University gazette

              It was a traditional assignment in Joe Bob Hester’s copywriting
class. When his students arrived for the first class of the semester,
Hester (pictured above) said only three would be allowed to stay.
Each student was instructed to persuade him, in 25 words or less, why
he or she should be on that list.
“Right off the bat, this taught you three things: why you wanted to be
here, who your audience was and how to be persuasive,” said Hester, asso-ciate
professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
A few semesters later he asked the class to persuade him in 140 char-acters
– the length of one tweet, the mode of messaging on the social
media service Twitter. Since many companies use social media as a part
of their public relations and advertising plans, Hester said his students
should know how to use it, too.
Departments, offices and schools at Carolina began entering the
social media realm a few years ago, using it to spread news, disseminate
emergency information and share the Carolina experience.
Communication with these new tools was, at first, tentative. Now, wide-spread
use makes an online presence no longer the exception, but the rule.
Carolina Faculty and Staff News
Vol. 36, No. 5
gazette.unc.edu
David Lowry Swain had served as governor of
North Carolina before he began his 33-year run
as University president in 1835.
Near the end of his tenure, he faced down the
advancing army of Union Gen. William Tecum-seh
Sherman. Decades before, early in his term as
UNC president, he had to quell the shenanigans
of Carolina students.
In a circular sent to parents on Sept. 30, 1840,
Swain (pictured at right) spoke specifically of
“one of these paroxysms of unnatural excitement”
ignited by alcohol. He referred to the practice of
older students getting money by tricking fresh-men
into believing it was a custom for new stu-dents
to “treat” their senior classmates with cash.
After a group of 35 students obtained $2 each
from freshmen, Swain wrote, “Wine and ardent
spirits were procured from Hillsborough,” then
consumed in the woods on a rowdy Saturday night.
The real trouble began when the drunken
students returned to campus and battered open
doors to the recitation rooms. “Gross indignities
were offered to the Faculty when they interfered
for the restoration of order,” Swain said.
To put a stop to the practice, Swain alerted par-ents
that any senior who attended a “senior treat”
would be denied a degree.
In his circular to parents, Swain cited another
perpetrator of “evils” – the Ugly Club. Kemp P.
Battle wrote in his “History of the University”
that members of the Ugly Club disguised them-selves
with lamp black while insulting village citi-zens
and committing “trespasses of peculiarly low
and disgusting manner on private property.”
The Ugly Club and Swain’s circular are part
of an exhibit at Wilson Library that traces the
profound changes in student life over the cen-turies
and the rise of organizations in which stu-dents
could find a home to express their idealism,
interests and unique identities.
Read more about the history of student organi-zations
at Carolina on pages 6 and 7.
Library archives provide wealth of
information about early campus life
uni v e r s i t y
STUDENT
GROUPS
THROUGH
THE YEARS
6
SAKAI TO
REPLACE
BLACKBOARD
BY 2012
4
GLOBAL
ISSUES
MOTIVATE
JOHNSTON
10
See SOCIAL MEDIA page 12
March 16, 2011
Carolina embraces
social media
for instruction,
communication
2 University Gazette
See SMART911 page 4
EDITOR
Patty Courtright (962-7124)
patty_courtright@unc.edu
MANAGING EDITOR
Gary C. Moss (962-7125)
gary_moss@unc.edu
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Susan Phillips (843-9846)
susan_phillips@unc.edu
PHOTOGRAPHER
Dan Sears (962-8592)
DESIGN AND LAYOUT
UNC Design Services
Linda Graham
CONTRIBUTORS
Courtney Mitchell
News Services
EDITORIAL OFFICES
210 Pittsboro St., Chapel Hill, NC 27599
FAX 962-2279 | CB 6205 | gazette@unc.edu
CHANGE OF ADDRESS
Make changes at: directory.unc.edu
READ THE GAZETTE ONLINE AT
gazette.unc.edu
The University Gazette is a University
publication. Its mission is to build a sense
of campus community by communicating
information relevant and vital to faculty and
staff and to advance the University’s overall
goals and messages. The editor reserves
the right to decide what information will
be published in the Gazette and to edit
submissions for consistency with Gazette
style, tone and content.
uni v e r s i t y
Smart911 system aids University
police and emergency response teams
“Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer will be the 2011 summer reading
book for incoming students at both Carolina and Duke.
Last month, a 21-member selection committee of students, faculty and staff
from both universities chose the book from six finalists. Students on the commit-tee
described “Eating Animals” as an evenhanded review of the food industry –
not a campaign for vegetarianism.
The schools will ask new students who will enroll next fall to read the book
this summer and participate in small group discussions during orientation or
soon thereafter.
The program aims to stimulate critical thinking outside the classroom and
give new students intellectual common ground. It encourages students to
engage with the scholarly community and come to their own conclusions about
the material.
Administrators at the two universities decided to consolidate their programs
for the first time this year to further strengthen ties between the neighboring cam-puses.
Schools typically ask authors of their summer reading books to speak on
campus during orientation or soon thereafter, and the geographic proximity of
Duke and Carolina may make that an easier proposition. This is UNC’s 13th year
with a program and Duke’s 10th.
Jan Yopp, Walter Spearman Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass
Communication and dean of the Summer School, and Donna Lisker, associate
vice provost for undergraduate education and adjunct faculty member in wom-en’s
studies at Duke, chaired the committee.
Work began last fall, when nominations were solicited – at UNC, from cam-pus,
and at Duke, from campus, alumni and parents. Of the total 393 books sug-gested,
24 were nominated at both schools.
The other five finalists were “The Sea” by John Banville, “Shopclass as Soul-craft”
by Matthew B. Crawford, “The Dew Breaker” by Edwidge Danticat, “The
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot and “Losing My Cool” by
Thomas Chatterton Williams. The committee considered fiction and nonfiction,
and the finalists were a mixture of the two.
To learn more about the Summer Reading Program, refer to www.unc.edu/srp.
UNC, DUKE CHOOSE
‘EATING ANIMALS’ FOR
SUMMER READING
In an emergency, speed counts.
That’s why the University’s emergency com-munication
strategy includes the use of sirens
and text messages, among other communica-tions,
to relay information to the campus com-munity
as quickly as possible during an immi-nent,
life-threatening emergency.
And it’s why the University has implemented
Smart911, a system that allows faculty, staff
and students to register information they want
campus police to have if they call 911 from their
cell phones and the call goes directly to campus
police or is routed to campus police from an off-campus
911 center.
Smart911 is a free service. A joint program of
the Department of Public Safety and the Divi-sion
of Student Affairs, Smart911 builds on the
technology of Rave Wireless, which the Univer-sity
uses to send emergency text messages, and
which – through Guardian – provides GPS
tracking for University cell phone users.
“When people choose to register their cell
phone numbers and create personal profiles,
they ensure that the information our cam-pus
911 dispatchers receive is accurate and
appropriate,” said Randy Young, information
specialist with the Department of Public Safety.
“So if an emergency happens, the dispatchers are
already a step ahead.”
People can supply the information they think
would be most helpful, Young said. “Each per-son
decides what to provide and how to help us
help them.”
Options include phone numbers, a photo,
physical description, local address, relevant
medical conditions and emergency contact
information. All data submitted are encrypted to
protect user privacy.
Smart911 underwent extensive testing to
ensure reliability and privacy, said Brian Payst,
director of information technology in the Divi-sion
of Student Affairs. The system has been
reviewed by the Association of Public Safety
Communications Officers and the National
Emergency Number Association.
Smart911 allows University public safety
officials to locate the caller’s approximate loca-tion.
But the person’s profile is visible to campus
ON THE WEB
BREAKING DOWN THE ANTHEM
It’s good to be a Carolina sports fan, especially when
Terri Houston and Holden Thorp team up on “The
Star-Spangled Banner” before a home game. In his
blog, Thorp explains the chord changes he uses when
he backs up Houston on the anthem to get just the
http://bit.ly/gKejsU right mix of gospel and traditional .
‘ON THE USE OF A SYRINX’
Jeff Whetstone, associate professor of art, speaks
with Frank Stasio on “The State of Things” about
his recent video, in which he explores the nexus of
language and wilderness through narrative video. A
hunter lures a male turkey using the hen’s call and
http://bit.ly/gJESW9 then translates that into English.
‘REAL DOCTORS, REAL PEOPLE’
Deepak Raj Dugar is a first-year resident in otolaryngol-ogy,
head and neck surgery. He’s also a Bhangra dancer
– a Westernized hybrid where hip-hop meets traditional
Indian folk dancing. Nathan Clendenin with UNC Health
Care introduces viewers both to Dugar and to the UNC
http://bit.ly/fNpBbH Bhangra team.
