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE), an organization that certifies sports safety equipment.
Linda Ellen Oxendine
Linda Oxendine, a member of the Lumbee tribe, is one of the first American Indian women to graduate from Carolina. She served as professor and chair of the American Indian Studies Department of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke from 1989 to 2006. She was also director and curator of the native American Resource Center at Pembroke from 1982 to 1986. Oxendine’s teaching and scholarship have contributed significantly to the preservation of knowledge of Lumbee history, language and culture. Oxendine holds degrees from Carolina (A.B., 1967), Pennsylvania State University (M. Ed., 1973) and the University of Minnesota (Ph.D., 1993). She has a long association with UNC–Pembroke, an institution cofounded by her great-grandfather. Her father had served as dean of the faculty at Pembroke, and her uncle founded the department she eventually came to chair. Oxendine recently served at Carolina as elder in residence for the American Indian Center and is a trustee of the North Carolina Humanities Council.
Thomas Hart Sayre
Thomas Sayre is cofounder with Steve Shuster of Clearscapes, a multidisciplinary design firm located in Raleigh, N.C. Working as a sculptor, Sayre has been involved in the design and construction of projects that include children’s museums, historic renovations, art museums, performing arts centers, and both public and private art commissions. At St. Alban’s School in Washington, D.C., Sayre studied welding and metal fabrication and design with Thomas D. Soles. As a Morehead Scholar at Carolina, he studied sculpture with Professor Robert Howard. He earned his bachelor of arts in 1973, with a double major in English and fine arts, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude. Sayre’s commissions and public projects are found all over the United States and abroad. They include Shimmer Wall at the Raleigh Convention Center (2009); Curve Ball at the Nationals Baseball Stadium in Washington, D.C. (2010); Gyre at the North Carolina Museum of Art (1999); and Trajectory at the Charlotte Arena (2005). His firm was recently chosen to design a gateway sculpture for the Town of Chapel Hill.
Edward Kidder Graham Faculty Service Award
University Bestows First Annual Faculty Service Award
The Faculty Council has established the Edward Kidder Graham Faculty Service Award to recognize outstanding service by a faculty member.
The first recipient is David W. Owens, Gladys Hall Coates professor of public law and government. In a distinguished career with the School of Government, Owens has served the state, the University and countless communities through his scholarly work and his activism.
A native of North Carolina and a three-time Carolina alumnus, Owens is the author of several definitive works on local government planning and zoning, as well as numerous publications for attorneys and citizens on land use, environmental issues and other related topics. In addition to his teaching and research, Owens has been a longtime member of the University’s Buildings and Ground Committee. Most recently, he facilitated a historic development agreement between the University and the Town of Chapel Hill for Carolina North, the University’s planned research and mixed-use campus.
The award was named in memory of Edward Kidder Graham, University president from 1914 to 1918, who committed UNC–Chapel Hill to public service by vowing to “make the campus co-extensive with the boundaries of the State.”
Speaker Ban Marker
University to Honor Those Who Defended Free Speech
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has placed a marker on the stone wall between McCorkle Place and Franklin Street to commemorate the 1966 student protests that overturned the Speaker Ban Law. The marker recognizes the student leaders who spoke out against the law and organized the protests, especially Student Body President Paul Dickson III.
In 1963, the North Carolina General Assembly adopted an “Act to Regulate Visiting Speakers,” which prohibited anyone from speaking at a UNC campus who was a known member of the Communist Party, advocated the overthrow of the state or federal constitution, or had invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to questioning about subversive activities. Concerned about the Speaker Ban Law’s infringement on free speech and academic freedom, University leaders and supporters lobbied for changing or rescinding the law. But it was student protests that proved to be the deciding factor.
In March 1966, student leaders invited Frank Wilkinson (who had invoked the Fifth Amendment before a congressional committee) and Herbert Aptheker (a Communist) to appear. Prevented from speaking on campus, both speakers addressed an audience from the other side of the stone wall. These speeches provided the basis for a lawsuit, Dickson v. Sitterson, which overturned the law in 1968.
The public is invited to an unveiling ceremony at the marker’s site on McCorkle Place at 3:00 p.m. A reception in the Johnston Center lounge will follow.
The University Library’s Special Collections has created an online exhibit on the history of the Speaker Ban Law and has compiled a list of publications, archives and manuscripts relating to the Speaker Ban available for research at Wilson Library. As part of “The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of University History,” the exhibit traces the history of the Speaker Ban Law via digitized materials, including photographs, documents, letters and videos.