CAROLINA
ARTS SCIENCES SPRING
T H E
AL SO
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2017
Synergy Unleashed
P O W E R
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P A R T N E R S H I P S
I N S I D E:
• Saving Carolina beaches • Creating scientists • Barbershop talk T H E
U N I V E R S I T Y
O F
N O R T H
C A R O L I N A
A T
C H A P E L
H I L L
FROM THE DEAN
Yes, and…
The first rule of improv — Kevin Seifert Photography
and a principle that has increasingly been adopted by organizations as a powerful team-building tool — is “yes, and …” It refers to building upon what has come before and encourages the sharing of ideas, Kevin M. Guskiewicz
opening the door to true collaboration.
You may have noticed our jaunty new ampersand on the cover of this issue. Our ampersand combines elements of an “A” for Arts and an “S” for Sciences. The symbol is, of course, shorthand for “and,” but I like to think of our version as representing “yes, and…”
Along with our custom ampersand we are also unveiling the College’s new tag line, Synergy Unleashed. Just as the ampersand represents the expansive range of the arts and sciences, Synergy Unleashed symbolizes the power of interdisciplinary work and our commitment to breaking down silos that hamper collaborative partnerships. After all, “arts” and “sciences” are artificial constructs; the lines between them have always been blurred.
Starting on p. 2, you can read more about what we mean by Synergy Unleashed. The five stories that follow personify the power of unexpected partnerships and the fresh new perspectives they bring.
CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES | SPRING 2017 | magazine.college.unc.edu Director of Communications: Geneva Collins Editor: Kim Weaver Spurr ’88, Associate Director of Communications Staff Multimedia Specialist: Kristen Chavez ’13 Editorial Assistant: Alison Wynn ’17 Designer: Linda Noble
Carolina Arts & Sciences is published semi-annually by the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and made possible with the support of private funds. Copyright 2017. | College of Arts & Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Campus Box 3100, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3100 | 919-962-1165 | college-news@unc.edu
College of Arts & Sciences • • • • • • •
Kevin Guskiewicz, Dean Chris Clemens, Senior Associate Dean, Natural Sciences Jonathan Hartlyn, Senior Associate Dean, Social Sciences and Global Programs Abigail Panter, Senior Associate Dean, Undergraduate Education Robert J. Parker, Jr., Senior Associate Dean, Development, and Executive Director, Arts and Sciences Foundation Terry Rhodes, Senior Associate Dean, Fine Arts and Humanities Kate Henz, Senior Associate Dean for Administration & Business Strategy
Arts & Sciences Foundation Board of Directors, Spring 2017 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
G. Munroe Cobey ’74, Chapel Hill, NC, Chair R. Duke Buchan III ’85, Palm Beach, FL, Vice Chair Kevin Guskiewicz, Chapel Hill, NC, President Jonathan Hartlyn, Chapel Hill, NC, Vice President James Klingler ’98, ’99, Chapel Hill, NC, Treasurer Robert J. Parker, Jr., Chapel Hill, NC, Executive Director and Secretary Amy B. Barry ’91, Naples, FL Eileen Pollart Brumback ’82, New York, NY Sunny H. Burrows ’84, Atlanta, GA Courtney Miller Cavatoni ’93, Atlanta, GA Thomas C. Chubb III ’86, Atlanta, GA Mark P. Clein ’81, Chevy Chase, MD Ann Rankin Cowan ’75, Atlanta, GA Luke E. Fichthorn IV ’92, Brooklyn, NY Druscilla French ’71, ’78, Chapel Hill, NC J. Henry Froelich III ’81, MBA ’84, Charlotte, NC Cosby Wiley George ’83, Greenwich, CT John C. Glover ’85, Raleigh, NC Henry H. Hamilton III ’81, Katy, TX William T. Hobbs II ’85, Charlotte, NC Steven H. Kapp ’81, MBA ’90, Philadelphia, PA Heavenly Johnson ’05, Chicago, IL M. Steven Langman ’83, New York, NY Stacie Lissette ’89, Hanover, PA Wendell A. McCain ’92, Chapel Hill, NC Aurelia Stafford Monk ’85, Greenville, NC Andrea Ponti ’85, London, England R. Alexander Rankin ’77, Goshen, KY David S. Routh ’82, Chapel Hill, NC Tready Arthur Smith ’92 BSBA, Tampa, FL Benjamin J. Sullivan, Jr. ’75, Rye, NY Patricia Rumley Thompson ’66, Atlanta, GA Marree Shore Townsend ’77, Greenwich, CT Thomas M. Uhlman ’71, ’75, Murray Hill, NJ James A. Wellons ’86, Philadelphia, PA Elijah White Jr. ’84, Houston, TX J. Spencer Whitman ’90, Charlotte, NC Cecil W. Wooten III ’68, ’72, Chapel Hill, NC
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Synergy Unleashed UNC linguists and computer scientists pair up to tackle password security. Artists and scientists bring to life a medieval flight experiment. Anthropologists and archivists help students on two continents explore their shared culture. These are just a few examples of what we mean by “Synergy Unleashed” and the power of novel collaborations and new ways
Donn Young
of thinking.
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4
Flight of Fancy
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Helping students explore being Maya
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Jack Davidson
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’Spork Lab‘ tackles password security Creating a buzz about health humanities High-tech fluids lab attracts waves of research partners
Plus: Saving the dunes, creating the next generation of scientists, helping men of color navigate UNC, transforming ideas into real-world
Departments
biomedical applications, and more. 22-25 Alumni and Faculty Up Close 26-35 The Scoop COVER PHOTO: Elsemarie deVries
36 Chapter & Verse
(in blue), a Ph.D. student in the UNC Coastal Environmental Change Lab,
inside back cover Finale
and Anna Atencio, a senior majoring in geology, record cross-shore transects on Edisto Beach in South Carolina. They
Stay Connected to the College via web, social media
are collecting baseline data in the wake
Magazine: magazine.college.unc.edu News/Events: college.unc.edu Social media: @unccollege
of Hurricane Matthew. See story on page 10. (Photo by Mary Lide Parker ’10)
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Stephen R. Covey, the leadership guru who penned The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, said: “Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals 10 or a 100 or even a thousand! It’s the profound result when two or more respectful human beings determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge.” In the College of Arts & Sciences, we believe that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts, which is why we are removing the barriers that prevent creative collaborations across disciplines. In the stories that follow, you’ll discover unconventional partnerships that demonstrate how we are unleashing new ways of thinking by encouraging a diversity of perspectives as we seek to solve complex problems.
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SYNERGY UNLEASHED
A sketchbook shows Jan Chambers’ early work in the interdisciplinary “Medieval ‘First in Flight’ ” project, which brought together faculty from both the arts and the sciences.
Steve Exum
Exploring the potential of interdisciplinary mashups
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Flight of fancy An art historian, a costume designer, a math biologist, a biomedical engineer and a team of undergraduate researchers unite to reimagine a breathtaking 9th-century flying experiment — and make a notable contribution to early aviation history. BY GENEVA COLLINS
Wright brothers made their historic flight over Kitty Hawk, and 600 years before Leonardo da Vinci sketched out a mechanical flying machine, an Islamic inventor named Abbas ibn Firnas designed a winged device, dared to test it himself and … flew. Glided, to be more precise. According to the earliest historical account, he rose, moved through the air, circled and landed far from his launching point, hurting his tailbone in the landing. Glaire Anderson knew of Abbas ibn Firnas and the accounts of his flight. The associate professor of art history specializes in early/medieval Islamic art and architecture. Although Ibn Firnas is not well known in Western culture, he is a staple of Islamic history books. His achievements have been recognized by NASA; a crater on the moon bears his name. Attending a dinner for newly tenured faculty in 2013 and describing her research to colleagues, she mused about what a 9th-century flying apparatus might look like. “You need a costume designer,” said her tablemate, Jan Chambers, associate professor of dramatic art and resident designer for PlayMakers Repertory Company. A collaboration began to take form, one requiring both art and science. The goal was twofold: (1) to create an artistic interpretation of Ibn Firnas’ glider wings and garment that reflected the history, culture and technology of the time, and (2) to provide a means for students to think about the problems
Steve Exum
More than 1,000 years before the
Jan Chambers, Glaire Anderson and Laura Miller hold a facsimile of an 11th-century Arabic manuscript describing the flight of inventor Abbas ibn Firnas. “The manuscript has yet to be incorporated into scholarship on aviation history,” said Anderson.
of early human flight by testing the fanciful device’s aerodynamic capabilities in UNC’s Joint Applied Math and Marine Sciences Fluids Lab. [Read more about the fluids lab on page 9.] The team grew to include Laura Miller, associate professor of biology and mathematics, who studies flight as part of her fluid dynamics research; Julia Kimbell, a research associate professor in the School of Medicine and an adjunct in biomedical engineering, and several undergraduate research associates, including two students in the Computational Astronomy and
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Physics Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, or CAP/REU. The team received a College of Arts & Sciences Interdisciplinary Collaboration Grant for the project, dubbed “A Medieval ‘First in Flight.’ ” Rediscovered manuscript sheds light There is no known visual representation of Ibn Firnas’ wings. Others have tried to imagine the device, designing utilitarian gliders. Anderson and Chambers wanted to capture the richness of the art and the sophistication of the science of medieval
Steve Exum
for something functional. He had a flair for the dramatic.” She began sketching.
A biomedical engineering student adapted Jan Chamber’s imaginative rendering of Abbas ibn Firnas’ wings into a model that could be created on a 3-D printer. The scale model was then tested in UNC’s Fluids Lab for its aerodynamic properties.
Cordoba, the capital of Islamic Iberia. Their chief source of inspiration was the earliest historical account of Ibn Firnas’ flight, contained in an 11th-century manuscript that was discovered in the 1930s, lost for several decades and rediscovered in the 1990s. “This manuscript has yet to be incorporated into scholarship on aviation history,” said Anderson. She worked with other experts to create a new English translation. From it, she and Chambers gleaned key details, such as the device
had two distinct wings capable of a controlled, sustained glide. They didn’t flap. Ibn Firnas’ garment was made of feathers fastened to silk. Witnesses were frightened by the spectacle. With this information, Chambers set to work. She studied 9th- and 10thcentury Islamic artifacts. She watched vultures and eagles — birds mentioned in the Arabic account — glide and soar. “Glaire and I talked about the lifestyle of the period. This man was an artist as well as a scientist,” Chambers said. “He was capable of crafting these mechanisms. He wouldn’t have settled
Testing the wings Enter the scientists. After sketching, Chambers used computer software to create 2-D renderings. From them, Kevin Simpson, a biomedical engineering student, designed a digital model that could be created using a 3-D printer. Miller oversaw the CAP/REU students who worked on the aerodynamic testing. Kimbell helped with using the computational software the students used to guide airways. The prototype was necessarily small: The wings, attached to a little mannequin, spanned less than 16 inches so that the device could fit into the water tunnel in the fluids lab for testing. (Yes, the wings’ gliding ability was tested in a water tunnel, not a wind tunnel. As Miller explained, air and water flow around objects similarly if scaled appropriately; it’s simply easier to measure velocity in water.) Meanwhile, Jesse Hall ’15, who worked with Chambers and Anderson, stitched a flying garment for the figure. Claire Drysdale, a junior majoring in studio art and biology, created an interactive timeline for the website that documented the project. “It was my introduction to how technology could be used in art history,” she said. Anderson is working on a book about Ibn Firnas and the Cordoban court of which he was part. She would love to create a life-size (16-foot wingspan) model of Chambers’ design, estimating that it would cost about $10,000. As she notes in her project report: “Our collaboration explores how the spheres of art and science have creatively intersected in the past and offers an example of how the visual arts and STEM sciences can fruitfully intersect in the present.” ➤ Learn more about the project at medievalflight.web.unc.edu.