March 16, 2011 3
Forum approves allowing delegates to serve three consecutive terms
The Employee Forum voted on March 2 to allow delegates
to serve a third consecutive two-year term.
The change was one of 25 amendments to the organiza-tion’s
bylaws that the forum voted on individually. All but two
were approved.
Forum Chair Jackie Overton said she recognized the need to
clarify and update the bylaws, so she enlisted the help of law
students to review them and make recommendations.
The change to allow forum members to seek a third term was
in response to the difficulty of finding employees willing or able
to serve as delegates, she said.
Many people have chosen to focus only on doing their jobs
because they are concerned about layoffs as the University
grapples with a third consecutive round of state budget cuts,
Overton said. Also, reduced staffing levels have made managers
reluctant to allow staff members to take time away from their
work to serve on the forum, she said.
Those realities are reflected in the numbers. The forum is
supposed to have 60 delegates, but is down to 29 active del-egates.
Of the 29, about a dozen are delegates who Overton
appointed on an interim basis to fill the vacancies of delegates
who resigned from the forum or were laid off.
The forum could vote to restore the two-term limit when cir-cumstances
change and more employees seek an opportunity
to serve on the forum.
In their annual report to the forum, ombuds Wayne Blair
and Laurie Mesibov said the growing fear about job losses now
reaches all segments of campus in an unprecedented way.
In the past year, the office has seen a growing number of fac-ulty
members and even some students, Blair said.
Although individual cases are confidential, Blair said he and
Mesibov have seen two schools of thought on how employees
cope with the stress of possible campus layoffs.
Some employees keep their heads down and refuse to address
important issues from fear that they could get in trouble with
their supervisors and possibly cost them their jobs, Blair said.
Other employees have decided to make everything an issue,
sometimes to the point of workers policing the activities of
their co-workers, he said.
“What is driving people to these extremes is the worry of,
‘Will I have a job?’” Blair said.
Charles Stockell, a delegate who works in Student Stores, said
the mission of the forum may be to address issues that affect
everyone on campus, but in tough times people focus on survival.
Looking across the table, Stockell said, “I care about Kitty, I
care about David, but I am really worried about me.”
Mesibov suggested three ideas for employees to cope with
stress in ways that are helpful to themselves and not harmful to
others. Exercise. Make a point of showing more compassion to
others than you have in the past. And, she said, “This is a great
time for all of us to live by the Golden Rule.”
Multiple UNC graduate programs ranked by U.S. News & World Report
The University appears on more than
20 lists of schools, programs and specialty
areas newly ranked for 2011 by U.S. News and
World Report for the 2012 edition of “Ameri-ca’s
Best Graduate Schools.”
Following are the new University rankings
that were available as the Gazette went to press
(any updated information will be posted at
www.unc.edu/news):
GILLINGS SCHOOL OF GLOBAL
PUBLIC HEALTH
Overall
n 2nd (master’s and doctorate degree programs)
n Health-care management, 3rd (master’s
degree program)
Specialty areas
n Environmental/environmental health,
tied for 11th
(U.S. News listed environmental/
environmental health under engineering
schools. UNC has no engineering school, but
related programs are based in public health.)
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Overall
n Primary care, 2nd
n Research, 20th
Specialty areas
n Family medicine, tied for 2nd
n Rural medicine, 6th
n AIDS, 10th
HEALTH DISCIPLINES – NURSING
Master’s degree programs
n School of Nursing, tied for 4th
n Gillings School of Global Public Health,
tied for 11th
NURSING SPECIALTIES
Clinical nurse specialist
n Community/public health, 3rd (Gillings
School of Global Public Health)
n Psychiatric/mental health, tied for 4th
(School of Nursing)
Nurse practitioner
n Pediatric, 10th (School of Nursing)
Nursing service administration
n 6th, (School of Nursing)
KENAN-FLAGLER BUSINESS
SCHOOL
Overall
n 19th (master of business administration
degree programs)
Specialty Areas
n Accounting, 10th
n Executive MBA, 10th
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Overall
n Tied for 29th
SCHOOL OF LAW
Overall
n Tied for 30th
n Tied for 25th in a category called “When
Lawyers Do the Grading,” a new ranking of
law schools based on the opinions of recruit-ers
hiring graduates from the nation’s top
law firms.
In a chart identifying schools where stu-dents
are most likely to encounter classmates
from a different racial or ethnic group. Caroli-na’s
score was 0.45 out of an index that ranges
from 0.0 to 1.0. The closer a school’s number
is to 1.0, the more diverse is the student popu-lation.
At 10 percent, Hispanics were reported
as UNC’s largest minority.
U.S. News first ranked graduate programs in
1987 and has done so annually since 1990.
Information about the U.S. News methodol-ogy
is available at www.usnews.com/grad.
EMPLOYEE FORUM
Thanks in part to a $63,000 grant from the
N.C. Governor’s Highway Safety Research Cen-ter,
the Department of Public Safety has launched
its motorcycle patrol. Community Response Unit
Officers James Ellis, left, and Robert Moore,
shown at the Old Well on their newly acquired
BMW G650 GS-P motorcycles, will put the
motorcycles’ mobility to work in the interest of
campus safety.
After looking at other models, public safety
officials determined that the BMW was the best
choice. It is designed for police work but not
limited to highway use, and was formerly owned
by the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office. It is
equipped with lights, sirens, police radios, hand-held
LIDAR units, and a laptop and printer in the
rear compartment.
HEELS ON
WHEELS
4 University Gazette
By the end of 2012, Sakai will replace Blackboard as the Uni-versity’s
learning management system.
The move to Sakai provides an expanded set of tools for
faculty and students, greater flexibility for collaboration and
the exchange of ideas, and long-term sustainability, said Larry
Conrad, vice chancellor for information technology and chief
information officer.
The Gazette spoke with Conrad and Charlie Green, assistant
vice chancellor for teaching and learning, about Sakai and the
benefits it offers.
What led to the decision to switch to Sakai?
Green: We’ve used Blackboard as an online classroom tool
for about 15 years, but its long-term adoption has remained
relatively low. Only around 35 percent of our faculty members
regularly use Blackboard.
A few years ago we started a pilot assessing alternative prod-ucts
and Sakai moved fairly quickly to the forefront as a favor-ite.
We ran the pilot for two years to be sure faculty and stu-dents
had an opportunity to examine the software thoroughly.
Conrad: The focus was to adopt something faculty members
think will help them with their teaching and research. Those
who participated in the pilot thought Sakai was a better way to
go. Ultimately, the IT Executive Steering Committee, which is
chaired by the provost, approved the change last fall.
What features are built into Sakai?
Green: Overall, Sakai provides a tool that better meets our
current needs, an improved interface for faculty and students,
and an expanded feature set: portfolios, wikis, blogs, RSS feeds
and tie-ins for social networking. Sakai was designed as a col-laborative
space, not simply as a course management tool.
What flexibility does Sakai offer?
Conrad: When Blackboard came out, it blazed a path. But
it’s more of a Barbie doll type of marketing program, where you
buy the doll but every time you want to get an accessory, you
have to fork over more money.
Today, we want to consider extending our valid University
constituency, whether it has international or distance learning
or student education components. Blackboard has restrictions,
which require signing an extension or buying another compo-nent.
Sakai does not.
Green: Initially, learning management systems were about
helping to manage course materials, providing access to the
materials online and helping faculty members save time. But
many instructors today want to use the system to encourage
student engagement; researchers want to use it to facilitate col-laboration
with their colleagues; and committees, work groups
and student organizations want it to provide a space for teams
to work together online.
Can Sakai be adapted for future needs?
Green: Sakai is a community sourced environment. That
means it was designed by higher education for higher educa-tion.
People who are interested in seeing improvements have
an opportunity to become a member of the consortium and
contribute code back to the community. So when one campus
develops an interesting or useful feature, it’s made available for
use by all.
Conrad: Sakai really has proven the concept of this commu-nity
sourced development idea, where our colleagues around the
country are making the decisions about development priorities.
It’s also important to look at who that community is. The chal-lenges
some universities face don’t compare with the challenges
of places like Berkeley or Michigan, both of which run Sakai. The
universities we see ourselves in the same league with use Sakai.
How easy is it to make the switch?
Conrad: One goal was to make the transition process as
automated as possible. So we have a tool that will migrate most
of the content – sort of “push a button” and it goes. Plus, we
will provide ample training.
Green: We recently met with a faculty member who seemed
a bit nervous about moving his materials over from Blackboard
but wanted to get an early start on it. So he called us and we
talked about what he wanted to accomplish.
