Carolina First

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Fall 2007

Briefs

 

UNC sets fund-raising record—again!

UNC set a new record for gifts in fiscal year 2007—the fourth straight year that the University has set a record for such support.

Carolina received $250.8 million in private gifts in fiscal 2007, which ended June 30. The total follows on the heels of fiscal 2006’s $239 million in gifts. The campus also had 71,740 donors—its most ever.

Giving in 2007 pushed the Carolina First Campaign over the top. Carolina exceeded the campaign’s $2 billion goal on Feb. 21, 2007, and since then has received more than $2.27 billion in commitments, which include pledges as well as gifts.

Commitments in 2007 also helped the University create 18 endowed professorships, as well as 114 undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships.

As of Nov. 26, UNC-Chapel Hill alumni have given $804.7 million to the campaign, while corporations and foundations have provided almost $868 million. The balance has come from friends of the University and other organizations.

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General Assembly provides groundbreaking funding for cancer research

With the passage of this year’s state budget, the North Carolina General Assembly created the state’s first University Cancer Research Fund. UNC’s School of Medicine and Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center will receive $25 million in 2007-08 and, beginning in 2009, are slated to receive $50 million per year.

This groundbreaking funding will serve to improve the qual­ity of life and treatment of cancer patients statewide and enhance UNC’s access to science and technology. It will also increase UNC Lineberger’s ability to discover and disseminate knowledge across the spectrum of cancer research, and make real improvements in prevention, early detection and therapies that will benefit all North Carolinians.

“With the support of the General Assembly for construction of the North Carolina Cancer Hospital in 2004, and now this extraordinary cancer research fund, UNC has been provided an opportunity and a challenge—to become the nation’s best university cancer center,” said Shelley Earp, UNC Lineberger’s director.

“We must and will develop pathways to move prevention, early detection and therapeutic research into the clinic and the community, the outcome of which will be improved statewide cancer care, grounded in the latest research findings, and available to all North Carolinians,” Earp said.

The number of cancer visits to UNC Health Care has dou­bled in the last nine years. Over the next 30 years, the number of cancer patients in the state will again double. Because of the N.C. General Assembly’s action, UNC’s North Carolina Cancer Hospital will become a hub to help the state address this increasing health care problem, Earp said.

“The National Cancer Institute is extremely gratified to learn of the General Assembly’s commitment to making a difference in the lives of those afflicted with cancer. UNC Lineberger is one of the outstanding cancer centers supported by NCI that conduct groundbreaking clinical research and provide state-of-the-art cancer care,” said NCI Director Dr. John E. Niederhuber. “Having the state government make a long-term investment in decreasing the burden of cancer and, ultimately, the burden of cancer health care costs, is truly visionary.”

“As a cancer survivor, the University Cancer Research Fund makes me optimistic about a solution to cancer,” said Kate MacIntyre, a UNC Health Care lung cancer patient who lives in Davidson. “The state of North Carolina is putting a stake in the ground, emphasizing the importance of cancer research to make very real progress under a dedicated program unlike any we have ever had. North Carolina is saying ‘We can do this.’ ”

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New leadership, faces on UNC Board of Trustees

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Roger Perry

The UNC Board of Trustees has elected veteran board member Roger L. Perry Sr. as its new chair.

Perry, of Chapel Hill, is president of East West Partners and has served on the board since 2003, chairing the Buildings and Grounds Committee and serving on the Compensation Committee. Last spring, he was also reappointed to a new four-year term as a trustee by the Board of Governors.

In addition, trustees elected two new officers to serve on the 13-member board responsible for governing the University.
Karol V. Mason of Atlanta, partner at the law firm Alston and Bird LLP, was elected vice chair and Russell “Rusty” M. Carter of  Wilmington, president of the Atlantic Corp. of  Wilmington, was re-elected secretary.

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C. D. Spangler Foundation announces once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

The C.D. Spangler Foundation has offered the UNC system a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with plans to create up to 96 distinguished professorships.