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Helping students explore being Maya F
ourteen high school students listened attentively as UNC anthropologist Gabrielle Vail invited them to examine letters, drawings, photos, diaries, codices, newspapers and other Maya materials from the Southern Historical Collection in Wilson Library. “Start thinking about these materials in terms of ‘how can I tell the story of Maya migration?’” Vail said. “Explore them from a historical perspective, but also think of a personal connection.” Maya from the Margins is a program that fosters cultural understanding among Maya youth on both sides of the border — Morganton, N.C., and Yucatán, Mexico. Together, the students are exploring their indigenous identity through workshops, online discussions, archival research and visits to their respective countries, where they will meet face-to-face. At the capstone event this spring, both sets of students will develop research projects in English and Spanish that will be on public display. The program is funded by a Museums Connect grant, an initiative of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, administered by the American Alliance of Museums. Partners include the Southern Historical Collection, the UNC department of anthropology and Research Laboratories of Archaeology, and the State Archives of Yucatán. Vail is project coordinator of Maya from the Margins, which builds on longtime cultural heritage work by Kenan Eminent
Professor of Anthropology Patricia McAnany. “If you look at the changing texture of the South demographically … these students are grappling with all kinds of things, including ‘how can I embrace my past and where I find myself today?’” said Bryan Giemza, director of the SHC, which houses the papers and materials of George E. Stuart (Ph.D. anthropology ’75), a scholar of the ancient Maya whose archaeological career with the National Geographic Society spanned nearly four decades. Patton High School senior Eduardo Mendoza’s parents traveled from Guatemala to Morganton, located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in 1998 looking for better job opportunities. (2010 U.S. Census data indicates a Latino population of 16.4 percent in Morganton, about double the state average.) Mendoza said he does a lot of online research in school, so he appreciates the exposure to these rare documents. “You can tell the professors are very passionate about what they do, and I like that I have the opportunity to ask them questions,” he said. It’s also been a great experience for two UNC undergraduate students who serve as mentors. Jacqueline López is a senior pursuing a double major in Latin American studies and public policy. She spent six weeks in Yucatán in 2015 and has been working with the students on learning Yucatec Maya.
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Photos by Kristen Chavez
BY KIM WEAVER SPURR ’88
Maya from the Margins connects anthropologists and librarians in North Carolina and Mexico to teach students about their Maya identity. Adonis Tello-Chavez of Morganton’s Patton High School (top) pores over records, while students (bottom) receive research instructions at Wilson Library.
“I didn’t start developing the tools to explore my own culture until I arrived at UNC,” said López, a first-generation college student. “To help them do that earlier in their careers has been so rewarding.” The program has spawned other collaborations that extend beyond the core partners and the campus, McAnany said. UNC faculty members have conducted workshops with the students at their high school in Morganton. The city of Asheville is interested because Valladolid, where the Yucatán students live, is a sister city. Connections have been made with a Maya archaeologist who teaches at UNC-Asheville. “We are very happy to be working on a project that is building bridges with our neighbors to the south rather than walls,” McAnany said.
SY N E RGY UN L E AS H E D
‘Spork Lab’ tackles password security
Donn Young
BY KIM WEAVER SPURR ’88
From left, linguists Katya Pertsova, Elliott Moreton and Jennifer Smith and computer scientist Fabian Monrose are exploring using lexical blends like the word “spork” to create attackresistant passwords. They’re holding titanium sporks (both flexible and strong) as a symbol of their partnership.
Creating passwords that are memorable, hintable and resistant to attack is an increasingly important issue, especially in the age of savvy cyber-hackers — but computer-generated passwords are often too hard for people to remember. It turns out that the challenge of creating attack-resistant passwords is a perfect fit for two departments who might seem to have little in common: linguistics and computer science. In 2013, the National Science Foundation awarded UNC faculty members from both disciplines a $500,000 multi-year grant to study password security. “This is such a relatable problem that we all have to deal with. … We wondered, ‘To what extent can we have the user influence a system-generated password?’” said computer scientist Fabian Monrose. “We wanted to first
understand the constraints people are under in coming up with passwords.” Linguists Elliott Moreton, Jennifer Smith and Katya Pertsova began to explore the idea of lexical blends, words like “brunch” (for breakfast/lunch) or “spork” (for spoon/fork). Moreton quickly dubbed the new partnership “The Spork Lab” and ordered titanium sporks for everyone. The utensils are both flexible and strong, just like the interdepartmental collaboration. The blend “fantabulous” even made its way into one of their joint papers: “Isn’t that Fantabulous: Security, Linguistic and Usability Challenges of Pronounceable Tokens.” The researchers had a lot of questions they wanted to explore: Just how big is blend space? If you make up a blended word, how do you measure its pronounceability? What kind of choices do people make in preserving parts of
a word when they make a blend; i.e., do they create flamingoose or flamongoose (when blending flamingo and mongoose?) Our new paper reveals that, in general, people “tend to preserve more of a word that better predicts overall meaning,” Pertsova said. “With passwords, one of the things that facilitates memorability is predictability, and that of course undermines security,” Moreton added. “They are at war with each other.” It’s been a fertile area of exploration for both faculty members and graduate students. The grant has supported masters’ theses, journal articles, papers for international conferences and more. The work has been extended beyond English into Japanese and Spanish. Monrose said they are also examining how many different source words might be needed to create a blend that’s resistant to attack, since password length — “we think the sweet spot is probably in the 16-character range” — also matters. The original grant ends this year, but The Spork Lab has recently learned that another proposal has been recommended for NSF funding. The new three-year grant would support a collaboration with linguists and neuroscientists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to investigate whether linguistic and nonlinguistic patterns are learned using the same cognitive processes. “We hope to take all of this information into the next phase and determine how to design algorithms to generate passwords that are resistant to attack,” said Monrose, who has woven some of the initial findings into his introductory course on computer security. By chance, it was an undergraduate student pursuing a dual major in linguistics and computer science who first brought the faculty members together in a partnership everyone hopes will continue. “It’s been really fun to collaborate with someone in a separate field and have him look at your work and ask questions about it,” Smith said. “We all come at the issue from different angles.”
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Creating a buzz about health humanities I
Kristen Chavez
BY MICHELE LYNN
f you hear the word “lab” and picture test tubes and autoclaves, the Health and Faculty and students discuss health humanities projects in the HHIVE lab, founded by Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Venue for English professors Jane Thrailkill and Jordynn Jack. One project examined the impact that Exploration lab will expand your horizons. writing about diabetes had on the health of patients. HHIVE (hhive.unc.edu), co-founded by English faculty members Jane Thrailkill and Jordynn Jack in spring 2015, provides undergraduate, graduate Created by a team of faculty, graduate and undergraduate and professional students interested in health humanities the students from English, occupational therapy, medical opportunity to participate in research and outreach projects at anthropology and endocrinology, the eight-week workshop the intersection of the arts and sciences. helped participants develop writing models and strategies. It is one of the first research-based health humanities labs Project coordinator Jen Stockwell, a Ph.D. candidate in in the country. English who led the workshop, said, “This wasn't just about “HHIVE is devoted to the centrality of the human story and self-expression. We were hoping that the process of writing a human expression and to living a meaningful, dignified and narrative about their diabetes would be beneficial.” To that end, productive life,” said Thrailkill, co-director of the lab and of the the researchers tracked the subjects’ blood sugar levels and English M.A. concentration in literature, medicine and culture. compiled biometric data. Sophomore Maebelle Mathew worked on the qualitative “Our goal is to learn as much as we can and analysis of the diabetes narratives. to tell important stories with the end game “I looked at the keywords that popped up a lot related to always to expand human understanding and, tone and subject matter to see if the writing could be correlated if possible, palliate human suffering.” with blood sugar levels,” Mathew said. “We looked at words that — J A N E T H R A I L K I L L indicate positive social support and also looked at whether the participants felt in control of their diabetes.” The Falls Narrative Study and the Writing Diabetes UNC's health humanities program continues to expand. Study are the first two HHIVE lab projects, undertaken by Starting this fall, undergraduates will be able to complete a interdisciplinary teams of faculty and students. Professor post-baccalaureate year to earn a master’s degree. Sue Coppola in occupational therapy helped design the “This B.A./M.A program will allow our really motivated former study, in which 11 older adults were invited to write and talented undergraduates to get a rich, immersive year of reflective, first-person accounts about a fall experience. Student study that will help to shape their values, aspirations and goals researchers planned, conducted and analyzed these writing as they go into clinical training,” Thrailkill said. experiences in Thrailkill’s intensive research class. The In addition, UNC's medical campus is embracing the narratives comprise a rich archive that provides insight into humanities. how older adults make meaning from a fall that that they have “The UNC School of Medicine is revising its curriculum, experienced and the complex medical and social ramifications with one of the significant additions being a strong arts and huof a fall. manities component at every level,” said Thrailkill, who is com“Our goal is to learn as much as we can and to tell pleting a book, The Agony of Empathy in U.S. Medical Education. important stories with the end game always to expand human The strong focus on written expression and analysis is understanding and, if possible, palliate human suffering,” helping medical students become better communicators, she Thrailkill said. said. The Writing Diabetes Study explored the impact that “They are not just doing what it takes to become doctors, writing about their disease had on the health of patients. they are thinking about the nature of what they are doing.”
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High-tech fluids lab attracts waves of research partners
Kristen Chavez
BY DIANNE GOOCH SHAW ’71
Roberto Camassa’s research is very fluid.
Dan Sears
The fluids lab in Chapman Hall is the nexus for collaborative projects in mathematics, anthropology, marine sciences, physics and computer science. Physics graduate student Jeff Olander (above, left) discusses research with mathematician Roberto Camassa.