Within an hour and 15 minutes, he had moved all of his Black-board
sites over to Sakai, and at the end he said, “This is the
greatest thing. I could have done this myself. I’m loving it.” And
we’re seeing this type of response from a number of our faculty.
Conrad: And to help with the pieces that don’t transition
smoothly, we’re establishing a SWAT team approach to come in
and work with a faculty member to figure out those issues. We’re
trying to make this as painless and straightforward as we can.
When will faculty have to begin using Sakai?
Conrad: It will be a couple of years before we complete the
move so we’re giving people plenty of time to transition. It’s
up to each faculty member to decide when to move to Sakai,
and we hope the early adopters will be so enthused, they’ll help
spread the word.
Are there cost savings with Sakai?
Conrad: We know we’ll save $80,000 on the license, and we
think there’s potential for other savings. But we think Sakai will
be a better strategic platform for the University, and that’s the
most important thing.
ITS helps faculty make the transition from Blackboard to Sakai
police only when they receive a 911 call from someone who has registered with the
system, Payst said.
“Smart911 protects personal information and ensures that it gets only to the peo-ple
who need it, when they need it,” he said.
Smart911 works when a 911 call is routed to campus police – in general when a
call from a cell phone is made on campus, although that could vary depending on
the person’s location when placing the call.
Although Smart911 is not available to off-campus safety officials, if the 911 center
receiving the call directs it to campus police, the caller’s profile will be available.
If the person’s cell phone and carrier are supported by Smart911, campus emer-gency
responders also will see a map showing the approximate location of the
phone. Law enforcement agencies choose to adopt the use of Smart911. Currently,
the UNC campus is the only location in the immediate area that has it.
Smart911 location services work with AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, and with a vari-ety
of cell phone models. When someone creates a profile and registers a cell phone,
the Smart911 system will check the phone for compatibility with location service
and indicate whether the service is available on that phone, with that carrier.
People can register more than one cell phone. Registering landlines is not cur-rently
supported, but the University is looking at ways to include information about
campus phones as part of the Smart911 service.
Carolina is the first UNC system campus, and one of only a few universities nation-wide,
to offer Smart911. The Division of Student Affairs is providing funding for it.
For information about Smart911, including a link to register, refer to
smart911.unc.edu.
SMART911 from page 2
For a more detailed version of the conversation with
Conrad and Green, refer to gazette.unc.edu/file.3.html.
For additional information about Sakai, including avail-able
training resources, refer to sakai.unc.edu.
Campus helps with Japan relief efforts
In response to the devastating earth-quake
and tsunami that struck Japan
last week, the University community
is pitching in to help make a difference.
“With students just returning from
spring break, Carolina schools and
organizations have begun to come
together in response,” Chancellor
Holden Thorp said in a message to
campus on Monday.
The University learned that the
handful of UNC students studying abroad
in Japan were OK. They were south of the
areas hardest hit and currently are not plan-ning
to leave, he said.
“But it will be weeks before Japanese offi-cials
know the full extent of the human toll
these disasters have taken. Our thoughts
and prayers are with the Japanese people
and everyone affected,” Thorp said.
Updated information about UNC’s relief
efforts will be posted on the Carolina Center
for Public Service website, www.unc.edu/
ccps. The center will collect and share infor-mation
about efforts across campus; people
can e-mail information to cccps@unc.edu.
The Employee Assistance Program can
provide resources and support for faculty
and staff who have been affected in some
way by the earthquake and its aftermath.
People can call 929-2362 during business
hours or 877-327-7658 24 hours a day.
March 16, 2011 5
Faculty/Staff news
GARY MARCHIONINI, dean of the School of Information and Library Science and Cary C.
Boshamer Distinguished Professor, has been appointed to serve on the President’s Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) Health Information Technology (HIT) Report
Workgroup. The charge of the workgroup centers around the PCAST HIT group’s “Report to the
President Realizing the Full Potential of Health Information Technology to Improve Healthcare for
Americans: The Path Forward.”
JOE HAJ, producing artistic director of PlayMakers Repertory Company, directed a production
of “Hamlet” at the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C., last spring that has garnered five nomina-tions
for the district’s Helen Hayes Awards. Haj was nominated for outstanding director, and Jack
Herrick of The Red Clay Ramblers was nominated for outstanding sound design. Haj and Herrick
are collaborating on PlayMakers’ production of “Big River,” which opens April 6.
Art library assistant JOSH HOCKENSMITH has received the University Library’s 2010 Out-standing
Employee Award. Honorable mentions went to AARON BEDNAR, technical support
specialist with library systems, and BETTY MEEHAN-BLACK, head of order management and
assistant head of monographic services. Meehan-Black passed away on March 2; to read more about
her, refer to http://bit.ly/hWVGDk.
The UNIVERSITY was designated a 2010 Gold Award winner at the Best Workplace for Com-muters’
Race to Excellence Virtual Awards Ceremony, held Jan. 11 at the University of South Flor-ida’s
National Center for Transit Research. Carolina was one of only five universities nationwide to
attain the gold status, recognizing organizations that have taken exemplary steps to offer and pro-mote
alternatives for employees driving alone, thereby reducing air pollution, traffic congestion and
fuel usage.
The UNC GENERAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION has received seven awards for its programs and
communications for 2010, including a Grand Award in Overall Alumni Relations Programs in a com-petition
sponsored by CASE (the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education) for the
Southeastern district of the United States. CASE is an international organization that works with
educational institutions to enhance their alumni relations, communications and development efforts.
HONORS
A Carolina spinoff company at the
forefront of efforts to use nanotech-nology
to tackle diseases has received
a $10 million investment from the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation.
Liquidia Technologies, which was
founded on the discoveries of Joe
DeSimone, Chancellor’s Eminent
Professor of Chemistry, will use the
foundation’s equity investment to
support the development and commercialization of safer and
more effective vaccines and therapeutics.
Liquidia uses PRINT (Particle Replication in Non-wetting
Templates) technology – a technique invented
in DeSimone’s UNC lab – to manufacture precisely engi-neered
nano- and microparticles with control over size,
shape and chemistry.
It could advance the development of vaccines to prevent
diseases, such as malaria, that mainly affect people in the
developing world.
“To have the Gates Foundation back our work is a
heartening vindication of UNC’s effort to become a world
leader in launching university-born ideas for the good of
society,” DeSimone said.
“I met with Bill Gates last May and outlined how UNC
researchers and Liquidia scientists essentially managed to co-opt
manufacturing technologies from the computer industry
to create new vaccines, medicines and methods of treating
disease; the approach seemed to really grab his attention,”
he said.
The foundation made the equity investment in Liquidia as
part of an initiative that commits $400 million in program-related
investments to deepen the impact of its work.
“This unique investment partnership will help us advance
vaccine development as part of our commitment to help
research, develop and deliver vaccines for the world’s poor-est
countries,” said Doug Holtzman, deputy director for the
foundation’s infectious diseases team.
DeSimone also is William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Pro-fessor
of Chemical Engineering at N.C. State University and
a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive
Cancer Center.
CAROLINA SPINOFF
LIQUIDIA WINS GATES
FOUNDATION SUPPORT
DESIMONE
JAMIE MONCRIEF
COOKING UNDER THE GUN Friday Center sous chef Kevin Henry
plates a course during the ARAMARK Culinary Excellence Chef Competition,
held last week at UNC-Wilmington. Chefs representing colleges and universi-ties
in North and South Carolina took part in the challenge. They were given
market baskets filled with a mix of ingredients to be used, including a whole
chicken, rattlesnake beans, shrimp, mascarpone cheese, dried cherries and
Swiss chard. Henry said he was given 30 minutes to come up with a menu and
less than three hours to cook – with only one burner.
6 University Gazette
Student organizations mirror the cultural shifts at Carolina, take It may be hard to imagine now, but the first
Carolina students faced a common malady that to
boys as young as 15 could seem deadly: boredom.
There was no nightlife on Franklin Street and
no sports rivalries to quicken the blood or girls
to capture the heart. Elders prescribed practi-cally
all of student life, from the courses the boys
could take to the clubs they could join.
Daily chapel attendance was another require-ment,
as was membership in either the Dialectic
or Philanthropic society. Founded in 1795, the
two societies stood as the only two student orga-nizations
the University officially allowed until
the Y.M.C.A. (now the Campus Y) was estab-lished
in 1859.
The centrality of these societies – and the
leadership skills they helped foster – is explored
in an exhibit at the North Carolina Collection
that traces the rise of student organizations,
which number more than 600 today. “From Di-
Phis to Loreleis: A History of Student Organiza-tions
at UNC” runs through the end of May.
If boredom was the common malady, many
students turned to mischief making for a quick
cure, said Linda Jacobson, keeper of the North
Carolina Collection Gallery.
