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, this year, 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.”
Classes
will be cancelled from 10:00 a.m. until 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. In case of rain, faculty participating in the processional should gather in Phillips Hall.
Each campus department will be invited to nominate
two staff members to participate in University Day. The staff
processional, coordinated by the Employee Forum, will also form at the
Old Well at 10:30 a.m.
>> top of page
The Honorable Beverly Eaves Perdue
The inauguration of Beverly Eaves Perdue as the 73rd governor of North Carolina – and the state’s first woman governor – follows a distinguished tenure in public service focused on creating 21st-century jobs, fighting for world-class public schools and improving the health of North Carolinians. Before entering public service, Perdue, who holds a Ph.D. in education administration, worked as a public school teacher and as director of geriatric services at a community hospital in her hometown of New Bern.
Prior to being elected lieutenant governor, Perdue served two terms in the North Carolina House of Representatives and five terms in the state Senate, where she became the first woman to serve as a chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. She was part of several landmark initiatives, including raising teacher salaries from 43rd to 21st in the nation, starting the Children’s Health Insurance Program and creating the Clean Water Management Trust Fund.
Governor Perdue grew up in the coal mining mountains of Southwest Virginia and has lived most of her adult life in New Bern. Her parents never finished high school, but always preached education and hard work as the path to success.
>> top of page
Distinguished Alumna/Alumnus Award Citations
Janie McLawhorn Fouke
Janie Fouke is one of the nation’s foremost experts in the field of biomedical engineering. Her work has been critical to the understanding of the etiology of respiratory diseases such as asthma and the pulmonary effects of environmental pollutants. Fouke has played a major leadership role in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. She was the inaugural division director of the Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Systems of the National Science Foundation (NSF). She currently serves on advisory boards for several universities, the Directorate for Engineering at NSF and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and is senior advisor for international affairs to the president of the University of Florida. Fouke’s book, “Engineering Tomorrow” (2000), received the Dexter Prize, given annually by the Society for the History of Technology. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Biomedical Engineering Society.
Santiago Gangotena
Santiago Gangotena founded the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), the first private university in Ecuador, in 1987. In a very short time it became the best university in that country. USFQ now enrolls 5,000 students, of whom 3,300 are undergraduates. Although it receives no funding from the government of Ecuador, its 230 full-time and 450 part-time faculty comprise one-half of all the holders of a Ph.D. degree in Ecuador. USFQ is dedicated to improving education in Ecuador through the principles of liberal arts education. In 1995 Gangotena founded a private K–12 school affiliated with the university, Colegio Menor San Francisco de Quito, described as “a renaissance school that draws on the best of the international and American school models, while teaching students to understand, respect and celebrate the diversity of Ecuadorian culture.” Recently, Carolina and USFQ have begun joint research endeavors in the Galapagos Islands. This partnership has the potential to help preserve one of the world’s most treasured living laboratories, to improve the lives of the people who live there, and to elevate both Carolina’s and USFQ’s reputation in international research.
Mariel Margaret (Mia) Hamm
Mia Hamm led Carolina to four NCAA championships in women’s soccer. She was an All-American and ACC Player of the Year for her last three years at Carolina, and won the ACC Female Athlete of the Year in 1993 and 1994. In her 17-year career, her teams won two world championships and two Olympic gold medals. Hamm is the author of “Go for the Goal: A Champion’s Guide to Winning in Soccer and Life” (1999) and has appeared in the HBO documentary “Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team.” Her fellow athletes chose her to carry the American flag at the Closing Ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympics. In 1999, she began the Hamm Foundation, dedicated to bone marrow research and to help women’s sports programs grow and prosper. In 2001, Hamm established a fund in the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center to help the families of patients during the difficult time following organ transplants.
Walter Edward Hussman Jr.
Walter Hussman is a third-generation newspaper publisher and head of WEHCO Media, Inc., of Little Rock, Arkansas, a company that operates a number of daily and weekly newspapers and cable television companies in five states. Hussman has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Associated Press and as chair of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. His skillful management of the Arkansas Democrat when locked in a circulation war with the Arkansas Gazette has been called a classic example of how to attract readers by increasing news coverage. Indeed, the Knight Foundation calls him “a newsman defying conventional thinking by turning out quality journalism that leads to healthy profitability.” Hussman has worked to improve public education in Little Rock, has supported creation of three state-funded charter schools and has generously supported the Arkansans for Education Reform Foundation. He has endowed four distinguished professorships at Carolina and contributed generously to the renovation of Carroll Hall in preparation for its occupation by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
William Frederick Little
A native of Hickory, North Carolina, Bill Little was chosen chair of Carolina’s chemistry department at the tender age of 35. Today, his colleagues credit him with laying the foundation for excellence in teaching and research in a classic collegial environment that is the envy of many an academic department across the nation. Little was a driving force behind the creation and later development of the Research Triangle Park and played a seminal role in founding UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences Foundation in 1975. His tenure as vice chancellor for development and public service (1973–1978) set the course of development in the college for decades. Little served as chair of the Central Selection Committee of the Morehead Foundation for more than a decade (1978–1989), was president of the Triangle Universities Center for Advanced Studies, and chaired the Executive Committee of the Research Triangle Institute for 14 years (1968–2003). He served for five years as President C. D. Spangler’s senior vice president for academic affairs until his retirement in 1996.
>> top of page
Contact Information
For additional questions, please contact University Events at uncevents@unc.edu
Follow UNCEvents on Twitter for updates on University Day and other events at Carolina.
>> top of page
|
Follow University Events on Twitter