The Kenan Distinguished Professor of Applied Mathematics actively engages in collaborative projects ranging from oil spills to marine sciences to human disease. His partners include UNC faculty and graduate and undergraduate students in anthropology, physics, computer science and marine sciences. “It really helps to hear from others with different expertise and to be exposed to different research,” Camassa said. “Sometimes you’re surprised when something turns out to be more salient to what you’re doing than you initially thought.” One of his collaborators is Pierre-Yves Passaggia, a postdoctoral fellow in marine sciences. Passaggia is studying the dynamics of ocean circulation. Another collaborator is physics graduate student Jeff Olander, the lab safety and data manager in the Joint Applied Math and Marine Sciences Fluids Lab in Chapman Hall, the nexus for many shared studies. The three scientists work together on fluid dynamics, a field that encompasses not just ocean currents and waves but also human airways, among other areas. For some of their work, they’re using a 120-foot wave tank that allows them to conduct large-scale experiments. The tank is one of the largest in the world that is completely optically accessible from all sides and will soon have its own fully recyclable salt-water storage and filtration system.
Passaggia collaborates with Camassa on underwater wave research, studying how the ocean makes exchanges among its different layers and how circulation takes place. Ocean water has a warm surface layer and a colder, denser layer underneath; this stratification of temperature and density causes underwater currents. The scientists are interested in how fluids of different densities mix, sometimes causing powerful underwater currents that can pose a threat to ships and submarines. “Since waves are conveniently described mathematically, we carry out experiments replicating ocean conditions that we can map to accurately predict what’s happening,” Passaggia said. “We fill the wave tank with different fluids of different densities and then generate large amplitude waves. Illuminating the tank using lasers, we can measure the characteristics of the waves very accurately using particle tracking and fluorescent dyes. Our results help us understand how the ocean makes exchanges between the different layers and how circulation takes place.” Camassa and Olander partner to study the flow of complex fluids through small structures such as pipes. Complex fluids such as mucus share properties of both solids and liquids. Understanding the properties of these fluids has the potential to advance clinical research on cystic fibrosis and pediatric airways, for instance. Olander has additional expertise with manipulating big data sets. “Jeff’s skills with DataTank, a software tool developed by my colleague David Adalsteinsson to handle large data sets, translates immediately across all types of experiments, which is very helpful,” Camassa said. Passaggia confirms the benefits of cross-disciplinary work. “Collaborations comprise about 90 percent of my work. Applying tools from another discipline allows you to move forward and to do so very fast in research.” ➤ Learn more: fluidslab.web.unc.edu.
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Keepers of our coast P h o t o s
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North Carolina’s barrier islands are dynamic landforms in a state of constant change. UNC researchers want to better understand how those changes happen, and what they mean for the future of our coast.
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Laura Moore (left), Elsemarie deVries and Paige Hovenga examine the ecology of a dune on Bogue Banks.
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Just a few steps from Southwinds Condominiums on Atlantic Beach, the top of an old wooden sign sticks out of the sand. “KEEP OFF THE” it reads. The word “DUNES” is buried. Laura Moore walks 50 feet past the sign, bends down and pulls on a tall strand of sea oats. When wind blows sand across the beach, these long, resilient grasses trap it, allowing dunes to form. More sea oats mean bigger dunes and better protection for the infrastructure behind them. Destroying dunes, or the sea oats that help them grow, is illegal. But Moore, a coastal researcher from UNC’s College of Arts & Sciences, is not breaking any laws; she has a permit. Along with a team of eight researchers from UNC and Oregon State University, Moore is collecting data to better understand the lifespan of coastal dunes. How do they form? What determines their shape? How well can they protect coastal infrastructure from storms? To answer these questions, Moore and Peter Ruggiero and Sally Hacker from Oregon State are surveying the vegetation and topography of the dunes on North Carolina’s Bogue Banks — which includes the residential and commercial developments of Atlantic Beach as well as Shackleford Banks, an undeveloped barrier island to the north. The researchers and their students hope this information will help them better understand how dunes grow. They picked a good time to come. It’s the second week of October, and Hurricane Matthew pounded this shoreline a week earlier. Moore, an associate professor of geological sciences and director of the Coastal Environmental Change Lab, examines the face of a dune where the grasses’ roots are exposed. “See how steep this face is?” she says, pointing to the front of the dune, where it looks like a bulldozer clawed away a large chunk. This vertical face is a scarp — evidence that
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TOP: There are many different types of dune grasses. Here, Laura Moore inspects some sea oats (scientific name uniola paniculata), commonly found on beaches in the southeastern United States. BOTTOM: Researchers tag grasses from different parts of the dune. This sample is from the “toe,” referring to the base of the dune on the beach.
a storm has caused significant erosion, she explains. Storm surge — the rise of water due to winds and atmospheric pressure during a large storm — is often the deadliest and most destructive component of a hurricane. The storm surge of one hurricane, in particular,
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raised a lot of interest (and funding) for dune research. “The entire East Coast was impacted by Hurricane Sandy to some degree,” Moore says, referring to the 2012 category 3 storm. “Locations that had a tall frontal dune [system] fared much better than locations that didn’t have a dune at all.” Now the Army Corps of
seawall, it prevents this transfer from happening. It builds a permanent line in the sand, according to Moore. Some coastal communities have beachfront homes that no longer have a beach — there are sandbags instead. “That’s a very possible future outcome if we attempt to ‘stabilize’ these landforms,” Moore says.
TOP: Paige Havenga (left) and Michael Itzkin use a quadrat to quantify the amount and variety of vegetation on a dune. BOTTOM: An old wooden sign at Atlantic Beach warns people to keep off the dunes to protect the fragile ecosystem.
Engineers and communities affected by Sandy want more information on how dunes form, erode and protect. “Sometimes we forget that barrier islands provide more of a service than just a place for us to vacation or live at the water’s edge,” she adds. Balancing barrier islands Barrier islands are not static — they are dynamic land masses that move. “They have been evolving over the last several thousand years,” Moore
says. “In order for barrier islands to persist into the future, they need to be able to move landward and upward to maintain their elevation relative to sea level.” Barrier islands shift through a process called overwash — storms raise the water level high above the dune, shearing the sand from the beach and dunes and depositing it on the interior, or backside, of the island. As the process repeats itself, islands slowly move landward, like the treads on a bulldozer. When a community erects a
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Perfecting the dune formula Sea walls and sandbags are not the only options for managing erosion and preserving the existing infrastructure on barrier islands. Beach nourishment, a common process on North Carolina beaches, involves bringing in sand, either from offshore or an inlet, and pumping it into a desired location to rebuild the beach. “Since Hurricane Sandy, there has been a lot of interest in adding a dune component to beach nourishment projects,” Moore says. Moore and her collaborators have developed computer models to assess how different factors may affect dune growth. “We can look at how frequently the beach is nourished, and the time it takes for dunes to form — and assess the size and the width of dunes as they grow over a given time.” They can also run models to assess the effects of sea level rise and more frequent storms. While collecting data on dunes and running predictive models can certainly help preserve ecosystems and protect coastal infrastructure, Moore cautions that building more dunes is not a longterm solution. “Dunes can protect us from highwater events, but they’re not a panacea,” Moore says. Ultimately a dune that is too high can prevent a barrier island from making the necessary landward movements as sea level rises. “We hope that the research we’re doing here will assist those who are building dunes for communities so that they know which dune grass species and morphologies will be most useful for a particular area,” Moore says. “We want to provide protection — but not too much protection.” This project is funded by NOAA. Mary Lide Parker is a writer for Endeavors magazine.
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eafood mislabeling is a significant global problem, with health and social consequences. Last spring, undergraduate science students at UNC had the opportunity to conduct research on the issue in a new type of research-intensive course that goes by the acronym CURE: course-based undergraduate research experience. Students enrolled in “Seafood Forensics” learned about the scope of the problem and the challenges that prevent accurate labeling. They learned to develop novel research questions, design and carry out experiments, use DNA barcoding and other technologies to test their samples, and present and report on their results in a journal-worthy format. They also learned a fundamental science lesson — how to cope with unexpected outcomes. “Our research was focused on the Chapel Hill area, and we were using chain and local restaurants as our source of fish, specifically fish tacos and tilapia,” said junior biology major Chloe Brown. “Our first protocol for extracting DNA wasn’t working very well. We aren’t sure why, but it could have been due to the fact that the fish was cooked and not raw.” Experiment “surprises” offer important lessons for aspiring scientists and are one of many learning outcomes CUREs offer, said John Bruno, a biology professor who codeveloped and co-teaches “Seafood Forensics” with Blaire Steinwand, STEM lecturer, molecular biologist and chair of the team working to expand the CURE initiative. “Nine out of 10 experiments you try don’t work. That is always a shock to students,” Bruno said. “So we talk about that. It becomes a big part of the course. And, almost by example, they come to see that’s how you cope with the many challenges in science. You don’t quit. You just move forward.” Faculty and administrators hope to see these types of lessons embedded in the undergraduate science experience continued
RIGHT: Undergraduate students in “Field Geology of Eastern California” conduct field research in Badwater, Death Valley, where long shadows form one afternoon at the foot of the Black Mountains.
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Research is New courses
Jack Davidson
messy, nonlinear and rewarding. let students learn that firsthand.
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level course to a CURE last fall by expanding the fourweek research component to an entire semester. Students in her “Honors Laboratory in Separations and Analytical Characterization of Organic and Biological Compounds” use a variety of biochemical and analytical techniques to characterize previously uncharacterized kinases, which are a type of enzyme important in cell signaling.
“Nine out of 10 experiments you try don’t work. That is always a shock to students. So we talk about that. It becomes a big part of the course. And, almost by example, they come to see that’s how you cope with the many challenges in science. You don’t quit. You just move forward.” — JOHN BRUNO
Nita Eskew, director of undergraduate laboratories, another member of the CURE team, began offering an APPLES service-learning CURE this spring, “The Chemistry of Purslane,” in partnership with the Carolina Campus Community Garden. Students work in the garden, caring for and harvesting purslane, an edible medicinal plant, and focus their laboratory investigations on analyzing its concentrations of antioxidants. Geological sciences professor Drew Coleman, associate dean for First Year Seminars, and Allen F. Glazner, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler Bingham Distinguished Professor, alternate teaching a fall First Year Seminar CURE, “Field Geology of Eastern California.” It offers a handson introduction to research in active geologic and environmental processes, from active volcanoes and earthquake-producing faults to extreme climate change. John Bruno
and culture over the next five years as they expand CUREs and the number of students who participate in research. CUREs are one of four major focus areas in UNC’s latest Quality Enhancement Plan, “Creating Scientists: Learning by Connecting, Doing and Making.” The QEP is a required part of the University’s reaccreditation process, which occurs every 10 years. [See page 17.] Unlike traditional labs, where students conduct prescribed experiments to achieve already proven results, CUREs immerse students in the scientific process, placing them in team settings with faculty scientists to develop and test their own questions. Research shows that students who participate in CUREs tend to become more interested in science and more confident scientists, and they pursue graduate education and careers in sciences in greater numbers. CUREs have proven particularly effective for engaging underrepresented populations. The CURE team envisions expanding the number of courses so that a majority, if not all, science majors experience a CURE within their first three semesters at Carolina. Converting required courses into CUREs could quickly and significantly diversify the population of students who participate in research, Steinwand says. Several CUREs are already offered. Bruno and Steinwand continue to offer “Seafood Forensics.” Chemistry assistant professor Leslie Hicks converted an existing entry-
➤ Learn more about CURE at qep.unc.edu/programs/cure. Ebahi Ikharo (left) and Moza Hamud in the seafood forensics course extract DNA from tuna sushi samples. Seafood mislabeling is a significant global problem.