Cock fights, horse races in Hillsborough and
the drinking of “spirituous” beverages were
among the favored pastimes. Drinking alcohol
became serious enough that several students
formed the Temperance Society in 1829 to
encourage moderation or abstinence.
In the 1830s, the students who created the
Ugly Club and the Boring Club apparently paid
little heed. The stated purpose of the Boring
Club was to help members find “all the paths of
vice in the college for fun and frolic.”
The Ugly Club, Jacobson said, was alleg-edly
organized to help students overcome
homesickness.
A homesick student would receive an invitation
to South Building where he was greeted by the
club’s leader, who wore a horned hat and banged
tin pans, forcing the student to dance to the noise.
In 1842, University trustees voted to ban
clubs and secret societies for fear their presence
would dilute the influence of the literary societ-ies
and do harm to “the cause of good morals
and sound learning.”
Although no record exists of the ban’s repeal,
by the early 1850s, fraternities were meeting on
campus without repercussions. In 1851, Delta
Kappa Epsilon became the University’s first
national fraternity. Others followed until the start
of the Civil War, when undergraduates, many of
them fraternity members, went off to fight.
Reconstruction forced the closing of the Uni-versity
from 1871 to 1875. Fraternities tried to
gain recognition in 1877, but it was not until
1885 that trustees relented and officially wel-comed
Greek organizations.
In 1889, the secret society that came to be
known as the Order of Gimghoul was estab-lished.
And the Order of the Gorgon was formed
four years later.
RISE OF MUSIC AND DRAMA
Faculty and trustees took a dim view of the per-forming
arts in the early years of the University.
In 1797, the staging of several plays by mem-bers
of the Di-Phi societies led University
founder William Richardson Davie to write a
scathing objection. “Our object is to make stu-dents
men and not players,” he said.
That object – and Davie’s objection – stood
firm for nearly a century. It was not until the
1890s that a glee club, a drama club and several
instrumental groups, including the Mandolin
Club, were formed.
The acting troupe Carolina Playmakers staged
its first student-written performances in 1919
and several of the playwrights and actors in the
first plays went on to national acclaim.
Among them was writer Thomas Wolfe,
whose performance as Buck Gavin is legend-ary.
Wolfe later moved to New York City and
become a famous novelist.
Like Wolfe, George Denny, who played Jake
in “When Witches Ride,” also moved to New
York City to host the nationally distributed radio
program “America’s Town Meeting of the Air.”
Jonathan Daniels, who played Tom in “What
Will Barbara Say!” served as press secretary for
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman before
returning to Raleigh to run the family business,
The News & Observer.
THE JOURNEY FROM
SAMENESS TO DIVERSITY
The dawn of a new century marked the start
of a rapid proliferation of student organizations,
with an increasing number tied in some way to a
specialized interest or shared identity.
In this sense, the student organizations served
as a mirror reflecting the metamorphosis within
the University itself as it expanded the curricu-lum,
service mission and a student population
that slowly began to include students who were
not white, male Protestants from North Carolina.
Although the first woman was admitted to
the University as a graduate student in 1897, it
was not until 1923 that the University welcomed
the nationally chartered Pi Beta Phi and Chi
Omega. Even then, there were only 79 women
registered for classes as undergraduates or grad-uate
students.
Pamela Dean, author of “Women on the Hill:
A History of Women at the University of North
Carolina,” wrote that the slow growth of sorori-ties
at Carolina stemmed from national organi-zations’
displeasure about Carolina’s restrictive
policies admitting women students.
By 1940, enrollment of women had increased
only to 400. In 1951, the School of Nursing
A “German” was a form of figure or social dancing that became popular after the Civil War. The German Club was organized in the
19th century to hold formal dances and other social events. By the 1950s, the club was run by fraternities that began inviting big-name
performers such as Tommy Dorsey and Louis Armstrong to perform concerts as a prelude to formal dances that followed. Here, as fea-tured
in the 1954 “Yackety Yack” yearbook, students react to a concert Armstrong gave in 1954.
All images on pages 6 and 7 courtesy of the North Carolina Collec-tion
and University Archives, Wilson Special Collections Library.
Andy Griffith, who graduated from the University in 1949, ap-peared
in several performances by the Carolina Playmakers. Listed in
the playbill as Andrew Griffith, the young actor played the comic role
of Ko-Ko, Lord High Executioner of Titipu, in “The Mikado’’ in 1948.
March 16, 2011 7
on increasingly diverse roles on campus through the years
admitted first-year women, and three years
later, the schools of medical technology, dental
hygiene and physical therapy did the same.
By 1963, Carolina had more than 2,000
women students, Dean wrote. That year, the
trustees voted to admit first-year women to the
fine arts programs, and shortly afterward women
could participate in all degree programs. But it
was not until 1972 that the University began to
admit women under the same standards as men.
The first Jewish students were excluded from
established fraternities because of their religion,
leading the students to form fraternities of their
own. The first at Carolina, Tau Epsilon Phi, was
formed in 1924 and the Alpha Pi chapter of Zeta
Beta Tau was established three years later.
Here, too, there was a differentiation among
members, with Tau Epsilon Phi members drawn
mostly from sons of Eastern European Jews,
while Zeta Beta Tau members typically came
from a background of German Reform Jews.
By the early 1950s, the first black students had
been accepted at the law school, but true diver-sity
was still decades away.
Still, students from all over the country and
the world found haven in the Cosmopolitan
Club, whose purpose, according to a descrip-tion
in the 1957–58 student handbook, was “to
bring together all people, regardless of national-ity,
race, color or creed, in order to learn from
each other about the different cultures and asso-ciate
with each other with the aim of promoting
world understanding.”
In 1973, the Psi Delta Chapter of Omega Psi
Phi became the first historically black Greek orga-nization
established at the University. It continues
to operate today as one of eight historically Afri-can-
American Greek organizations on campus.
Five undergraduate women chartered the
Kappa Omicron chapter of Delta Sigma Theta in
1973, marking the establishment of the first his-torically
African-American sorority on campus.
The chapter now counts eight Morehead Schol-ars
among its alumni, including 1985 Rhodes
Scholar Robyn Hadley.
The nation’s first American Indian sorority
was established here in 1994 when three women
of Lumbee ancestry and one of Lumbee and
Coharrie heritage founded the Alpha Chapter of
Alpha Pi Omega. The sorority now has 13 chap-ters
in six states.
In 1996, when undergraduate Melissa Jo
Murchison-Blake felt uncomfortable choosing
between a white or a black sorority to recognize
her bi-racial heritage, she found six other women
in a similar situation. Together, the group of
women established a multicultural sorority that
became the Alpha Chapter of Theta Nu Xi. The
sorority now includes 31 chapters in 14 states.
To see more photos from the exhibit, refer to
gazette.unc.edu/file.2.html. For more informa-tion
about the exhibit, see http://bit.ly/ecFBW5.
A photo from the 1950s shows a banquet in Gimghoul Castle. In fall 1889, students formed
the Order of Dromgoole, a secret society they quickly changed to Gimgoole and later amended to
Gimghoul. The students based the society on the legend, as told to them by Kemp P. Battle, of Peter
Dromgoole, a student who disappeared from the University in 1833. Gimghoul Castle, the order’s
home, was completed in Battle Park in 1926.
On June 3, 1795, five months after the University opened its
doors, the student Debating Society held its first recorded meet-ing.
Among the society’s 31 members was UNC’s first student,
Hinton James.
At its third meeting, held that same month, members voted to
split to form a second society called the Concord Society. The
following year they changed their names to their Greek equiva-lents:
The Debating Society became the Dialectic Society and
the Concord Society became the Philanthropic Society.
More than two centuries later, the two societies are still active
and hold meetings every Monday night in the Dialectic Society
Chamber on the third floor of Old West. They also can be fol-lowed
on Facebook at www.facebook.com/unc.diphi.
On April 7, Kevin Cherry, a longtime Di-Phi member and
supporter, will trace the societies’ long history when he gives the
Gladys Coates University History Lecture at 5:45 p.m. in the
Pleasants Family Assembly Room in Wilson Library.
The title of his presentation, “And they Talked – Always They
Talked: 215 Years of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies,” is
taken from a line in Thomas Wolfe’s famous tome “Look
Homeward, Angel.”
In the 19th century, the two societies stood as a monolith to
campus culture and student life. Almost every student activity
officially sanctioned by the University was done as a “commit-tee”
under the auspices of Di or Phi, Cherry said.
It was the practice for students from the western half of the
state to join the Dialectic society, and those from the eastern
half to join the Philanthropic, he said. Residence halls were seg-regated
along the same lines, with all Di members assigned to
west campus, all Phi members to east.
