Tomorrow starts here.
Year in Review 2 0 0 7 – 2 0 0 8
For more than 100 years, East Carolina University has been quietly fulfilling its mission of service.
Hand in hand with the people of its region,
ECU values where it has been and what the future holds.
Through partnerships with local government, educational and health-care institutions, and the private sector, ECU is building on everyday successes with the promise of many more to come. Today, we reflect on the past century and the breakthroughs and achievements that have touched North Carolinians and citizens beyond. We continue to prepare more professional educators, nurses, and allied-health practitioners than any other university in North Carolina. The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, distance education programs, and innovative research help attract more students to our university and send them into their fields as talented professionals and leaders. Our major areas of merit—along with the needs envisioned by ECU and its partners in the local and global community—represent East Carolina’s greatest opportunities for enduring benefits for the citizens of North Carolina. It is a fortunate juncture in East Carolina’s lifetime to pause and assess the needs of our region and how ECU can even better serve all of North Carolina in the years to come. The university’s future stands on a rich history built on the fulfillment of needs that before went unmet and the attainment of dreams thought unreachable. On the following pages are illustrations from the past year of how we are meeting those needs and achieving those dreams. As we continue to move into our second century, we stand ready to build on the aspirations of ECU’s founders and continue to provide the life-changing teaching, research, scholarship, and public service that make richer the lives of our students and the residents of eastern North Carolina. Tomorrow starts here.
Steve Ballard, Chancellor
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CAMPUS • ECU launched the most far-reaching fund-raising campaign in its history, setting a goal of $200 million by 2013. The funds will be used to, among other goals, build scholarship and research programs, create distinguished professorships, and construct new facilities. • ECU currently has 211 buildings on campus that occupy more than 1,379 acres. East Carolina’s housing opportunities include its 15 residence halls, and the university’s 10 on-campus dining venues further enhance the living experience by providing a wide variety of meals for students.
• U.S. News & World Report ranked the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University 17th among the top medical schools in the nation that emphasize primary care. The Brody School of Medicine also ranked in the top five among primary care schools with 60 percent of graduates going into primary care residencies from 2005 to 2007. • Both the ECU College of Nursing and the College of Education were ranked among the top 10 largest graduate programs in distance education by U.S. News & World Report. The College of Nursing ranked ninth, and the College of Education ranked 10th in library science programs.
• ECU officials broke ground on the new dental school in February and expect the school’s first class of 50 students to enroll in 2011. Under the leadership of Dr. James R. Hupp, the dental school will serve the state’s rural communities. (Gates, Tyrrell, Hyde, and Camden counties do not have any local dental services.) The project will cost an estimated $90 million.
• An ECU surgeon, Dr. W. Randolph Chitwood Jr., performed his 400th robot-assisted mitral valve repair in June. Robotic assistance during the procedure leaves minimal scarring and shortens the recovery time to two weeks as opposed to 12. Chitwood’s ECU training program is the first of its kind in the United States.
• The Golden LEAF Foundation contributed a $1 million grant toward the construction of a new Family Medical Center. The facility is expected to serve 29 health-disparate counties in eastern North Carolina and will train doctors and students. The current medicine center was built in the 1970s and sees nearly 46,000 patients each year.
• A partnership between ECU and the NC Department of Public Instruction’s Career and Technical Education will give high school students the chance to take college-level computer-engineering technology classes and earn college credit. The program streamlines the preparation of students entering the fields of engineering and technology.
• Purple is the new green. ECU has reduced its environmental footprint through the purchase of an electric vehicle that will be used for maintenance, parking, and other needs, and a hybrid bus that is expected to reduce the university’s diesel biofuel consumption by 3,500 gallons a year.
• Some of ECU’s facilities hosted stops during the 2008 presidential campaigns. Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Joe Biden visited campus during the presidential primaries and in the fall, respectively. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin also headlined a rally at the university.