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Jack Davidson
will implement educational innovations that align more closely with contemporary models of teaching and learning science — the interconnections between how novel ideas arise, how ideas are rigorously tested, the feedback from the scientific community, and the needs and benefits of society.” The QEP is a required part of the University’s reaccreditation process by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). Every university undergoing this 10-year review is required to create a QEP that focuses on broad- The University’s Quality Enhancement Plan will create more research-intensive science courses like the field based campus initiatives to geology class that sends students to California to examine geologic and environmental changes. improve student learning. (Carolina’s last QEP, in 2006, revamped the General Education curriculum and B Y C Y N D Y F A L G O U T introduced Maymester, for example.) five-year, campus-wide learning initiative launched this Planners chose to focus the latest QEP on undergraduate spring aims to transform UNC’s undergraduate science experiscience for many reasons. There has been a 60 percent ence — with more opportunities for hands-on research and increase in intended or declared science majors since 2004. collaboration and experiences to help students hone their ana- Many alumni and graduating seniors report weaknesses in lytical and problem-solving skills to tackle real-world problems. quantitative skills. Women, minorities and first-generation The Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), “Creating Scientists: students remain underrepresented in the sciences at UNC, Learning by Connecting, Doing and Making,” is composed and transfer students face particular obstacles in completing of four programs that focus on experiential learning for science coursework in time to graduate in four years. undergraduate students: The QEP “is a chance to get a lot of smart people from • Integrated Curricula: An interdisciplinary effort to across campus thinking about how we can take a university integrate the arts and humanities with science courses to that already leads in undergraduate education and make it provide critical thinking skills and an understanding of the better — transform it — in the next decade and beyond,” said myriad ways in which science and culture are entertwined. Greg Copenhaver, biology professor and director of graduate • Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience studies. (CURE): An introduction to research by engaging a class in a Copenhaver co-chaired, with Adam Persky, a 24-member hypothesis-driven research problem. QEP Implementation Committee to lead the QEP prior to • Makerspace: The design and making of physical objects Hogan being appointed QEP director. Persky is clinical as a way to learn research and entrepreneurship. associate professor at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy. • Research Exposure Opportunities: Infrastructure to “I see this as a starting point for transforming ensure research experiences for all students. undergraduate education in ways that prepare students for “The process of science is non-linear, non-prescriptive careers that aren’t even out there yet and help them develop and sometimes messy,” said QEP Director Kelly Hogan, lifelong learning skills, regardless of what they choose to do,” assistant dean of instructional innovation in the College of Persky said. Arts & Sciences and a senior STEM lecturer in biology. “QEP ➤ To learn more, visit qep.unc.edu.
C R E ATI N G STU D ENT SCI ENTIS TS: A five-year plan A
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BARBERSHOP TALK Program provides welcome spaces — haircuts sometimes included — for men of color to navigate UNC BY PAMELA BABCOCK
• PHOTOS BY TYRIS GILLIS
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: • Langden Ramseur enjoys a moment in the chair of local barber Brian Toulan. • Michael Dyson, assistant program director, Carolina College Advising Corps, demonstrates his technique at the bowtie station. • Frank Adams works with Camille Mason, senior assistant director of the undergraduate business program, at the resume review station. • Tyler Frankrone listens to resume advice from career services adviser Sheena Jacobs. • Kevin Jarman receives finishing touches from barber Troy Bratcher.
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“I really want the quality of life to improve for these students. I want them to graduate on time and I want them to be able to do great things. But I also want them to know that we care.” — C H R I S TO P H E R FA I S O N
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t’s no secret that some men of color face formidable obstacles in completing college, particularly at a highly selective institution such as UNC. Sometimes success lies in finding a welcoming place and a sympathetic ear. Carolina’s Office for Men of Color Engagement (menofcolor.unc.edu), launched in 2013, features several initiatives to help students develop academically, socially and professionally. The staff seeks to create an environment where men of color feel welcome and supported. Designed to boost graduation rates for UNC’s approximately 1,200 underrepresented men of color, the program includes monthly meetings that cover topics from career development and professional growth to adjusting to college life and building a support network. It also connects students with alumni and helps them secure internships, study abroad and research opportunities. “I really want the quality of life to improve for these students,” said Christopher Faison (history and African, African American and diaspora studies ’00, MAT ’01), who coordinates the program, which is part of the Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling. “I want them to graduate on time and I want them to be able to do great things. But I also want them to know that we care.” About 83 percent of UNC students graduate within four years, which is among the highest rates in the nation for public institutions, but for underrepresented men of color, the four-year graduation rate is around 70 percent, Faison said. A highlight event is the once-asemester “Barbershop Talks” in residence halls. Local barbers cut students’ hair free of charge while the students chat with each other, graduate and professional students, staff and administrators, and alumni. The idea is this: In communities of color, the barbershop is usually a place where men can let their proverbial hair
down. While students get “a new line,” they can talk frankly — about negative stereotypes, problems that keep them up at night or troubling current events. At a fall Barbershop Talk, Brandon Callender (economics and journalism ’20) learned how to improve his resume formatting and how to tie a tie. That was a good thing: “I had literally an interview for an internship scheduled the very next day,” said Callender, who wants to be a teacher or journalist. The monthly meetings typically draw about two dozen students from a mix of backgrounds. Many attended economically challenged schools that lacked the resources to offer college preparatory or advanced placement courses. Terrell “Tae” Brown (Spanish literature and culture/global studies ’17), was raised by a single mother in a drug-riddled part of Henderson County. He said he likes the fellowship of the monthly meetings and the group talk about “whatever is plaguing us, making us happy,” or to “just chill. … The understanding just happens.” Meetings have included talks by faculty members, a representative from the honor system and academic advisers. A mental health session was also a big hit. Faison works closely on the meetings with Tyris L. Gillis, Manning East residence hall community director, who plans topics and coordinates speakers, and Hazael Andrew, an assistant director for UNC’s Housing & Residential Education. To help students better navigate college, Gillis encourages them to think about what message it sends when they sit in the back of the class rather than the front. He tells them to reach out to professors — something they may not be used to doing. “There are a lot of resources here at UNC,” added Andrew. “My experience is students who do not succeed are the ones who are not aware of the resources that are available.” ➤ Watch the video “Barbershop Talk” at vimeo.com/165646633.
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BY L.J. TOLER ’76
Courtesy of Partisan Pictures
Kristen Chavez
‘We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them’
LEFT: Members of the Carolina Choir, one of four choral groups performing the Defiant Requiem, practice at a rehearsal led by Susan Klebanow. RIGHT: The translation of the inscription over the gate at Terezín is “Work will make you free.”
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ungry and tired, the 60 Jewish prisoners nevertheless sang — without scores or orchestral accompaniment — one of the most demanding choral works ever written: Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem Mass. Sixteen performances with up to 150 singers each, all in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Terezín near Prague, culminated in a June 23, 1944, presentation to Nazi officers. International Red Cross guests were also present. Nazis wanted to convince the visitors that the prisoners were treated well. Not so, said Rachel Gelfand, a UNC doctoral candidate in American studies and granddaughter of choir survivor Edgar Krasa: “There was overpopulation, death and disease.” Conductor Rafael Schächter, who had but one score with which to teach the piece, used the word “defiance” for the concerts, drawing on the lyric “…and nothing shall remain unavenged.” He told the group, “We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them.” In 2008, longtime New Haven Symphony conductor Murry Sidlin created the Defiant Requiem Foundation to commemorate the event. The Defiant Requiem will be performed in a Memorial Hall concert April 20 by the 90-member UNC Symphony Orchestra and some 200 vocalists from all four student choral ensembles.
“We’ve only combined all the ensembles a very few times over the years, for very big occasions,” said music professor Susan Klebanow, who directs two of the four: the Carolina Choir and UNC Chamber Singers. Also performing: the Men’s and Women’s Glee Clubs, directed by Daniel Huff and Sue Klausmeyer. With narration and film footage interspersed, “this will be a moving theatrical experience,” said music professor Tonu Kalam, conductor of the orchestra, made up of UNC students and a few recent graduates. “There is a sense of operatic drama throughout — extremes of dynamics, orchestration, tempo and character,” he said. “Much of it is somber, as by definition a requiem is a Mass for the dead, but there are very hopeful, ethereal passages as well.” Sidlin will guest-conduct, and four faculty soloists will perform: soprano Louise Toppin, professor and chair of the UNC music department; alto Mary Gayle Greene of Appalachian State University; and UNC’s Timothy Sparks (tenor) and Marc Callahan (bass/baritone). The concert will conclude a semester-long College focus on the Defiant Requiem, with smaller concerts, a film screening that was held in February and an early spring academic conference
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on musical responses to trauma. The events are part of the initiative “Carolina’s Human Heart: Living the Arts and Humanities.” Two years ago, after a talk he gave at UNC for the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, alumnus Stuart Eizenstat ’64 wondered aloud about the potential for the Defiant Requiem at UNC. He has worked in government roles including White House adviser and is board chair of the Defiant Requiem Foundation. Ruth von Bernuth, associate professor of Germanic literature and director of the center, contacted the music department. The center, the department and the Defiant Requiem Foundation are presenting the performance. It’s impressive that the weakened prisoners sang the Requiem, Klebanow said: “It requires great strength and endurance. The singers are standing for 90 minutes to two hours. They have to sing their highest possible notes and their lowest possible notes, and they’re singing long phrases, so they need excellent breath control.” The performance will be a new way of teaching about the Holocaust, von Bernuth said. “It’s a part of history we should never forget.” ➤ Admission is $10 for the 7:30 p.m. concert, $5 for UNC students, faculty and staff. Information: tinyurl.com/zfpcokl. Tickets: tinyurl.com/z579rqb.
Photos by Devin Hubbard
Student teams present last fall in the first round of the 2017 i4 competition. The annual contest, sponsored by the joint biomedical engineering program at UNC and NC State, helps students transform their ideas for biomedical devices into real-world applications.