“Those students living in South Building were split down the
middle,” Cherry said.
Students were seen as future leaders of the state, and there
were only a handful of professions through which leadership
could find expression: politics, the pulpit and law.
“University leaders recognized the role the societies played
in developing highly practical skills students would need for
the occupations of the day,” Cherry said. “Graduates needed
to be able to write clearly and convince people of their argu-ments.
They had to know how to give a formal lecture or speak
extemporaneously.”
They also had to learn how to comport themselves as proper
gentlemen while giving a speech or listening to it. For this rea-son,
officers of the society would monitor debates and fine audi-ence
members caught laughing aloud.
Zeb Vance, a member who later became the governor of
North Carolina during the Civil War, was notoriously funny,
Cherry said.
“There is a story of a speech he gave where he had the whole
room laughing so much that the society filled up its treasury,”
he said.
Until 1848, the societies met in their libraries on the third
floor of South Building. Old East and Old West served as new
quarters until 1860 when the societies moved to their current
chambers in New East and New West.
Throughout the 19th century, the societies performed the
For literary societies,
a new century
ushered in a long
struggle to survive
See CHERRY page 11
8 University Gazette
PASSPORT TO HEALTH
A free health fair for UNC employees will be held March 30
from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Great Hall of the F.P.G. Student
Union, sponsored by Campus Recreation, Employee Wellness
and the Office of Human Resources in conjunction with the
UNC Division of Cardiology. Free health screenings will be
provided for blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood glucose
levels and body mass index. Health care professionals also will
be on site for consultation. campusrec.unc.edu
CAROLINA INDIAN CIRCLE
POWWOW
Dancers in traditional regalia will
compete for prizes, and food, craft and
jewelry vendors will be on hand when
the annual spring powwow of the Car-olina
Indian Circle comes to Fetzer
Gym March 19. The free celebration of
Indian culture will be held from noon to
7:30 p.m. Call 843-4189 or visit http://bit.ly/f4Szlr.
MOBILE WEB DEVELOPMENT
Join the Carolina Adobe Users Group March 24 for a presen-tation
by Chris Butler, vice president, and Dave Mello, senior
developer, of the NewFangled Web Factory. The session will
offer a strategic overview of mobile Web development today,
including which technologies are shaping the mobile experi-ence,
the effect on designers, developers and consumers, and
technical approaches for mobile development projects.
The event will be held at 10:30 a.m. in Wilson Library’s
Pleasants Family Assembly Room.
CONSTRUCTION WORK AFFECTS
MANNING DRIVE, HOSPITAL ENTRANCE
n In order to complete work on the new bridge at the Den-tal
Sciences Building, concrete must be poured and precast
panels installed. The work will be performed over 14 week-ends
and will require closing Manning Drive between South
Columbia Street and West Drive from 8 p.m. each Friday to
8 p.m. each Sunday.
The work and street closure are scheduled to begin this
weekend and continue through mid-July. No work will be
scheduled Commencement weekend (May 6–8) or the
July 4th weekend (July 1–3). Refer to http://bit.ly/heUlwO
to see a map of the affected area, detour routes for motorists
and pedestrians and schedule for construction.
n Work to install two new doors at the N.C. Memorial Hospi-tal
entrance was expected to begin this week, requiring the
closure of that entrance for approximately six weeks. Once
complete, the entrance will have a revolving door and a
handicap-accessible, four-foot-wide door for patients, visi-tors
and staff. When that work is finished, similar work will
begin in stages at the entrances to the N.C. Women’s Hospi-tal
and the N.C. Children’s Hospital.
SAFEWALK EXPANDS PROGRAM
SafeWalk, the late-night safety program run by Student Gov-ernment,
provides students and employees with a male and
female pair of students trained by the Department of Public
Safety to accompany them 11 p.m– 3 a.m., Sunday–Thursday
between any on-campus locations, as well as Granville Towers,
Greek housing and parts of Rosemary and Franklin streets.
This semester the SafeWalk program will expand in three
phases to include a much wider area. To request a SafeWalk
escort, call 962-SAFE or use a form online at safewalk.unc.edu.
The expanded SafeWalk service area also is posted on the web-site.
For more information, e-mail lynchcm@email.unc.edu.
MUSIC ON THE PORCH –
SOUTHERN MUSIC SHAKEN AND STIRRED
The Allen Boys, North Carolina’s only touring Sacred Steel
band, will kick off the Center for the Study of the American
South’s free outdoor music series on March 18. The perfor-mance
will take place at the center’s offices at 104 E. Franklin
St., from 5 to 7 p.m. Visitors are welcome to bring a blanket
and picnic on the lawn. The next performance in the series will
be March 31 with John Shain, Rhiannon Giddens and Steve
Kruger. www.uncsouth.org
LECTURES, SEMINARS, SYMPOSIA
n March 17 – Emil Kang, executive director for the arts, will
give a talk, “The Performing Arts: Alive and Well in Memo-rial
Hall,” at 2:30 p.m. at the Seymour Center, 2551 Home-stead
Rd. in Chapel Hill. Call 968-2070 for information.
n March 17 – “Deciphering ‘Laverna,’ an Unpublished Poem
by William Wordsworth” will be the topic of a participatory
exploration of “Laverna” by Wordsworth expert Paul Betz
at 5:45 p.m. at Wilson Library’s Pleasants Family Assembly
Room. A reception will begin at 5 p.m. http://bit.ly/eQHwnv
n March 18–19 – The Global American South Conference
will be held at the FedEx Global Education Center. Gavin
Wright, a professor of economic history at Stanford Univer-sity,
will give the Alfred Dupont Chandler Jr. Lecture, “Shar-ing
the Prize: The Civil Rights Revolution and the Southern
Economy.” The talk will
be held March 19 at 4 p.m.
Register for the free con-ference
at globalsouth.unc.
edu/registration.
n March 19 – The Pro-gram
in the Humanities
and Human Values will
present a seminar on
“Battlefield Cultures: The
Changing Face of War
and Warfare.” The pro-gram
will take place from
9:15 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.
at the Center for School
Leadership Development.
Registration is required,
with fee. See adventures
inideas.unc.edu or call
962-1544.
n March 21 – “The univer-sity
and its digital libraries.
A tale in three parts” is the
topic of the OCLC/Fred-erick
G. Kilgour Lecture in
Information and Library
Science. Daniel Greenstein, vice provost for academic plan-ning,
programs and coordination at the University of Califor-nia’s
Office of the President, will be the featured speaker. The
free event will be held in Wilson Library’s Pleasants Family
Assembly Room at 3 p.m., followed by a reception in the
lobby. R.S.V.P. to wharper@email.unc.edu or call 962-8366.
n March 21 – Echoing Green president Cheryl Dorsey will dis-cuss
the challenges and opportunities facing social entrepre-neurs
in her talk “The Social Entrepreneur’s Dilemma: Creat-ing
Change in Turbulent Times,” to be held at 5:30 p.m. at the
FedEx Global Education Center. To attend the free lecture,
e-mail rsvpkenan.unc.edu. The talk is sponsored by the Frank
Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, Nourish Inter-national
and Student Government. http://bit.ly/h0IHSc
n March 22 – New York Times White House correspondent
Helene Cooper will discuss reporting from war-torn regions,
a beat she had previously with The Wall Street Journal. The
talk, part of the “War Stories” speaker series sponsored by
the Curriculum in Global Studies, will be held at the FedEx
Global Education Center at 5:30 p.m. http://bit.ly/dN1jC0
n March 23 – ULEAD 2010 alumni Chris Meinecke, Joe
Singer and Angela Lee will lead a brown-bag discussion of
the pros and cons of using social media at UNC for profes-sional
communications and networking. “Leveraging Social
Media in Higher Education” will be held in Room 219 of
Davis Library at 11:45 a.m. uma.unc.edu
n March 23 – Leon Speroff, professor emeritus of OB/GYN
at Oregon Health Sciences University, will lecture about
Gregory Pincus and the development of oral contraception
in a talk based on his book, “A Good Man: The Man, His
Story, The Birth Control Pill.” The lecture will be held from
2:30 to 3:30 p.m. in the Fourth Floor Clinic Auditorium.
n March 30 – “Battle for the Home Front: Revisiting the
Role of Women in the Civil War” will be the title of a talk by
News in b r i e f
Ten years ago as an undergraduate at Carolina on a Burch Fellowship, Rye Barcott
started a nonprofit organization to address poverty in the largest slum in east Africa.
Despite staggering poverty and ethnic violence, the community-based Carolina for
Kibera (CKF), co-founded
by Barcott and Kenyans
Tabitha Festo and Salim
Mohamed, has treated
more than 41,000 patients
in its Tabitha Clinic. More
than 5,000 boys and girls
have participated in CFK’s
annual soccer tournament.