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• ECU plans to address the ongoing nursing shortage by using a two-year $250,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The grant will be used to develop online forums for nurses in rural communities, create nursing councils in those communities, and expand access to education through scholarships for nursing educators and managers. • Academic Analytics ranked ECU’s communication sciences and disorders program and the kinesiology, exercise science, and rehabilitation program fourth and ninth, respectively, in the nation. The 2007 index compiled national rankings for faculty productivity for 375 universities that have PhD programs. • The ECU Brody School of Medicine and Eastern Neurosurgical and Spine Associates will merge to develop the first neuroscience institute on campus. The move is expected to improve services for patients in the East, as well as expand research into the neurosciences. • ECU’s long-term goal for the Brody School of Medicine is to admit 120 medical students with each new class, as part of the effort to meet a projected shortage in physicians. The school admitted a record number of 76 students in August 2007. • ECU received three grants totaling more than $868,000 from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust to address health concerns in the region, including establishing mental health services in Greene County schools and expanding a case management program for school nurses to help children with chronic illnesses.
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• ECU’s Department of Interior Design and Merchandising received software, valued at $385,000, from a textiles and marketing firm that will help students to learn to plan and integrate the presentation and merchandising of retail store environments. • The Wright Fountain, a centerpiece of ECU’s campus and history, is being rebuilt with structural and aesthetic improvements. The original fountain was dedicated in 1932 to Robert H. Wright, the university’s first president, and rededicated to Martin L. Wright in 1951. • The ECU community is getting a second take on the school’s education and campus. The 3-D virtual technology program Second Life allows students to connect to campus in a new way, including having access to academic journals and other research in a virtual Joyner Library and gives faculty members the chance to teach classes and hold conferences. • Plans are in development to expand Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium by adding about 7,000 seats to the east end zone. The project, which is estimated to be completed by the start of the Pirates’ 2010 season, will raise the football stadium’s capacity to about 50,000 people. • The East Carolina Heart Institute will serve as a vital center for research and medical professionals to benefit eastern North Carolina. The institute is composed of two buildings that were built by ECU and by Pitt County Memorial Hospital and includes research labs, outpatient and educational facilities, operating and interventional rooms, and patient beds.
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ECU professor Rebecca Sweet, right, spearheaded efforts to renovate local homes at no cost for homeowners like Mrs. Martha Dixon.
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OUTREACH • A grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust will enable ECU to help recovering substance abusers find employment. Starting off, the program will help 792 methadone clinic clients from PORT Human Services—a private, nonprofit behavioral health-care agency in Greenville that benefits 13 eastern North Carolina counties. • The ECU Marching Pirates’ annual “Band Together and Give” food drive collected soy protein, vitamin tablets, dried vegetables, and rice as part of the University Million Meals event. With the help of more than 750 volunteers, the event collected 250,000 meals that will help feed one million people around the world. • Carmen Russoniello, a professor of recreational therapy and director of the Psychophysiology Lab and Biofeedback Clinic, is using a new program to help Marines recover from issues ranging from balance problems to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The program brings six soldiers to ECU and allows a therapist to visit wounded soldiers at Camp Lejeune. • ECU established its first diversity-based scholarship offered through a college this year, thanks to an endowment gift by alumnus Danny Scott. The $2,300 scholarship will be awarded annually to a College of Business student who not only has the financial need but also contributes to education diversity and shows academic excellence. The first recipient will be announced in April 2009.
• Founded by a pastor, a businessman, and ECU professor Mark L’Esperance, Building Hope has helped children for eight years and given ECU Teaching Fellows and Project HEART a means to reach the community. The program focuses on academically or socially at-risk children to overcome obstacles by developing skills and spirituality. • A $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation will enable ECU to support a three-year program called TechMath to link businesses and higher education with underserved high school students and their teachers in rural northeastern North Carolina. More than 30 local business partners will participate in the program that benefits 70 high school teachers and 70 students from 10 counties. • As part of the Rebuilding Together Pitt County, volunteers from ECU, Pitt Community College, and the community renovated two homes free of charge to the owners. ECU professor Rebecca Sweet has led the effort for a year and a half to organize, incorporate, and raise money for the project. ECU professor Kelly Jones and one of her classes helped with the public relations work. • ECU volunteers are collecting old cell phones to give to victims of domestic violence. Cell phone companies activate working phones to dial 911 only, thus making it a useful tool in an emergency. The drive collected about 160 phones, 39 chargers, and 15 batteries.