BME i4 contest weds innovation, entrepreneurship BY NANCY E. OATES
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great idea, without a target market and investors, remains just an idea, tucked away in someone’s mind. A competition offered annually by the biomedical engineering program, a joint department between UNC and NC State, helps students transform those ideas into real-world applications, with advice from experts in business, law and manufacturing. Called i4 (with the four “I’s” being identification, ideation, innovation and implementation), the competition encourages participants to emerge from the process with a patent or marketable product they can turn into a business or license to an existing company. Shawn Gomez, an associate professor in the department, runs the i4 contest, now in its second year and open to all BME undergraduates. “We coach students and connect them with entrepreneurial resources that help them better identify and define unmet clinical needs as well as teach them how to communicate their ideas,” Gomez said. “Every team has a faculty
adviser and an industry adviser. We bring in new judges each year, either from industry or with entrepreneurial expertise, and students can network with them beyond the competition.” The i4 contestants appear before a panel of judges that determines which teams move on to two rounds of competition before the final six teams are selected to compete in April. The first-, second- and third-place winners will receive $15,000, $10,000 and $5,000, respectively, to further develop their ideas and secure intellectual property rights. The competition is supported with private gifts from an anonymous donor. Alexander Brown, part of a team of 10 juniors, estimates that each member of his team has devoted about eight hours a week to developing the group’s product, which alerts clinicians that a clot is about to form in a dialysis tube. A clot requires that the dialysis be stopped while the clinician replaces the tube, resulting in wasted time and money. Brown’s team received $1,000 after the first round of pitches, but did not advance beyond the second round. “We are still working with our faculty adviser to develop our device,” he said. “However, our proposed usage for the device has expanded outside of just clot detection in tubing during dialysis.
The competition was a good experience for my team overall, and many of us are excited to compete again next year as seniors with our senior design projects.” Melissa Serrano Burns’ team of five senior women advanced to the final round of competition. The team is working on a noninvasive way to detect human papillomavirus (HPV), a precursor to deadly cervical cancer. The device would be similar to a pregnancy urine test and could be used in developing countries because a sophisticated laboratory would not be needed to process the tests. “The way the i4 competition is structured helps us along step by step in an environment that is not hostile,” Serrano Burns said. “They’re here to help us develop our ideas, which is kind of rare.” Gomez has been impressed by the variety of medical conundrums the i4 teams have taken on, and that participants are creating products that will help people. Last year’s i4 competition winners developed a device that helps physicians address a common side effect of Crohn’s disease; a more efficient wound irrigation device; and a prototype for a bipolar electrocautery tool, used in neurosurgery. “These are real solutions to real problems,” he said.
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KC Ramsey
ALUMNI UP CLOSE
Arthur Gordon ’72 says his philosophy degree and chemistry coursework have helped him remain creative in the kitchen for four decades.
A chef and a philosopher Arthur Gordon, owner of Irregardless Café, is a pioneer in the local food movement BY DIANNE GOOCH SHAW ’71
“Food is your health,” says chef/owner Arthur Gordon ’72, as he opens his monthly cooking class in the kitchen of Irregardless Café. “People are starting to understand that their health is directly related to what they eat.” As he teaches, he jokes, tells stories and explains how chefs build flavors in the dishes served there and why a plant-based diet is important. His Raleigh landmark restaurant opened in 1975 as the city’s first vegetarian restaurant; in 1985, it became North Carolina’s first smoke-free dining establishment. Gordon’s restaurant credentials are a bit unusual: a UNC bachelor’s degree in philosophy and coursework in chemistry. The seemingly disparate disciplines have served him well. “Chemistry is a science where you have to replicate experimental results,” he said. “It’s a lot like developing a recipe and then preparing it consistently. The combination of chemistry — the left-brain analytical side — and philosophy — the right-brain creative side — allows me to engage both
sides of my brain, which has helped me become a successful businessman for 42 years.” Growing up in Durham, Gordon learned to cook from his Grandmother Lena during her twice-annual visits. She would stock their freezer with brisket, soups and her legendary cheese blintzes, which Gordon has had on the weekend brunch menu since the café opened. After graduation, he ran his family’s fashion business, but longed to attend the Culinary Institute of America. CIA required that students have two years of restaurant experience before entering the program. Gordon decided, “I’ll just open a restaurant for two years, then go to CIA and get trained to be a real chef.” (More than four decades later, he still hasn’t enrolled.) It was during his UNC student days that he became a vegetarian as part of a period of activism that included conscientious objection to the Vietnam War. Although he remains a vegetarian, over the years Irregardless has added fish, then poultry and finally other meats to the menu, based on thoughtful discussions with customers and staff. The café’s comfortable, well-lit dining area, stage and lively bar create just the right client-pleasing chemistry. Gordon moves among the tables greeting customers and catching up on their lives. He nurtures community, starting with his loyal staff. A rotating group of musicians performs every night to the delight of customers who enjoy not only a fine meal, but music — and on Saturday evenings, dancing. His original customers now bring their grandchildren and great-grandchildren to Irregardless. Gordon and his wife and restaurant partner, Anya, lead international travel groups that emphasize experiencing local culture. They were committed to using local ingredients, years before it became trendy. “The challenge to local chefs is convincing customers that the extra cost to offer organic, locally sourced ingredients is worth it by educating them about why they want to buy from local farmers growing organic products,” he explained. “It costs more, but it supports local growers and it’s fresher.” Gordon’s Well Fed Community Garden, begun in 2012, provides some organic produce to the restaurant. The 1.5-acre garden has a paid staff and community volunteers. Some of what the garden grows is donated to low-income families in the community. The chef has received numerous accolades for his community contributions, including the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of North Carolina’s highest civilian awards. Creating a changing menu shaped by local and seasonal ingredients continues to challenge his creativity even after decades in the kitchen, Gordon said. “The ability to take and sense how flavors can be put together, to create something out of good things — I think that’s an innate skill that you can’t teach. I guess that’s why we’re still here.” ➤ This story is part of ongoing coverage of UNC’s academic theme “Food For All” (foodforall.web.unc.edu).
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Courtesy of Pierce Freelon
ALUMNI UP CLOSE
He got an early taste of that through his band, The Beast, which also includes fellow alumni Eric Hirsh (physics and music ’06), drummer Stephen Coffman (music ’06), and bassist Pete Kimosh (music ’05). Freelon’s mother, Nnenna Freelon, is a world-renowned and Grammywinning jazz vocalist, but it wasn’t until the beginnings of The Beast that he rediscovered his love for the genre, as his jazz-enthusiast bandmates infused their music with hip-hop. For him, The Beast was a whirlwind of improvisation: The drummer reacted to changes from the bassist, and Freelon responded with new words and raps. Performance became a new means of putting the thoughts of African-American Pierce Freelon is a musician, social entrepreneur and co-founder of the Emmy awardscholars and activists into new contexts. winning PBS web series Beat Making Lab, which grew out of a UNC course he taught. “Poetry became this amazing vehicle,” he said, “and the Beast became this amazing platform or medium to translate this information.” In addition to the expected clubs and music venues, the band also performs BY KRISTEN CHAVEZ ’13 at elementary and secondary schools throughout the Triangle. These Sankofa Workshops, named after a West African Once a month, young poets The two locations “reflect the word that Freelon said means to “look gather at the Beyù Caffè in community that engages the space,” Durham. A teen walks up to the said Freelon. The Chapel Hill location was back to the past,” teach students the mic, begins reading, voice strong, her born out of Beat Making Lab, originally a history of black music. “I didn’t know it at the time, but poem-in-progress. Partway through, she class in the UNC music department. The temporarily stumbles over her words. proximity to the Carolina campus allowed going into schools and teaching black history through genres of black music Pierce Freelon ’06 and the café Freelon to split his time between the align well with the principles of patrons rub their hands together. It’s a community and the classes he taught in way to show support and to encourage the music and African, African American Blackspace,” Freelon said. When he proposed to his bandmates the poet or performer to keep going, and diaspora studies departments. despite the obstacles. He smiles as the The ideas and values for what would that they donate proceeds of the educational gigs to Blackspace, they poet gets back into her rhythm. eventually become Blackspace were were immediately on board. It also allows In a way, persevering despite the cultivated during his undergraduate obstacles sums up Freelon’s current path. years as an African and African American Freelon to stay invested in The Beast as he devotes more time to Blackspace. Freelon is the founder of Blackspace, studies major. For his honors thesis, For him, “it’s the absolute one thing I which offers community-based programs Freelon developed Blackademics, a was put on this earth to do.” to local youth. There’s an emphasis in website designed to teach black history As someone who knows the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, through hip-hop lyrics and other means. importance of words and the power of art and math) education, with workshops He also recognized the importance creative expression, Freelon helps nurture from beat making to computer graphics of community and having a space for new voices through Blackspace. to radio to puppetry. Blackspace opened activism. “Because of my work with What every great artist or activist its first location in 2014 on Franklin Street Blackademics, I was very interested in does is try to build a better future, he in Chapel Hill. Last summer it expanded taking that university curriculum and said. “It takes someone to speak it into to American Underground, a tech hub in planting it in a community setting,” he existence.” Durham. said.
An artist nurtures new voices, from beat making to Blackspace
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Kristen Chavez
FACULTY UP CLOSE
UNC political scientists Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks have been married since 1999. They are among the world’s leading experts on Brexit and Europe’s shifting political dynamics.
Unintended consequences Faculty duo studies EU governance issues in a global economy BY DEE REID
Political scientists Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks are the world’s leading experts on multilevel governance. They were the first to define the concept more than two decades ago as a way to explain the decentralized local and regional governing structures cropping up across the European Union. They are academic stars in Europe. Their work is especially relevant in the wake of the Brexit vote leading to a British withdrawal from the EU, and it sheds light on the rising tide of nationalistic populism, which is not only sweeping the continent but apparently influenced the election of President Donald Trump in the United States. The duo’s research shows how multilevel governance is dispersing authority “downwards, upwards and sideways from centralized government,” said Hooghe. She and Marks believe that interconnected regional governments and entities may provide new ways for addressing unintended consequences
of a global economy. But game-changing trends in the EU and the U.S. show that government is not just about producing the best policy, the UNC professors said. Sudden political shifts also reveal voters’ fears about the changing demographics of their communities, as people and goods move more freely across borders. “We realized that citizens feel very strongly connected to their communities,” Marks said. “This is an emotional connection having to do with their cultural identity.” He and Hooghe note that multilevel governance can foster participatory democracy with more citizen engagement at local and regional levels. For example, the Covenant of Mayors (representing 900 communities across Europe) is collaborating with the U.S. Conference of Mayors to meet strict climate and energy goals demanded by local citizens on both continents. The professors’ most recent research involves a five-year project on the causes and consequences of
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multilevel governance, supported by a major grant from the European Research Council. This will culminate in a five-volume series with Oxford University Press. “The dilemma of governance is that the functional need for human cooperation only rarely coincides with the territorial scope of community,” they write in their project summary. “Humans have a tremendous capacity for altruism. But communities are also parochial: They differentiate themselves from outsiders and resist ‘foreign’ rule.’” One reviewer called the couple’s recent work “groundbreaking,” shedding light on “one of the most remarkable governance trends in the world today.” European-born Marks and Hooghe reflect the growing internationalization of the Carolina faculty, as the University continues to embrace global education. They are a cosmopolitan couple (married since 1999) with a firm foot on both sides of the Atlantic. They enjoy teaching and conducting research with students in Chapel Hill and Europe. Marks, the Burton Craige Professor of Political Science, was born in London and received a Ph.D. in political science at Stanford. He joined the UNC faculty in 1986, and co-founded and directed UNC’s Center for European Studies and the EU Center for Excellence a few years later. He is a citizen of the United States, Great Britain, and, for a little while longer, the European Union. Hooghe, the W.R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Political Science, was born in a small town near Brussels and educated in Belgium. Before coming to UNC in 2000, she held fellowships at Cornell and Oxford universities and taught at the University of Toronto. She is a citizen of Belgium and the EU, and a legal resident (and soon a citizen) of the United States. The two had been separately studying European integration when they first met in 1993 (she invited him to an international conference). More than half of their research involves their joint work on multilevel governance and European integration.