The foundation proposed two new challenge-grant programs that together will make $26.9 million available to support the creation of up to 96 distinguished professorships across the UNC system’s 16 campuses. In 2007, the foundation has committed to provide $6.9 million—the full private funding required to endow one distinguished professorship on each campus. Beginning in 2008, the foundation will invest up to $20 million over five years to help each campus qualify for one additional endowed chair each year—potentially adding 80 more professorships.

Both proposals will also take advantage of state matching funds from the Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund.

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$4 million gift to enhance UNC Kenan-Flagler’s
real estate program

Real estate tycoon Leonard W. Wood ’72 has committed $4 million to Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Center for Real Estate Development (CRED). Wood, formerly a principal of Trammell Crow Residential, is a founding member of  Wood Partners LLC, an Atlanta company that develops, constructs and acquires multifamily rental communities.

Wood’s gift will allow for enhancement of the school’s MBA real estate program and expansion of CRED, which is part of the school’s Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. Launched in 2001, CRED focuses on education, research and outreach in real estate development to help business leaders cre­ate and manage property in ways that ensure positive impact and sustainable results.

The $4 million gift, which includes a matching $1 million from Wood’s business partners, will establish The Leonard W. Wood Foundation for Excellence in Real Estate, supporting the recruit­ment of faculty and a new executive director for the center. UNC Kenan-Flagler will recognize Wood’s gift by renaming CRED the Leonard W. Wood Center for Real Estate Development.

“The school has proven it can attract people who want careers in real estate, and those people have gone on to have a tremendous impact in the real estate industry,” said Wood, who, along with Carolina alumnus Steven D. Bell ’67, in 2001 endowed a real estate professorship with a $2 million gift. “My gift is aimed at building on that momentum.”

UNC Kenan-Flagler has offered a concentration in real estate development for MBA students since 1999. It is the only program from a top-ranked business school that is focused on development.

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First four Kenan Music Scholars named

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Cynthia Burton

Three instrumentalists and a vocalist were named the University’s first Kenan Music Scholars. The scholars, who began their studies at Carolina this fall, are Cynthia Burton, a violinist from Banner Elk, N.C.; Jessica Kunttu, a bassoonist from Cary, N.C.; Daniel Hammond, a horn player from Raleigh, N.C.; and Lauren Schultes, a soprano from Grosse Pointe, Mich.

The four-year merit scholarships, valued at approximately $12,500 each, are funded by a $4 million endowment created last December by the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust of Chapel Hill. The trust also con­tributed $4 million for a new UNC music building, now under construction on Columbia Street.

Each scholar also receives $6,000 for the four years, for study abroad, internships, attendance at music events and travel to audition for graduate schools.

“This very impressive first class of Kenan Music Scholars represents precisely what the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust anticipated when we established the program,” said Richard M. Krasno, Ph.D., executive director of the trust. “They are an extraordinary group of young men and women with great talent and capacity for benefiting from the broad educational experience ahead of them at UNC.”

The William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust has long supported faculty and facilities at Carolina, but the Kenan Music Scholarships represent its most generous gift directed to students.

“William R. Kenan Jr.’s three sisters—Mary Lily Kenan Flagler, Sarah Graham Kenan and Jessie Kenan Wise—were all musically talented in singing, piano and organ,” said Thomas S. Kenan III, trustee of the Kenan Trust. (His father, Frank Hawkins Kenan, was a cousin of William’s.) “As we approached the closure of the highly successful Carolina First Campaign, the Kenan Trust felt it fitting to strengthen the cultural life of the University—and what better way than to offer full scholarships to the most talented artists to study here.”

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UNC School of Medicine names first Perlmutt Scholar

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Louis M. Perlmutt

Katherine Liljedahl of Hendersonville, N.C., has been named the UNC School of Medicine’s first Perlmutt Scholar. Named for Louis M. Perlmutt ’71 (MD ’77), the Dr. Louis M. Perlmutt Scholarship was created by Perlmutt’s friends, coworkers and family to support medical students with strong ties to rural North Carolina. The hope is that these scholars will return to their communities to practice medicine.