After graduation, Barcott
was deployed as a Marine
in Iraq, Bosnia and Africa,
wrestling to make sense of
two forms of service as they
clashed and converged in
his head and heart.
On the surface, he
may seem to be a man of
Rye Barcott: ‘spark change from within’
March 16, 2011 9
LeeAnn Whites, professor of history at the University of Mis-souri,
in conjunction with the Wilson Library exhibit “Home
Front on the Hill: Chapel Hill and the University during the
Civil War.” The lecture will be held at 5:45 p.m., preceded by
a reception at 5 p.m. http://bit.ly/egL2SQ
n March 30 – Naomi Oreskes, University of California, San
Diego, will discuss her book, “Merchants of Doubt: How a
Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from
Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming,” as part of the Polanyi
Lecture in the History and Philosophy of Natural Science. A
reception and book-signing will follow the 7 p.m. talk in the
Mandela Auditorium of the FedEx Global Education Center.
http://bit.ly/fgUvyg
HETTLEMAN LECTURES
Two winners of the 2010 Phillip & Ruth Hettleman Prizes for
Artistic and Scholarly Achievement will talk about their work
March 18 from 2 to 4 p.m. in Room G100 of Bondurant Hall.
James Bear, associate professor of cell and developmental biol-ogy,
will speak about “Coronins: Coordinating Actin Dynamics
at the Leading Edge and Beyond” at 2:15 p.m. Garegin Papoian,
now associate professor of chemistry at the University of Mary-land,
will present “Physico-Chemical Models of Eukaryotic
Cell Motility” at 3:15 p.m. To learn more about their work, see
http://bit.ly/eeXNAK.
READINGS AT THE BULL’S HEAD
Unless noted, all Bull’s Head Bookshop readings will be held
at 3:30 p.m. http://bit.ly/goBSWP
n March 23 – Alumna Rachel Richardson will read from
“Copperhead,” her debut collection of poems.
n March 24 – David Halperin, retired religious studies profes-sor,
will read from his novel “Journal of a UFO Investigator.”
n March 29 – At 12:30 p.m., Alumnus Rye Barcott will read
from his book “It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine’s
Path to Peace.”
n March 29 – Bart Ehrman, professor of religious studies, will
read from his latest book “Forged: Writing in the Name of
God – Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think
They Are.”
n March 30 – Sandy Smith-Nonini, adjunct assistant profes-sor
of anthropology, will read from her new book “Healing
the Body Politic: El Salvador’s Popular Struggle for Health
Rights from Civil War to Neoliberal Peace.”
DEADLINES TO WATCH
n March 25 – The Institute for the Arts and Humanities,
in partnership with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for
Research and Economic Development, calls for proposals
for scholarship, creative activity or research in the humani-ties
and fine arts. A limited number of awards is available
for summer salary support,
payment of research assis-tants,
travel, art supplies,
research materials, equip-ment
or any other properly
justified expense of schol-arly
or artistic endeavor.
http://bit.ly/eeYrqg
n March 29 – Nomina-tions
are due for the 2011
Mary Turner Lane Award,
given annually by the
Association for Women Fac-ulty
and Professionals to a
woman who has made an
outstanding contribution to
the lives of women on cam-pus.
E-mail nominations to
Ruth Moose (rumoo@email.
unc.edu). www.unc.edu/
awfp/award
n March 31 – Nomina-tions
are due for the 2011
Thomas Jefferson Award,
presented annually to “that
member of the academic community who through personal
influence and performance of duty in teaching, writing and
scholarship has best exemplified the ideals and objectives of
Thomas Jefferson.” http://bit.ly/hXbWOD
REGISTER NOW FOR DRUG CONFERENCE
The Eshelman School of Pharmacy will host the Sixth
Annual Chapel Hill Drug Conference May 11–12, sponsored b
the N.C. Translation and Clinical Sciences Institute, the UNC-GSK
Center of Excellence in Pharmacoepidemiology and Pub-lic
Health and the Sheps Center for Health Services Research.
The theme will be “Comparative Effectiveness Research:
Methods and Applications.” http://bit.ly/idvhIA
CAMPUS RECREATION
n March 17 – The Pot O’ Gold Fun Run will begin at 4 p.m.
with check-in from 3:30 to 3:50 p.m. at Student Recreation
Center. The relaxed 1.5-mile hi/low poker run will give clues
to well-known spots on campus from which to retrieve cards.
No registration is required.
n March 19 – The March Kids ROCK! Indoor Climbing event
will be held at the Rams Head Recreation Center from 10 a.m.
to noon. R.S.V.P. to Aaron Stern (ajstern@email.unc.edu).
FOR THE RECORD
In a Feb. 9 story about the mission and operations of the
School of Medicine and UNC Health Care, a reference to grad-uate
school rankings in U.S. News & World Report should have
referred to Carolina ranking fifth in occupational science and
occupational therapy.
In a Feb. 23 story announcing the 2011 Massey Awards,
it should be noted that Jane Brown, James L. Knight Distin-guished
Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Com-munication,
is a former director of the Institute for the Arts and
Humanities’ Academic Leadership Program.
NEWS IN BRIEF SUBMISSIONS
Next issue includes events from March 31 to April 13.
Deadline for submissions is 5 p.m., Mon., March 21.
E-mail gazette@unc.edu. The Gazette events page
includes only items of general interest geared toward
a broad audience. For complete listings of events, see
the Carolina Events Calendars at events.unc.edu.
contradictions: a Marine and a peacemaker, a Harvard MBA, entrepreneur and co-founder
of a nonprofit organization in one of the world’s largest slums. But at the core
his mission is steadfast: to serve and to spark change from within. In his memoir that will
be released March 29, “It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine’s Path to Peace,”
Barcott recounts his experiences building and learning from leaders in unlikely places:
from the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, to the bomb-strewn streets of Fallujah and
beyond. Eschewing old notions of top-down, command-and-control management, he
has shown the impact that small, diverse groups
of committed people can have in the world.
n On March 17 – “Living Kibera,” an interactive
exhibit that explores “work, play, home, dream and
self” in Kibera, will open at the FedEx Global Edu-cation
Center. The opening reception will be held
from 6 to 8 p.m. The work in the show will come
from a variety of mediums and will be created exclu-sively
by Kiberans.
n March 29 – Barcott will deliver the Hillard Gold
’39 Lecture at 7 p.m. in the FedEx Global Education
Center Mandela Auditorium. A book signing will
follow. The event will be sponsored by the Johnston
Center for Undergraduate Excellence, the African
Studies Center, the Campus Y, Carolina for Kibera,
the Center for Global Initiatives and the Curriculum
in Peace, War and Defense. http://bit.ly/fMnPOP
“Big River,” PlayMakers Repertory Company’s first musical in
more than a decade, opens April 6 at the Paul Green Theatre.
The Tony Award-winning play, based on “The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn,” will feature a score of gospel, folk and coun-try
music, which The Red Clay Ramblers (pictured at left) will per-form
live during the shows. The play will run through April 24.
In conjunction with “Big River,” PlayMakers’ producing artis-tic
director Joseph Haj will give a behind-the-scenes preview as
part of “The Vision Series” on March 30 at 6:30 p.m. All inter-ested
in the creative process are invited to attend and get a first
look at the design and vision for the show. The event is free, but
space is limited. R.S.V.P. by calling the box office (962-7529).
www.playmakersrep.org
Looking ahead to next fall, Carolina faculty and staff are invit-ed
to PlayMakers’ March 17 announcement of its 2011-12 sea-son.
Refreshments will be served in the lobby of the Center for
Dramatic Art at 5:30 p.m. At 6 p.m., Haj will unveil next season’s
lineup of Mainstage and PRC2 productions.
R.S.V.P. to prcboxoffice@unc.edu or call 962-7529. For more
information, refer to playmakersrep.org.
PLAYMAKERS, RED CLAY
RAMBLERS PRESENT
‘BIG RIVER’ APRIL 6–24
10 University Gazette
Carolina wor k ing at
For this Peace Corps
veteran, home is where
the next mission takes her
The University’s tuition waiver program provides opportuni-ties
for employees to enhance their careers or personal develop-ment.
During the 2009–10 academic year, more than 1,300 full-time
employees took advantage of this state-provided program.
Eligible employees can have tuition charges waived for up to
two courses taken per academic year at any of the UNC system
campuses. Employees who are enrolled at Carolina can waive
tuition for one summer session course per academic year.
All courses must be appropriations-funded – such as regular
undergraduate- and graduate-level courses, online courses, self-paced
courses and independent studies courses – to meet the
state’s requirement for the tuition waiver program.