Dan Sears
FACULTY UP CLOSE
Music professor Jim Ketch (left) tells students “once you have an idea of what you want something to sound like, your body has a much easier job in making that sound happen.”
Celebrating 40 years of jazz at Carolina Jim Ketch is a music professor and a passionate jazz musician. As a professional trumpeter, his talent has taken him around the globe and has allowed him to perform with Aretha Franklin and in venues like Carnegie Hall. This spring marked the 40th year of Ketch’s leadership of the Carolina Jazz Festival. We talked to him about the origins of his talent, his love of the trumpet and his most memorable performances. Q: Do you remember the first time you played the trumpet? A: I do! As a fourth grade student in Peoria, Illinois, our class was invited to visit the band room of our school where the local music store had created a display of all the instruments that we could choose if we wished to start in fifth grade Cadet Band. I was attracted to a cornet, and the store representative allowed me to hold the instrument and try to produce a tone. Much to my delight, the cornet produced a loud brassy note, and I fell in love with that sound. I asked my parents to sign me up for band and to please allow me to play cornet. They were very supportive of this decision, and I started in Cadet Band as a fifth-grader. Q: When/how did you fall in love with jazz?
A: I was born in 1952 so I grew up at a time when you could hear lots of instrumental music on the radio or television. Once I got involved in the school band program as a cornetist, I became particularly interested in any trumpeter I might encounter. Well I heard recordings of Louis Armstrong and Al Hirt. I remember my mother using a book of S&H Green Stamps to get me a Duke Ellington recording called Afro-Bossa. My father took me to an Al Hirt concert where I heard incredible Dixieland jazz as well as a classical rendition of the Carnival of Venice. By seventh grade I was playing in a little combo. We even were featured on a local television show called What’s Your Hobby? Q: Do you have a performance that is the most memorable for you? A: I have been privileged to share the stage with quite a few jazz artists, pop stars and brilliant classical musicians. Among my most memorable performances: • Trumpet soloist with UNC faculty on Bach’s 2nd Brandenburg Concerto. • Appearing as trumpeter and conductor of the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra with the North Carolina Symphony. • Sharing the stage with jazz artists Branford Marsalis, Marcus Roberts, John Pizzarelli and René Marie. • Performing with pop stars Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, the Four Tops and the Manhattan Transfer. • Performing with a brass quintet in Carnegie Hall. • Taking my UNC Jazz Band to European jazz festivals in France, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Q: Have you had a not-so-great performance? If so, what happened, and what did you learn from it? A: Trumpeters, in particular, live or die by their chops. I have performed recitals where my lips were simply not up to the task of playing a full 75-minute recital. It is very disconcerting when you simply can’t perform well. The adrenalin surges and the anxiousness grows. Believe me, it is a long 75 minutes. Q: If you could tell the 10-year-old you one thing, what would it be? A: I teach all ages of students. The best advice I give them is to quickly develop a vivid aural imagination. Once you have an idea of what you want something to sound like, your body has a much easier job in making that sound happen. Q: The Jazz Festival was 40 years old this year. What has been a contributing factor in its success/longevity? A: The key ingredient has been my sustained energy and a university that has shown a willingness to partner such that a small unit (our jazz area in the department of music) can dream a bigger dream. As a result, several decades of students and our Carolina patrons have had the world of jazz come to Chapel Hill. ➤ Listen to a UNC “Well Said” podcast with Ketch at tinyurl.com/jjkfbs7. — Interview by Alison Wynn ’17
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Kristen Chavez
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Cynthia Demetriou, associate dean for retention. Scheduling the students in the same section will give them a community within the larger class, she added. In addition to block scheduling, Lookout Scholars will have access to faculty and peer mentors and activities designed to help them succeed. Many incoming students already identify as Tar Heels — whether as sports fans or through family ties, said Demetriou. But first-generation students can find it difficult to feel a sense of belonging. The A gift from Sunny and Lee Burrows will help more first-generation students succeed on their Lookout Scholars Program will path to graduation. The Lookout Scholars Program will give students access to small academic foster that feeling. communities, faculty and peer mentors, and other resources. “Learning communities like these can help students feel empowered, College and as supporters of all levels Lookout Scholars Program giving them the self-confidence they of education through their family provides new resources to need to be leaders on campus and to foundation, the Lookout Foundation, the first-generation students achieve the goals they set for themselves,” couple thought a program to help firstBY JOANNA CARDWELL (M.A. ’06) said Carmen Gonzalez, director of the generation students was a natural fit. program. Burrows said her daughters, who are t Carolina, approximately 20 percent DeSean Wilson, a first-generation in college, call her for advice “because of undergraduates are first-generation college student and African, African I’ve been there, and there’s a natural college students. Those students are American and diaspora studies major, says counsel that I can give them. Some of twice as likely as other students to leave that while every student faces challenges, these kids don’t have that. If we can help college before the start of their second first-generation students often face give these students a solid foundation year. additional hurdles. and break down obstacles, I think we can Sunny and Lee Burrows hope to “On a personal level, I have had to graduate a lot more leaders.” change that. face ‘survivor’s guilt,’” Wilson said. “This Their gift also funds a full-time The couple recently established refers to the anxiety that accompanies director and a graduate assistant to the Lookout Scholars First-Generation students who ‘made it.’ It is contrasted oversee the program, which will enroll its Students Fund to create a learning with the knowledge that others in my first 40 students this fall. Scholars will be community that will provide support for family and community did not have the selected from the pool of first-generation same opportunities to go on to college.” such students over the next five years. students with demonstrated financial The idea for the Lookout Scholars A goal of the program is increasing need. Program came several years ago when graduation rates among first-generation The Lookout Scholars will take three Sunny Burrows read about a similar students, but Burrows ultimately wants classes as a cohort. They will be divided program at the University of Texas at more for the students than just obtaining into two groups of 20 for an introductory a diploma. Austin that offered first-generation English course and a course titled students access to small academic “The program will be a success if we “Navigating the Research University.” All communities, faculty and peer mentors, can help these young people graduate 40 students will take a large introductory with self-esteem and optimism and and other resources. biology course with other students. Inspired by the program’s success, the ability to change their community “Many of the students come from Burrows, a 1984 graduate of Carolina, and their world,” she said. “I hope we rural high schools with smaller class sizes, can change their perspective to one of looked to her alma mater to see if and these students tend to struggle with something similar existed. It didn’t. success, helping them feel excited about the transition to a large lecture hall,” said As long-time donors to the their futures.”
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Photos by Kristen Chavez
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FROM LEFT: The new James and Susan Moeser Auditorium now has state-of-the-art acoustical treatments, air-conditioning and a professional-grade stage. • The rotunda was remodeled into a dramatic lobby and reception area. • The Hill Hall reopening celebration featured performances from music faculty and students.
Music community celebrates Hill Hall transformation
Both the chancellor and Zinn noted that there was no more appropriate name for the new auditorium. James BY MORGAN MCPHERSON ’16 Moeser, who served as UNC chancellor from 2000 to 2008, and Susan Moeser, a t’s been 87 years since Hill Hall was renowned organ recitalist, both continue first dedicated as the home of UNC’s to teach in the department of music. department of music. On Feb. 8, this Most of the building was closed storied building was presented anew after for construction in June 2015. The a $15 million, 18-month renovation. renovation used no state appropriations The celebration included musical and was funded with gifts: $5 million performances from faculty and students from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable and remarks from Chancellor Carol Folt; Trust, $5 million from the Office of the Kevin Guskiewicz, dean of the College of Provost, and the remainder from College Arts & Sciences; Louise Toppin ’83, chair donors ($4.4 million has been raised to of the department of music; Tom Kenan date, with fundraising ongoing). ’59; and Doug Zinn, executive director of “Thank you so much for paying us the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust. Following a ribbon-cutting ceremony and the honor of allowing us to participate in this wonderful building, which I hope the dedication of the James and Susan will be a lasting tribute to musicians, Moeser Auditorium, attendees were invited to explore the building or mingle in faculty and students for years to come,” said Tom Kenan, whose family fund has the newly expansive, light-filled rotunda. supported the Kenan Music Scholars, “At long last, Hill Hall is a space as the Kenan Music Building and many glorious as the music that has happened here for more than three quarters of a cen- programs and buildings throughout the tury,” said Guskiewicz. “If you look around, UNC campus. Updates to the building include I think it’s safe to say this is far more than a a climate control system and air renovation, this is a transformation.”
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conditioning, something Hill Hall has never had. Moeser Auditorium now has state-of-the-art acoustical treatments, recording tools to capture performances and a professional-grade stage. Backstage, there are modern dressing rooms, lighting, and storage and teaching spaces. The rotunda, one of Hill Hall’s distinguishing features, was refurbished to become a space appropriate for receptions and small performances. The renovation also gave the building state-of-the-art classrooms, a seminar room, a graduate student lounge and a new band suite. “What was once a tired, dysfunctional building, which we still loved, is now a source of pride and inspiration for the campus,” said Toppin. ➤ To name a seat in the James and Susan Moeser Auditorium or a space in historic Hill Hall, contact Peyton Stokley, senior associate director of development, at 919-843-5285 or peyton.stokley@ unc.edu. To watch a video about Hill Hall’s transformation, visit magazine.college. unc.edu.