As a medical student at UNC, Perlmutt was passionate about helping care for patients in rural areas. He was involved with the school’s Area Health Education Center and often volunteered in poorly funded and understaffed hospitals in eastern North Carolina.

After attending medical school, Perlmutt received his post-graduate training at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and sub-specialty training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Perlmutt—who grew up on Morgan Creek, just minutes away from UNC Hospitals, where his father had come to work as a physiologist when it first opened in 1952—and his family returned to North Carolina in 1984 when he accepted a position as an assistant professor of radiology at Duke Medical Center. He spent the last 12 years of his career as a partner at Wake Radiology Consultants in Raleigh, N.C. During that time, Perlmutt aided numerous underserved communities—including Smithfield, Henderson and Erwin—all in desperate need of more medical doctors. He also served as an adjunct professor at UNC, allowing him to continue his passion for teaching and to give lectures at his favorite university.
Perlmutt died in 2001.

If you would like to contribute to the scholarship fund, contact the Medical Foundation of North Carolina at 919-966-1201 or 800-962-2543.

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Kidwell named first director of American Indian Center

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Clara Sue Kidwell

In July, UNC’s American Indian Center (AIC) welcomed Clara Sue Kidwell as its first director. Kidwell came from the University of Oklahoma, where she served as director of Native American Studies and professor of history.

Prior to her tenure at Oklahoma, Kidwell, whose tribal affiliations are Choctaw and Chippewa, was the assistant director for cultural resources at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.

AIC is one of the only centers on the East Coast to focus solely on American Indian issues and research. As director, Kidwell will collaborate with faculty, students and staff to initiate new programs, continue outreach to American Indian communities and raise funds for the center.

“My vision for the center is that it will become a strong resource to disseminate information, to keep people informed about Indian-related events and research on the campus and support the development of new initiatives,” Kidwell said. “It can also help to create a bridge between the intellectual and scholarly resources of the University and the Indian communities in North Carolina.”

North Carolina is home to the largest American Indian population east of the Mississippi River. In 2005, the U.S. Census estimated the state’s total population at just under 8.7 million, with 1.3 percent, or approximately 113,100, listed as American Indians and Alaskan natives.

The UNC student body mirrors that percentage. In fall 2007, American Indian students numbered 218, nearly 1 percent of total enrollment.

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22 UNC students to study in Asia as Phillips Ambassadors

UNC’s first class of Phillips Ambassadors—22 students in 14 study-abroad pro­grams—studied in Asia this past summer or will do so in the 2007-08 academic year.

Chosen from among 98 applicants, the students were awarded scholarships for study in China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Vietnam and Japan.

High Point businessman Earl N. “Phil” Phillips Jr. ’62 created the Phillips Ambassadors Program with a generous gift to the College of Arts and Sciences last fall. The gift created an endowment to provide scholarships for up to 50 undergraduates annually.

A quarter of the scholarships are reserved for qualified undergraduate business majors and minors from Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

“This first class of Phillips Ambassadors represents an important step in my long-term goal for every Carolina undergraduate to have an international experience before they graduate,” Phillips said.

Phillips, a business executive and former U.S. Ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean, is a former chair of Carolina’s Board of  Trustees and of N.C. Citizens for Business and Industry.

For more on the Phillips Ambassadors Program, visit studyabroad.unc.edu/phillips.

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Medieval and early modern studies to reach beyond European borders

Thanks to a $2.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, Carolina’s medieval and early modern studies program will be able to extend its reach beyond European borders—into China, Southeast Asia and Japan, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Currently, more than 60 faculty members across 10 departments in the humanities and fine arts teach and con­duct research about the period, which stretches in its European context from the fall of the Roman Empire through the 18th century.

UNC will use $1 million of the grant to endow the Mellon Distinguished Professorship of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, with help from the N.C. Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund.

With support from the Provost’s Office, additional faculty will be hired to teach and research new areas of medieval and early modern studies. Faculty and graduate students’ research and teaching, as well as graduate student recruitment, will benefit from $1.5 million from the foundation. The college will provide additional support for undergraduate studies.

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