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• ECU professors Will Banks and Todd Finley held a program to help public school teachers improve their creative writing skills this summer for the second year. A grant from the National Writing Project paid for the tuition, books, and materials for each participant. • Jacquelyn Sauls, an ECU pediatric hematology and oncology specialist, directs Rainbow Services programs that allow children to exchange the anxiety of having an illness with sailing, swimming, and canoeing. Camp Rainbow and Camp Hope took in about 80 children with a variety of sicknesses, including cancer, hemophilia, and sickle-cell disease. • Many military personnel and their families were able to see the 2007 Sheraton Hawaii Bowl, thanks to ECU, Conference USA, and the Pirate Nation. “Tickets for Troops,” an ECU campaign that collected tickets for the bowl game, collected 4,500 tickets for the military families. Alumni from 28 states, United States territories, and the District of Columbia donated more than 2,700 tickets. ECU and C-USA donated the remaining 1,800. • ECU student-athletes collected and donated more than 3,800 canned goods and nearly 2,400 meals to the Food Bank of Eastern North Carolina. The softball team led donations with 2,042 cans, while the volleyball team came in second with 488 cans. The food was used for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. • An ECU professor raised $11,740 in a marathon to support Azalea Charity’s Aid for Wounded Soldiers project. Lt. Col. Steve Delvaux ran 26.2 miles in the 32nd annual Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. Delvaux is a professor of military science and battalion commander for the university’s Army ROTC program.
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• The College of American Pathologists’ Humanitarian Grant program awarded nearly $9,000 to help the Brody School of Medicine fight the trend of diabetes at a Halifax County clinic; ECU will also provide funds for the effort. The money will be used to buy better testing equipment and supplies for the free clinic. • ECU’s Center for Innovation in Technology and Engineering (CITE) helped an automotive parts company in Wilson to improve its efficiency through three oneweek training sessions. The training helped to increase efficiency at the company by 20 percent and identified three product lines that would work better as one unit. • ECU professor Priti Desai organized and drew nearly 100 people to the Fourth Annual Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Day in Greenville, including teenagers and children with congenital heart disease. Parents also got to meet with health professionals from Pitt County Memorial Hospital and the American Heart Association. • In eastern North Carolina, 122 new homeowners in 18 counties benefited from ECU’s “Upgrade & Save” heating-efficiency program and collectively saved nearly $80,000. Administered by professor Leslie Pagliari, the program switches out standard electric furnaces and airconditioning units with energy-efficient heat pumps. • Several ECU organizations held fundraisers and events to help Pitt County’s homeless population. In January, the Xi Nu chapter of Phi Beta Sigma hosted the annual “Sleep Out for the Homeless” as part of a national campaign on several campuses. The Mendenhall Student Center has also served as a temporary shelter for homeless men and women looking to get out of the cold.
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RESEARCH • Current research grants and contracts expenditures have surpassed more than $18 million, a 39.3 percent increase over the 2002–2003 funding levels. Federal research grants also increased 36.7 percent, and state and local government grants increased 171.4 percent over the same funding levels. • Rickey Hicks, professor and chair of the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences’ chemistry department, was awarded more than $400,000 to research peptides that could be used to treat infections resulting from bacterial and biological warfare agents. Hicks is working with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. The research is funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. • East Carolina and the University of North Carolina– Chapel Hill have teamed up to improve cancer care and research for North Carolinians. Physicians and scientists will work together on projects and patient-care programs and recruit other officials to help. Both universities also have plans to expand their respective medical schools to address an expected shortage of physicians. • Five ECU maritime studies graduate students will travel to Stockholm, Sweden to help catalog the Vasa, an ill-fated 17th-century royal Swedish warship. The work is part of a project between the ECU maritime studies program and the Swedish National Maritime Museums. • ECU researchers were awarded more than $2 million in the form of nine grants by the National Institutes of Health to continue research that studies pancreatic cancer and cell transport to aspects of the metabolic process in diabetes.