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Photos by Kristen Chavez
“There are plenty of smart people inside the College with great ideas about what it takes to rethink the modern-day liberal arts curriculum, but there is value to bringing in outside perspectives. I believe the best ideas come when you approach a challenge from different viewpoints.” — DEAN KEVIN GUSKIEWICZ
ABOVE: Dean Kevin Guskiewicz leads a discussion in a December meeting of the College Think Tank, composed of alumni, entrepreneurs and community/business leaders. RIGHT: Think tank members Jonathan Reckford and Julia Grumbles laugh at a comment; behind them is Terry Rhodes, senior associate dean for fine arts and humanities.
College Think Tank explores outside-the-box ideas BY GENEVA COLLINS
Creating a brain trust of strategic advisers was part of Kevin Guskiewicz’s plan even before he became dean in January 2016. He presented the idea of an advisory “think tank” as part of his formal pitch to the UNC selection committee for the job. “There are plenty of smart people inside the College with great ideas about what it takes to rethink the modern-day liberal arts curriculum, but there is value to bringing in outside perspectives,” said Guskiewicz, who formed the group as one of his first acts as dean. “I believe the best ideas come when you approach a challenge from different viewpoints.” The College Think Tank is composed of successful alumni, entrepreneurs and community/business leaders who advise Guskiewicz and his senior leadership team on pertinent issues. At a May meeting, the think tank weighed in on drafts of the College’s new mission, vision and values
statements that were emerging from the dean’s strategic planning process. In December, members took a deep dive into reimagining the general education curriculum. (The College is in the process of updating the curriculum — the first major overhaul in a decade — for students entering Carolina in fall 2019.) Topics discussed: How do we get faculty trained in old-school teaching methods to explore more contemporary highstructure active learning techniques? How long does a study abroad experience need to be for students to become immersed in another culture? How do we remove the barriers that prevent first-generation students from taking advantage of experiential learning opportunities like internships? “The data on first-generation students show that they have the academic knowledge but they don’t have the cultural capital,” Robyn Hadley,
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who oversees a support program for under-represented students at Washington University in St. Louis, told fellow think tank members. “They don’t know to go to the networking dinners, for example. Coming to college is almost like charting a new country.” Ideas explored included: scholarships that go beyond covering basic expenses, since there are always hidden educational costs; offering required science courses at partner universities overseas to get more STEM majors to participate in study abroad; pairing low-income students with highincome students for an exchange of experiences.
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As the daylong session wrapped up, Guskiewicz told the group, “One of the elements of our new values statement is to be ‘strategically bold,’ and you are one way we are doing this.” COLLEGE THINK TANK MEMBERS Tom Uhlman (political science M.S. ’71, Ph.D. ’75), co-chair along with Guskiewicz, is founder and managing partner of New Venture Partners LLC, an early stage venture capital firm focused on corporate technology spinouts. He is a member of the College’s Foundation Board. Frank Bruni (English ’86) is an oped columnist for The New York Times, the author of two bestselling books and a frequent commentator on television news shows. Buck Goldstein (political science ’70, law ’76) is entrepreneur-inresidence and a professor of the practice at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is the co-author of Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the TwentyFirst Century. He is also chairman of Medfusion, a medical information technology company.
Julia Grumbles (history ’75) is the retired corporate vice president of human resources, public relations and corporate marketing resources at Turner Broadcasting System. She currently serves on the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees and the board of UNC’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities. Robyn S. Hadley (public policy analysis ’85) is associate vice chancellor and dean of the John B. Ervin Scholars Program, which aims to provide opportunities for under-represented students at Washington University in St. Louis. Sallie Krawcheck (journalism/ political science ’87) is the CEO and cofounder of Ellevest, a digital adviser for women. She is also owner and chair of Ellevate Network, a global professional women’s network. David W. McLaughlin is provost emeritus of New York University. He supports the scholarly development of faculty and students in mathematics, sciences and technology. His son, Rich McLaughlin, is the chair of the mathematics department in UNC’s College of Arts & Sciences.
Jonathan Reckford (political science ’84) is CEO of Habitat for Humanity. Previously, he served as president of stores for the Musicland division of Best Buy, senior vice president of corporate planning and communications for Circuit City and director of strategic planning at the Walt Disney Co. Edward Strong is a founding partner of Dodger Theatricals Ltd., a theatrical production company. Dodger has produced more than 150 productions worldwide, which collectively have won more than 50 Tony Awards. He recently joined the UNC faculty as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Travis Tygart (philosophy ’93) has been the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency since 2007. He has been recognized by Sports Illustrated as one of the 50 Most Powerful People in Sports and named to the Time 100 list of most influential people in the world for 2013. Cassandra Butts ’91, an original member of the Think Tank, died in 2016. She had served as White House counsel under President Obama.
Lars Sahl
#THROWBACK GOODBYE, VENABLE Demolition of the original, (old) Venable Hall, which housed the departments of chemistry and marine sciences, began in January 2008. The building was named for Francis Preston Venable, professor of chemistry and University president from 1900 to 1914. (New) Venable was completed about two years later as part of the Carolina Physical Sciences Complex, the largest construction project in the University’s history. (See story, page 30.) Do you have stories or memories of classes and labs in old Venable? Share your stories by emailing college-news@unc.edu.
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Lars Sahl
faculty, “world-class” facilities were key to the center securing research dollars. Honors Carolina doubles its enrollment, funds new professorships Emma Kelly ’17 hung up her waitress apron at her hometown diner last summer and turned her focus to changing the world. A William W. and Ida W. Taylor Honors Fellowship enabled the environmental science major to stay in Chapel Hill during the summer to analyze water management data in the developing world. “We were eager to mine the wealth of data that we collected in Zambia, The courtyard between Venable and Murray halls, two of the buildings in the Carolina Ghana and Kenya the prior summer. Physical Sciences Complex, the largest construction project in the University’s history. These funds allowed me to work on disseminating our findings,” said Kelly. mean for science at Carolina.” Ten Years After In recent years, the deciding factor Murray, a Kenan Professor and Carolina First gifts elevate faculty for exceptional students who choose former chair of the department who was and student experiences Carolina over other schools has been its honored with his name on one of the BY DEL HELTON nationally acclaimed honors program, five science buildings, helped lead the said James Leloudis ’77, associate dean planning for the complex. Partially funded for Honors Carolina. A Carolina First As the University launches a new fundwith $22 million in private gifts and $84 raising campaign this fall, we are looking priority was to double the number of million from a higher education bond at how gifts made during the Carolina honors students without compromising referendum, the $205 million complex First campaign (1999-2007) continue to the seminar-style instruction in classes of was the largest construction project in the 20 to 24 students. strengthen the arts and sciences. University’s history. In the Class of 2010, Honors Carolina From 2003 to 2010, the science n the winter of 2000, Jeff Johnson could enroll only 200 students, fewer complex took shape on the western visited the Carolina campus for the first than 5 percent of first-year students. Ten edges of Polk Place. Three new buildings time, hoping to secure a tenure-track years later, Honors Carolina enrolled 494 — Murray, Caudill and (new) Venable faculty position in chemistry. Johnson students in the Class of 2020, nearly 12 Halls — house chemistry, marine sciences percent of the entering class. had just earned his Ph.D. from Harvard and a new department, applied physical University in 1999 and was in the Honors Carolina’s successful sciences. Two other buildings in the midst of a postdoc at the University of expansion was largely the result of science complex are Chapman, home to California, Berkeley. private gifts made during Carolina First physics and astronomy; and Brooks, an Facility tours back then were, well, and afterward. In addition to study addition to Sitterson Hall, which houses fast. Prospective faculty and graduate abroad and student research support, computer science. students were whisked through Venable donors funded 15 new professorships “Solar energy research was what Hall, built in 1925, where faucets that increased academic departments’ drew me to graduate school, and the dripped and research was conducted at capacity to offer honors courses. faculty at UNC’s Energy Frontier Research cramped and decades-old lab stations. Campaign gifts also allowed the Center drew me to Carolina specifically,” “During my interview, Royce purchase of Winston House, UNC’s said Kate Pitman, a Ph.D. candidate in Murray pulled out the plans for new European Study Center in London, chemistry. chemistry buildings that would replace now one of Carolina’s top study abroad UNC’s EFRC Center for Solar Fuels, Venable and reduce crowding in Kenan destinations. funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, and Morehead Labs,” said Johnson, Today, Honors Carolina is ranked was established in 2009. While the center No. 4 nationally; it’s been a model department chair since 2015. “You could builds on years of research by UNC sense his excitement for what this would program since it was created in 1954.
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Reimagining Gen Ed curriculum for 2019 is updating its General Education curriculum — the first major overhaul since the “Making Connections” curriculum was put into place in 2006. Dean Kevin Guskiewicz formed a Curriculum Revision Working Group chaired by Andrew Perrin, professor of sociology and special assistant to the dean, to begin the process last fall. “Just as Carolina has been in the forefront of instructional innovation, I am confident that we will be leaders in reimagining a foundational, broad and deep liberal arts education at a leading global public research university as we prepare students for the challenges of 21st-century lives and careers,” Guskiewicz said. Town hall meetings were held in the fall for the Carolina community and the general public to provide input. The planners also held conversations with key stakeholders across campus. Earlier this spring, eight task forces
Kristen Chavez
The College of Arts & Sciences
Students participate in a history class in Greenlaw 101, which was remodeled to introduce interactive technology and flexible student seating for collaborative work.
were assigned specific areas to address, such as “core knowledge and practical skills,” “diverse perspectives and global understanding,” “experiential education,” and “communication and collaboration.” The task forces are expected to present their reports in May. Once the recommendations are finalized, faculty will begin designing courses (or redesigning existing ones) to meet the new requirements, with the new
curriculum debuting in fall 2019 for firstyear students. All undergraduates entering Carolina spend their first two years in the College as they complete their General Education requirements. Some go on to declare majors in other UNC schools, but the vast majority — 78 percent — will graduate with a degree from the College and one of its 40-plus majors.
New senior leadership team for business operations
Kristen Chavez
A new senior leadership team will work closely to oversee business operations in the College of Arts & Sciences. Kate Henz recently joined the College from UNC General Administration to become senior associate dean for administration and business strategy. Henz will oversee all business operations, which includes finance and human resources. Henz’s arrival and the addition of Jim Klingler (coming from NC State) as the new associate dean for finance and budget management last fall, together with Lachonya Williams as associate dean for human resources, mark the full transition of the new administrative structure for the From left, James Klinger, Kate Henz and Lachonya Williams work College implemented by Dean Kevin Guskiewicz. closely together to oversee business operations for the College of The objective of the new team is to create a more Arts & Sciences. sophisticated model of business administration that ensures effective operations across the College, implements innovative business solutions and advances the College’s mission and vision through strategic planning and engagement. ➤ Complete bios of Henz, Klinger and Williams can be found at college.unc.edu/contactus.