“The fact that the State of North Carolina can still offer this
benefit during these tough economic times is a win for Carolina
employees,” said Ashley Nicklis, interim senior director of ben-efits
services in the Office of Human Resources (OHR). “Any
time our employees can take classes to enhance their knowl-edge
is a benefit for the University.”
Personal development can become a challenge on various
levels when trying to find a balance between work and school.
OHR offers a few tips to help people get started with registering
for classes:
n Plan ahead – Take full advantage of available resources.
Create a schedule that will require you to be ahead of the
class. Make early progress in your studies by scheduling some
flexibility for unexpected events. Become familiar with course
requirements before registering and scheduling classes. If
scheduling is a hassle, reach out to your adviser for help.
n Take online courses – Maximize before- and after-work
hours. Traditional work hours sometimes can prevent you
from attending class during the day so you might want to
consider online courses as an option for attending school
at your convenience. Update your technical knowledge on
Blackboard, Sakai and messaging applications to communi-cate
with ease once classes start and stay connected with the
professor to make sure you have the information you need.
n Plan for free time – Treat yourself to relaxation time away
from the books, but don’t forget to come back to your studies
as planned and keep distractions with friends and family to a
minimum.
The University supports employees who want to enhance
their knowledge and skills. For information about the tuition
waiver program and policy guidelines, contact Benefits Services
at 962-3071.
ULEAD PROGRAM DEADLINE EXTENDED
TO MARCH 31
The nomination deadline has been extended for the Uni-versity
Leadership Education and Development Program
(ULEAD) until March 31.
ULEAD, a 10-week educational program for middle man-agers,
includes six core classes, a 360 leadership assessment,
peer coaching and team projects designed to have a significant
impact on improving institutional effectiveness.
Detailed information about ULEAD, eligibility criteria
and the application process is available at hr.unc.edu/train-ing-
development/specialized-programs/u-lead/index.htm.
Contact William Frey at 962-9685 or will_frey@unc.edu if you
have questions.
FLEXIBLE SPENDING REIMBURSEMENT
DEADLINE IS MARCH 31
Flexible spending program claims from 2010 for either the
health care or dependent day care spending accounts must be
filed with Aon Consulting no later than March 31. Failure to
submit claims for 2010 by March 31 will result in forfeiture of
any funds remaining in the account.
Check balances online at www.ncflex.selfservicenow.com or
call Aon Consulting at 877-371-2926.
Submit claims electronically at the same URL, or down-load
the claim form from www.osp.state.nc.us/ncflex/Forms/
Forms.html and fax it to Aon at 866-892-8063. If you fax a
claim form, be sure to keep the fax confirmation number and a
copy of all submitted claims for your records.
Call Benefit Services at 962-3071 with questions.
Tuition waiver program provides economic benefit for employees
Suzannah Johnston always hesitates
when someone she meets asks where
she is from.
Her answer, she admits, depends on how
long she wants the conversation to last.
The short answer, which she gives most
often, is Raleigh. But the long answer always
starts with – and inevitably winds its way
back to – Africa. That’s because, for Johnston,
home has always been more about a state of
mind than her most recent address.
That way of thinking about the world, and
her place in it, is something Johnston comes
by naturally.
Her parents met in the 1970s while serving
together as Peace Corps volunteers in Burkina
Faso, a country in West Africa then known as
the Republic of Upper Volta.
They had moved to Senegal, the western-most
country of West Africa, by 1984, the year
she was born.
Johnston was 6 when they moved to Rwanda,
9 when they left Africa for Jamaica in the Carib-bean
and 12 when she wound up in Raleigh.
With that type of mobile childhood, John-ston
became familiar with the unfamiliar,
which may be why she majored in interna-tional
affairs when she arrived at Carolina. And
why she began to seek new places to discover
on her own.
She spent a summer in Malawi, a country
in southern Africa, helping with a project to
prevent HIV/AIDS. After graduating in 2006,
she postponed graduate school to enter the
Peace Corps.
IMMERSED IN HER WORK
Johnston ended up back in West Africa, this
time in Niger, which borders Burkina Faso,
where her parents met.
Niger is twice the size of Texas. The Sahara
Desert covers three-fourths of the country,
and human misery is even more widespread
than sand.
The fertility rate is among the highest in the
world, as is the infant mortality rate. Much of
the population lives in rural villages such as the
one Johnston lived in for 27 months, where
the struggle for survival occurs without benefit
of electricity or running water, grocery stores
or hospital emergency rooms.
She spent her first weeks in the village
immersing herself in the native language of
Hausa and developing a wide circle of friends
See JOHNSTON page 11
March 16, 2011 11
functions of student government before there
was student government, Cherry said. They
sponsored musical concerts, held banquets and
lecture series, and in sum, provided niches for
members to find an interest.
But by the start of the 20th century, their role
as an umbrella for other student committees
had already begun to devolve as the committees
spun off into separate organizations. One spinoff
was the “Yackety Yack”, the student yearbook.
The societies even lost their libraries after the
new University librarian, Louis Round Wilson,
coaxed members into donating their prized col-lection
to the University.
“Looking through the minutes at the turn of
the century, you see the societies letting mem-bers
of the orchestra skip meetings for practice,”
Cherry said. “Regular meetings were adjourned
early so members could attend the growing
number of musical and athletic events.”
The search for a new niche, Cherry believes,
is one reason the Di-Phi societies tried to refash-ion
themselves as a sort of mock legislature in
the 1920s.
They joined with student government to
oppose the North Carolina speaker ban law that
was passed in 1963, but in the ensuing years
were caught in a struggle for relevance, then
survival.
By 1971, Di-Phi had dwindled down to one
person, Stanley Greenberg from Orange County,
Cherry said. Greenberg led the effort to revive
Di-Phi by convincing 13 others to join him.
“He didn’t want the death of the oldest stu-dent
organization on campus to be on his
hands,” Cherry said.
among the women there. Once she learned the language and
gained their acceptance, Johnston gave informal health lessons
during the part of the day mothers gathered, with their babies,
to talk.
She focused on the importance of nutrition during preg-nancy
and on feeding babies exclusively with breast milk for the
first six months so they would not be exposed to contaminated
drinking water that could lead to bouts of severe diarrhea, and
possibly result in death.
Speaking Hausa, Johnston did a radio show on health top-ics.
She joined in a bike ride to promote HIV/AIDS prevention.
She helped plant trees. And weeks after she returned home in
October 2008, her head was still in Niger.
“For two years, you live in a completely different way,” she
said. “You adapt. You make new friends. That is what makes
coming back home difficult because you have a home over
there that you had to leave.”
By that time, Johnston began thinking more and more about
pursuing a career in public health and specializing in mater-nal
and child health. But before committing to it, she decided
to return to West Africa again, this time with Peace Corps
Response, a program that provides opportunities for return-ing
Peace Corps volunteers to undertake short-term, high-impact
assignments.
Her assignment, from August 2009 to February 2010, was in
Liberia, working with a community health department director
to write proposals and organize vaccination campaigns.
IMAGINING A FUTURE OF SERVICE
Buoyed by that experience, Johnston last August started her
master’s degree in public health with a focus on health behavior
and health education.
Not long afterward, she began her job with University Career
Services as Carolina’s Peace Corps recruiter. She also works
directly for the Peace Corps to interview students who apply
and to process their applications.
When Johnston saw the job advertised, it took her less than
an hour to respond, she said.
“I love talking about the Peace Corps anyway, so this job
allows me to do that to a really captive audience,” Johnston
said. “It’s so great to be able to not only share my own experi-ence
as a Peace Corps volunteer, but help students find a path
to experiences of their own.”
Even now, she thinks about that village in Niger every day
and the people she met there and the problems they continue
to face.
She thinks about the little boy who followed her around dur-ing
the day, or the young girl who kept her company at night as
they read magazines under the dim glow of her lantern.
She thinks about the women who stood up for her when a
group of strangers demanded to know who she was and what
she was doing there.
But what she thinks about most often is the baby boy who
one of her friends buried, a twin who was born malnourished
and did not live to see his first birthday.
“In one of my classes, I am working on developing a malnu-trition
program,” Johnston said. “But it is because of him that
this issue is very real to me.”
And in the end, she can’t help but imagine the difference she
will be able to make when she returns.
JOHNSTON from page 10
PEACE CORPS CELEBRATES 50 YEARS
This year marks the half-centennial of the founding
of the Peace Corps, which will be celebrated on cam-pus
with several events.
On March 21, a birthday party in The Pit will be held
from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Later that evening, “Sargent
Shriver: An American Idealist” will be shown in the
auditorium of the F.P.G. Student Union at 7 p.m.