• Nearly a decade of research landed Kathleen Row, chair of ECU’s psychology department, a spot on PBS’s June 4 documentary, The Power of Forgiveness. Row has studied how forgiveness can affect a person in more ways beyond spirituality. When participants were questioned about a time when someone had wronged them, their heart rates and blood pressures went up. Those levels were quicker to return to normal for subjects who had practiced forgiveness. • Anne Kellogg, an ECU pathologist, developed a monoclonal antibody that could be instrumental in treating very common forms of ovarian, breast, and other cancers. Kellogg worked with ImmunoGen Inc. and Sanofi-Aventis to create DS-6, which can deliver a killing agent to cancer cells. • ECU biologist Kyle Summers published research that shows a link between evolution and schizophrenia— genes linked to the condition are more likely to show evidence of natural selection than those not associated with the disease. Summers’ findings were published in the September 2007 edition of Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. • An NIH grant, awarded at $1.1 million, will enable ECU researchers to study how a new type of manufacturing material affects the human cardiovascular system. Dr. Christopher Wingard is the lead researcher in the study of carbon nanotubes—atomic structures that can be used as building blocks for materials as diverse as racing bicycles and semiconductors—and how they can affect cardiac function when inhaled in the form of dust.
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Dr. Larry Tise is helping uncover treasures of the past through his expertise on the lives of Wilbur and Orville Wright.
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• An ECU biologist was part of a team that surveyed local vegetation and the possible effects of climate and environmental changes. The team’s goal is to create permanent plots featuring vegetation and soil that can be studied over time and after natural occurrences, such as hurricanes. • A five-year grant will help Brody School of Medicine researchers find ways to control Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium responsible for nearly 10 percent of hospital and chronic lung infections in nearly 90 percent of patients with cystic fi brosis. The National Institutes of Health awarded the $1.6 million grant. • John Tucker, ECU history professor and director of the Asian studies program, guided 12 Pitt County teachers on a monthlong trip to observe the education system of Japan. The teachers studied Japanese teaching methods that they will incorporate into their own classrooms. They now have a better understanding of how to serve their non-Englishspeaking students in eastern North Carolina. • Dan Kane, a student in ECU’s bioenergetics PhD program, was recognized for his research to prevent and treat diabetes and related diseases by the American Physiological Society’s Environmental and Exercise Physiology Section. Kane’s research tracks how an anti-diabetic drug, Metformin, attenuates free-radical development in skeletal muscle tissue. • ECU researchers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration teamed up this summer to study three German submarines wrecked off the coast. The U-boats were sunk in 1942 during the Battle of the Atlantic. The vessels were surveyed and photographed without disturbing the wreckage.
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• The state’s coastal residents could benefit from research at ECU that will study how to deliver information about weather-related risks and hazards to the public. NC Sea Grant contributed $120,000 to the study. • As part of her master’s thesis in anthropology, ECU graduate student Sheri Balko went to Kinston in search of the grave of Richard Caswell, a Revolutionary War hero and the first governor of North Carolina. When the suspected location did not pan out, Balko and her fellow workers still found a coffin in the grave shaft that indicates someone or something was buried there. Her training, provided by ECU, will help her answer those new questions. • Dr. Larry Tise, the Wilbur & Orville Wright Distinguished Professor of History in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, worked with students to authenticate a crate that may have created the top of a kitchen table for the Wright brothers. Tise was asked to study the table by its owner Ron Ciarmello, who contacted Tise after he saw a picture of the table in Tise’s book Hidden Images: Discovering Details in the Wright Brothers’ Kitty Hawk Photographs 1900–1911. • Dr. Charles Ewen, East Carolina professor of anthropology and director of the ECU Archaeology Laboratories, and a group of graduate students found the remains of a 1740s-era brick cellar in Bath, North Carolina. A Bath history buff, Ewen considers this find important to mapping the original town founded in 1705. So far, Ewen and his students have covered two-thirds of Bath.
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Dr. Sam Sears will help patients with cardiac devices overcome their fears at the East Carolina Heart Institute.
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FAC U LT Y • Two ECU finance professors—Stanley Eakins, associate dean for the College of Business, and Samuel Tibbs, an associate professor—won the 2008 Charles H. Dow Award from the Market Technicians Association for their work in exploring trends in the stock market. The award also honored the paper’s co-author, William DeShurko, president of the Ohio-based 401 Advisor, LLC. • ECU biologist Dr. Jason Bond was asked to appear on The Colbert Report after his discovery of a new species of the trapdoor spider. Bond agreed to name the spider Aptostichus stephencolberti after host Stephen Colbert made a formal request on his show that the spider be named after him. This new discovery is one of many in Bond’s career, including one named after his favorite musician, Neil Young. • Best Doctors Inc. chose more than 30 physicians from ECU’s Brody School of Medicine to include in their 2007–2008 “Best Doctors” list. The group surveys more than 30,000 physicians in the United States. Approximately 5 percent of North Carolina physicians made the list. • Two members of ECU’s nursing faculty, Dr. Martha Raile Alligood and Frances R. Eason, were inducted into the National Education Academy. They were chosen for their dedication and many contributions to nursing education. Alligood is a professor and director of the doctoral program in the School of Nursing, and Eason is the project director of the Nursing Education Educator Development Program at ECU.
• Ruth Vandiford, nurse manager for the Department of Family Medicine at the Brody School of Medicine, earned the “Great 100 Nurses” designation for North Carolina. Vandiford received the award for her accomplishments and commitments to the nursing field. • North Carolina Literary Review founders were honored with the Roberts Award for Literary Inspiration. Those honored included Alex Albright, professor of creative writing; Eva Roberts, professor emerita of graphic design; and W. Keats Sparrow, former dean of the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences. • ECU’s Chancellor Emeritus Richard R. Eakin was awarded the College of Nursing’s first endowed distinguished professorship. During Eakin’s years as chancellor (1987–2001), the university added 5,000 students, gained doctoral status, and received money to build the new Health Sciences Building. • Dr. Sam Sears will work in the new East Carolina Heart Institute when it opens its doors. Sears is a professor (Department of Psychology) and director of the doctoral program in health psychology with a joint appointment in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences. Sears, a nationally recognized psychologist for his research on psychological care of patients with implanted cardiac devices, treats heart patients who are overcome with fear and anxiety regarding their devices. His research, “From Victim to Survivor: Journeys of Heart Failure,” has been highlighted on PBS. He has current research grants to study strategies for preparing patients to live successfully with an ICD.
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STUDENTS • ECU’s first class of 24 students in the Department of Engineering was awarded degrees in May. The program was created four years ago to advance economic development in eastern North Carolina. • The fall semester of 2008 marks the highest enrollment in ECU history. An estimated 27,703 students study at ECU including 20,882 undergraduates, 6,535 graduates, and 6,190 distant education students. East Carolina also achieved a 20 percent minority student enrollment. • An estimated 3,400 students received diplomas from ECU after completion of the 2008 spring semester. Of the graduates, 2,400 were undergraduates, 910 were graduates/professionals, and 74 were awarded medical degrees. East Carolina’s first physical therapy doctoral students and the country’s first three medical family therapy doctoral students were also awarded degrees. • Of this May’s 70 Brody School of Medicine graduates, almost two-thirds will go into primary care residencies, according to the National Residency Match Program. North Carolina will be home to 25 residents, 11 of whom will work at the Brody School of Medicine and Pitt County Memorial Hospital. • Marie Rowe and Nicolaus Glomb, third-year medical students in the Brody School of Medicine, have been selected as 2008 Albert Schweitzer Lambaréné Fellowship recipients. The students will travel to Gabon, Africa, for a three-month study at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, where they will work as junior physicians.