On March 23, a Peace Corps information session
will be held in Room 1005 of the FedEx Global Educa-tion
Center from 7 to 9 p.m.
For information, e-mail peacecorps@unc.edu. Caro-lina
ranks No. 3 on the list of large schools produc-ing
Peace Corps volunteers, with 94 undergraduate
alumni currently serving.
CHERRY from page 7
Approximately 500 tons of dried wood pellets will be burned
with coal at the Cameron Avenue Cogeneration Facility over the
next two weeks as the University tests the feasibility of co-firing
with biomass to reduce its carbon footprint. The testing was sched-uled
to begin earlier this week.
“The testing will be closely monitored and studied to provide
more information about the feasibility of doing this on a regular
basis,” said Ray DuBose, director of Energy Services.
The test, originally planned for last November, was resched-uled
for spring because of delays in shipping the dried
wood pellets and to avoid any interruption in service during
cold weather.
Co-firing with biomass was one of the options for reducing the
University’s carbon footprint that was described in the 2009 Cli-mate
Action Plan (www.climate.unc.edu/portfolio/cap2009) and
is a key part of the University’s strategy for achieving its goal of
being coal-free by May 2020.
In September, Energy Services took one of the first steps toward
that goal when a relatively small shipment of 20 tons of wood pel-lets
was used to test the ability of the fuel-handling system at the
plant. That test was successful, so the larger order was placed for a
more extensive test.
Wood pellets are just one form of biomass under consideration.
Energy Services also plans to test the feasibility of torrefied wood
in the late spring, depending on the availability of the charcoal-like
fuel.
Cogeneration plant to start biomass testing
In fall 2008, when the University first felt
the effects of the global economic crisis,
Chancellor Holden Thorp began updating
the Carolina community about the impact
of state budget cuts on campus.
The Carolina Budget Information web-site
was created to house budget-related
information, including University e-mail
messages, reports, guidelines and planning
documents, as well as directives from the
State of North Carolina and UNC General
Administration.
Budget news from other campuses,
both around the UNC system and across
the country, was added, as well as recom-mendations
for streamlining University
operations from the privately funded Bain &
Company study.
During the past three fiscal years, Carolina
Budget Information has become the reposi-tory
for information about the impact of the
state’s ongoing fiscal crisis on the University
and how administrators have responded.
But the volume of information made the
website unwieldy. So Carolina Budget Infor-mation
recently was revamped to mirror the
University’s redesigned homepage, and the
information has been categorized to make
specific pieces easier to find.
In addition, FAQs have been created to
describe North Carolina’s current budget
situation, how the University is funded, the
impact of budget reductions on the class-room
and the workforce, and how Caro-lina
Counts serves as a roadmap for wisely
implementing necessary budget reductions.
For information, refer to universityrela-tions.
unc.edu/budget.
BUDGET WEBSITE
REVAMPED
FOR EASIER USE
12 University Gazette
Carolina’s Facebook page has enough fans to fill the Smith Center more than three times over.
With Vimeo and YouTube, people on or off campus can see special interviews, programs and speakers. Carolina fans can add their photos to the UNC Flickr group on the University’s homepage. And prospective students can access specific appli­cation information they need.
Even Chancellor Holden Thorp tweets. (Follow him
at @chanthorp.)
“If used well, it has the opportunity to enhance the intellec­tual climate by knocking down the walls of the classroom,” said Ryan Thornburg, assistant professor at the journalism school.
“I think for so long we feared social media coming into the classroom, but what’s really happened is that the classroom becomes a more natural part of students’ social life.“
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Students have traditionally been early adopters of social media platforms. Thornburg, who teaches online journalism, calls them digital natives. He said that connecting with students through social media has only enhanced his ability to teach them.
Hester agrees that social media use has a legitimate place in the classroom.
“I often get feedback from students, via Twitter, that they might not give me in office hours,” he said. “Sometimes they tweet something that clues me in to the fact that there’s some­thing they aren’t understanding in class. I can better address it in the next one.”
Mellanye Lackey, public health liaison librarian at the Health Sciences library, teaches the Emerging Technologies in Public Health class in the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Her students learn about the logistics of social media applications and explore the larger implications of social media use and how to leverage those opportunities to advance public health.
“In this class, we’re discussing these issues and what makes for effective health communications,” Lackey said.
For a final project, students will select a public health topic, survey existing social media that support it and use social media to promote it.
“Students will be able to report usage statistics, track conversations and get real experience with the tools,” she said.
Gary Miller, assistant direc­tor for social media and inno­vation at University Career Services, adapts a Wayne Gretzky quote when describ­ing why his department is devoting so much time to social media: “We have to skate to where the puck is going to be.”
With so many students using social media, Miller positions many of UCS’s communications to reach students through social media sites.
“It’s a way to educate students about what our office does,” he said. “Through social media, we can become more approachable to students who aren’t sure if we can help them.”
Miller gives presentations to students each semester to help them understand what their social media profiles might mean to their futures. He reminds students that potential employers may seek out and view their profiles to find out more about them.
“I tell students that they would never let the rest of the world decide what’s on their resumes,” he said. “Don’t let them decide this with a Google search.”
CREATING COMMUNITY
Beyond one-way communication, the use of social media creates an opportunity to bring people together while provid­ing key information.
For example, the admissions office at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy uses a Facebook page to answer prospective stu­dents’ questions.
“I think it has the most promise for serving as a model of how the school can interact with a very important audience: potential students,” said David Etchison, the school’s director of communications. “The Facebook page allows us to put a human face on our admissions office while answering questions publicly so that all applicants can benefit from the answers.”
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions reaches out to thousands of prospective applicants to Carolina through blogs and a Facebook page, and admissions officials hold online chat sessions, both to interact with potential students and reinforce key messages about Carolina.
“The benefits of social media for our office are tremendous, ranging from the ability to respond immediately to emerging issues to offering students a more personal connection to Caro­lina,” said Ashley Memory, senior assistant director.
“Social media must support our larger goals. Having multiple means of communication is always useful, but our first priority will always go to developing quality content.”
Social media also help overcome the barrier of distance.
The School of Information and Library Science draws in alumni and friends who cannot travel to campus for special events by providing access to more than 100 video pro­ductions through the SILS YouTube channel, said Wanda Monroe, lecturer and director of communications for the school.
Another social media software tool used for video is Vimeo, which allows larger video files, such as hour-long lectures and special presentations, to be added to the site, she said. “It brings people home to campus to participate virtually.”
The Office of University Development uses its Facebook and Twitter accounts to interact with donors and alumni. With individual accounts for different groups, messages can target specific audiences, said Rebecca Bramlett, associate director of annual giving, who leads the office’s social media efforts.
“Our main intent with social media efforts is to have more places to reach out, provide information and to tell stories about all the wonderful things happening at Carolina,” she said.
“Sometimes we also promote how those things are made possible by private support, but these sites aren’t just about giving. Social media gives us a chance to focus more on the engagement side of what we do, build relationships and keep people connected to this place they love.”
PROVIDING SAFETY INFORMATION
The University’s arsenal of communication tools for sending emergency messages includes social media as part of a strategy anchored by the Alert Carolina website, alertcarolina.unc.edu.
University Relations uses RSS feeds to automatically post messages to the University’s main Twitter and Facebook chan­nels, as well as those of the Department of Public Safety and New Student and Parent Programs, any time the Alert Carolina banner is activated on www.unc.edu and other campus web­pages that have adopted the homepage’s design.
“Using Twitter and Facebook spreads the word quickly that new or updated information is available on the Alert Carolina webpage,” said Mike McFarland, director of University Com­munications. “It’s one more way to extend the reach of a multi-layered approach to communication.”
DEFINING SUCCESS
Metrics report how many users visit a page, how long they stay, how often they return and how many interact with the page.
These reports can gauge how well a particular effort is work­ing – what kinds of posts, tweets, photos and videos seem to be connecting with users and which ones aren’t working.
But Miller warns that metrics don’t always provide the
whole picture.
“If I respond to a student’s question through a social media outlet, and he is then more likely to come in to the career cen­ter, you can’t track that through metrics,” he said.
Sometimes finding out what works best is simply a matter of trial and error.
“Like television, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all medium,”
Hester said.
This month, Carolina will post a site off www.unc.edu dedicated to social media at the University, where people can access all the official accounts that exist on campus and select the news and information they want in their feeds and have it delivered directly
to them.
“If used well, [social media] has the opportunity to enhance the intellectual climate by knocking down the walls of the classroom.”
– Ryan Thornburg
Carolina’s Facebook page has enough fans to fill the Smith Center more than three times over.
SOCIAL MEDIA from page 1