• Instead of completing a traditional residency like their Brody School of Medicine classmates, Heang Lim and Jessica Weeks will travel to Honduras to help provide health care to the nation’s people. To help with trip expenses, their classmates donated their class gift to Weeks and Lim’s Honduras trip. • Seven Brody School of Medicine students from East Carolina have been chosen as 2008–2009 North Carolina Albert Schweitzer Fellows. They must devote 800 hours of service in a year to local community programs that aim to strengthen health services. Their service will include cancer treatment for adults and first aid, surgery anxieties, and healthy habits for children. • Thirteen ECU construction management students traveled to China before the 2008 Beijing Olympics to study the architecture of the country. The students learned that their degree from one of the best construction management programs in the southeastern United States could land them jobs all over the world. • ECU education student Ashley Bonner was awarded the Air Force Commendation Medal from the 916th Aerospace Medicine Flight for her service in a Paraguay trip with the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Bonner helped deliver medical attention to some of the poorest areas of Paraguay. Even during times when her unit was under fire, Bonner adapted accordingly and remembered ECU’s motto–Servire.
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Photo by Jay Clark
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AT H L E T I C S • The Pirates traveled their longest distance in the history of Pirate football to play the Boise State Broncos in the 2007 Sheraton Hawaii Bowl. Coach Skip Holtz and his Pirates beat the Broncos 41–38. This is the fourth bowl game for ECU since 2000. • Former ECU football player Chris Johnson traded in his purple and gold to become a Tennessee Titan for the 2008–2009 NFL football season. Considered one of the nation’s best running backs, he is the first player in East Carolina history to acquire more than 5,000 all-purpose yards for a total of 6,993 yards in his college career. • Former East Carolina track runner LaShawn Merritt represented the United States at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Merritt won gold medals in both the 400-meter and the 4x400 meter relay team. As a freshman at ECU, Merritt held a record for the second-fastest indoor time in history for the 400-meter race. • ECU women’s tennis player Hannah Priest and volleyball player Kelley Wernert were honored as the 2007–2008 Conference USA Scholar Athletes of the Year. This award is given to top student-athletes in each conference-sponsored sport. Priest helped her team to record a national Top 10 Academic Progress Rate, and Wernert was CUV.com’s national Player of the Week. • The Institute of International Sports named Terry Holland, ECU’s director of athletics, as one of the 100 Most Influential Sport Educators. Holland has more than 50 years of experience with collegiate athletics, dating back to his basketball career in the mid-1960s at Davidson College.
• ECU has proven its students are just as talented academically as they are athletically. Four East Carolina sports were awarded the 2008 Conference USA Sport Academic Award, which is given to the conference institution with the highest grade point average during the academic year. The honored sports were softball and three men’s teams—basketball, golf, and tennis. • East Carolina’s volleyball team received an American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Team Academic Award. To accept the award, the entire team must maintain a grade point average of 3.30 or higher. ECU was one of three Conference USA teams to earn the award. Of the 12 volleyball players, seven of them made the Chancellor’s List (4.0 GPA) or the Dean’s List (3.5 or higher). • Mack McCarthy, East Carolina’s head coach for men’s basketball, has signed a contract securing his position until March 2013. In addition to constructive developments on the court, McCarthy has also directed ECU’s growth in the classroom. The Pirates were awarded the C-USA Sport Academic Award for 2008. • Two of East Carolina’s golfers earned the prestigious award of being named to the 2007–2008 NCAA Division I All-American Scholar Team by the National Golf Coaches Association (NGCA). Abby Bools and Colleen Estes met some of the most difficult criteria of all college athletics to obtain the award, such as maintaining a GPA of 3.50 and completing 50 percent of the university’s regularly scheduled competitive rounds during the season.
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For a century, East Carolina University has served the people of North Carolina and the nation. From modest beginnings as a teacher training school, we have grown to become a large, national research university.
The campus is located in Greenville, North Carolina, a growing city of about 70,000 that is a business, cultural, educational, and medical hub in eastern North Carolina. From ECU, it is just a two-hour drive to both the state capital to the west and Atlantic Coast beaches to the east.
With a mission of teaching, research, and service, ECU is a dynamic institution connecting people and ideas, finding solutions to problems, and seeking the challenges of the future.
Produced by University Publications, East Carolina University. Designed by Laura Davenport. Edited by Justin Boulmay, Spaine Stephens, and Roxanne Tankard. Photography by Forrest Croce. U.P. 09-184
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