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Six new interdisciplinary, team-taught courses will be offered across the College beginning in fall 2017 in disciplines ranging from physics and astronomy to public policy to art. Dean Kevin Guskiewicz issued a call for proposals for faculty last fall, and a selection committee chose the following courses: • “Climate and Energy Transitions,” taught by Gerald Cecil (physics and astronomy) and John M. Bane (marine sciences). • “Art and Fashion from Rome to Timbuktu,” taught by Victoria Rovine (art) and Herica Valladares (classics). • “Geography for Future Leaders: People, the Planet and You,” taught by Elizabeth Havice and Diego RiverosIregui (geography).
Less driving linked to decrease in roadway fatalities
Each year, more than 30,000 people die in car crashes in the United States. Despite safety improvements, motor vehicle fatalities continue to be a leading cause of early mortality. A new study in the American Journal
• “The Lived Experience of Inequality and Public Policy,” taught by Candis Watts Smith (public policy) and GerShun Avilez (English and comparative literature). • “Ordinary Differential Equations within the Modern Scientific Method,” taught by Roberto Camassa and Richard M. McLaughlin (mathematics). • “Healing in Literature and Ethnography,” taught by Michelle Rivkin-Fish (anthropology) and Jane Thrailkill (English and comparative literature). These new team-taught courses provide an opportunity to offer fresh, multifaceted approaches to complex issues in a way no single instructor could, Guskiewicz said.
“We hope these grants will help eliminate some of the barriers that can discourage interdisciplinary teaching,” he said. “This was a pilot project, and we expect to provide more opportunities for innovative courses in the future.”
of Preventive Medicine shows that a significant decrease in automobile travel from 2003-2014 correlated with a decrease in the number of crash deaths, with the largest reduction among young men. The study also discovered that at the same time, there was no increase in how active Americans were, meaning physical activity did not replace driving for many people. “These results accord with analyses from the transport literature that show the drop in driving occurred because Americans were going fewer places, not because they were switching from cars
to travel by bus, foot or bicycle,” said Noreen McDonald, chair and associate professor in the department of city and regional planning. The study found that auto travel decreased by 9.2 minutes per day from 2003 to 2014. Men ages 20-29 years saw the largest drop. Consequently, motor vehicle fatalities showed significant declines among young men, but also across all ages. The amount of time people spent exercising remained unchanged during the study period. “Americans have stayed home more in the recent decade for a complex set of interrelated factors,” said McDonald. “Technologic advances have eliminated the need for some face-toface interaction. High gas prices, rising debt, stagnant incomes and increases in unemployment have made driving more costly. Finally, delays in employment, partnering and parenthood have lowered the need for certain types of trips.”
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UNC Communications
College funds new team-taught courses
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Celebrating 10 years of Phillips Ambassadors
The Phillips Ambassadors program is celebrating 10 years of supporting students’ study abroad experiences in Asia. To celebrate a decade of scholarship, service and engagement, five $10,000 awards were presented last fall to Phillips Ambassadors alumni to support further engagement with Asia. Award recipients, their alumni year and country, and new projects include: • Burcu Bozkurt (2011, Vietnam): “Increasing engagement of International Youth Alliance for Family Planning in Myanamar, Vietnam and the Philippines.” • Melissa Brzycki (2007, China): “East Asia for All,” development of a podcast series with a focus on East Asian popular culture. • Patrick Dowd (2009, India): “Development of Tibetan language textbooks for young children.” • Larry Han (2014, Singapore): “Resolving patient-physician mistrust in China: a crowdsourcing approach through UNC-Project China.” • Adam Schaffernoth (2007, China): “Cross-cultural training and Japanese homestays for U.S. Marines in Japan.” ➤ View a 10th anniversary photo
Gabrielle Beaudry
essay: tinyurl.com/jkz8cuc.
An online interactive map shows cost burden, overcrowding and substandard housing conditions among North Carolina’s renters.
N.C. facing statewide crisis in affordable rental housing
Many communities in the state are experiencing an affordable housing crisis, which is particularly severe for those who rent, according to a new report published by the Center for Urban and Regional Studies. Extreme Housing Conditions in North Carolina examines severe housing cost burden, overcrowding and substandard housing conditions among renters in the state. It identifies areas with extreme housing needs, defined as having relatively high levels of at least two of the following three indicators: severe housing cost burden, overcrowding and the lack of complete kitchen and bathroom facilities. The report — authored by William Rohe, Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor and director of CURS; Todd Owen, CURS associate director; and Sarah Kerns — analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Among the report’s findings: • Census tracts with extreme housing conditions were found in 46 of North Carolina’s 100 counties and in all regions of the state. • As of 2013, more than 377,000, or 28.2 percent, of the state’s rental households experienced severe cost burdens, were overcrowded or lacked critical facilities. • The number of severely cost-burdened households increased by 53,737 (or 22.5 percent) between 2008 and 2013. • In eight census tracts, over 60 percent of renter households were severely cost burdened, with the highest percentage being 77.4 percent in a Wake County tract. • The number of overcrowded households increased by 20,437, or 45.4 percent, between 2008 and 2013. • In six census tracts, over 30 percent of renter households were overcrowded, with the highest rate being 53 percent in a Wake County tract.
Phillips Ambassador Gabrielle Beaudry ’18 studied in Thailand at the UNC Institute for the Environment field site in Bangkok.
➤ Read the full report: tinyurl.com/hg56hfb. View an interactive map: bit.do/CURS_Housing.
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UNC receives grant to make videos to counteract extremist propaganda
An $867,000 grant to UNC will fund a project to create a series of sophisticated videos and other materials to counteract jihadist propaganda that targets young people. “What makes our project so innovative is that these videos will be produced by Carolina students — experts in understanding how to communicate with their peers — in conjunction with UNC faculty who are experts in jihadist propaganda, video and gaming production, and persuasion strategies,” said Cori Dauber, professor in the department of communication, who also teaches in the curriculum in peace, war and defense. The UNC grant, for one year, was the largest of 31 issued to institutions by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Violent Extremism Program. Dauber is an expert in analyzing and decoding ISIL (sometimes called ISIS) propaganda materials and has presented her findings to the Council on
Dauber and Robinson’s proposal grew out of a Maymester class they taught.
Foreign Relations. She is a co-principal investigator on the grant along with Mark Robinson, director of the Multimedia Lab at UNC. The two have collaborated in the past on research analyzing the production means and methods of jihadist materials, especially those of ISIL. Dauber and Robinson describe their process of working with students “peerto-peer plus.” “We have undergraduate students at UNC who are already trained to
find, analyze and assess propaganda through courses we currently offer,” said Robinson. The video narratives are conceived and developed by students the same age as the target demographic, but they are supervised by faculty with the necessary expertise. The idea for the proposal came out of a 2016 Maymester course that Dauber and Robinson co-taught in which students were asked to design and create counter-extremist videos.
UNC in top 25 for study abroad
Ntiense Inyang
UNC-Chapel Hill ranks 19th among all U.S. higher education institutions for the number of students earning credit for study abroad, according to the Institute of International Education’s 2016 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. This is UNC’s second ranking on the Open Doors’ top 25 list, which is based on the total number of a higher education institution’s students who study abroad. Open Doors found that the overall number of U.S. students studying abroad increased by 2.9 percent to 313,415 over the previous year. More than 2,000 Carolina undergraduate, graduate Phillips Ambassador Ntiense Inyang (far left) studied abroad at and professional students studied abroad in 2014-15. Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, in fall 2015. “Rankings such as this are a reflection of the high interest in global education among UNC students and of the University’s efforts to expand the opportunities and range of students who participate in study abroad,” said Ronald Strauss, executive vice provost and chief international officer.
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PlayMakers stages Shakespeare for everyone
UNC Computer Science
has always had a long relationship with bringing the works of William Shakespeare to the University and local communities. This year, in addition to producing Twelfth Night (pictured at right) as part of their main-stage season, PlayMakers also brought Measure for Measure to the local community through its inaugural Mobile Shakespeare program. In addition to Mobile Shakespeare, PlayMakers reaches new audiences through the National Endowment for the Arts’ Shakespeare for a New Generation grant. The grant allows the company to send teaching artists to North Carolina schools to talk about the play before bringing the students to a free matinee. ➤ Watch a video by Kristen Chavez ’13 at magazine.college.unc.edu.
reached 10 million books read in January. The site, created by Karen Erickson of the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies and Gary Bishop of the department of computer science, reached the milestone less than a decade after its launch. Tar Heel Reader is an online collection of free, easy-to-read and accessible books on a Computer scientist Gary Bishop (right) welcomes a visitor wide range of topics. at a celebration marking 10 million books read for Tar The site was built to Heel Reader, an online program that helps students with fight illiteracy among disabilities learn to read independently. underserved populations, Tar Heel Reader reaches 10 million books read including those with disabilities that make it ar Heel Reader (tarheelreader.org), an difficult to learn to read using traditional online program that helps students with books and learning methods. Each book in disabilities learn to read independently, the collection can be speech-enabled and
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accessed using multiple types of interfaces. In 2008, Bishop worked with Erickson to build Tar Heel Reader as a way for users to create beginner-level books targeted to older children and adolescents with disabilities. Although it was originally built for readers with disabilities in the United States, the site’s ease of use has made it a popular choice for a variety of language teachers and students across the world. The library now contains more than 50,000 books in 27 languages and has been accessed by users in more than 200 countries and territories. “I’m a programmer, so I’m an optimist,” Bishop said, “but I’m amazed by how far-reaching Tar Heel Reader has become. If you search ‘Tar Heel Reader’ on YouTube, you can find videos explaining in German how to set it up with a switch. There are even demonstrations that use puppets and stop motion video to explain the process.”
C AROL IN A ART S & SC IEN C ES | SP RIN G 2017 | CO LLEGE.U N C.EDU | 35
Photos by Kristen Chavez
PlayMakers Repertory Company
CHAPTER & VERSE
GREEN THOUGHT BY AL AN SHAPIRO
There is a park nobody goes to now where the leather swing seats of the swings hang slack in a line of sad Us next to a castle of slides and ramps, a parapet and staircase winding around a tower so crooked you’d think it had been frozen in the act of falling down. A creek divides the park from a thin strip of woods beyond it, a creek that’s not a creek but just a gully for runoff after rain, a rocky, dry creek bed that’s dotted here and there with pools that after rain becomes a sudsy rapids in the middle of which
Steve Exum
the gnarled exposed roots of an old beech make an islet of snakes for nesting condoms, needles, flip-flops, and a brown bag full of empties. By late fall past the leaf-clogged, shriveled creek through bare trees there’s a white apartment complex. But in the spring, or summer after a rain,
Alan Shapiro in the North Carolina Collection Gallery in Wilson Library. Eavan Boland, author of A Woman Without a Country, says the poems in Shapiro’s new book “draw us into deeper understandings of our own losses and give us a language for what often seems beyond speech.”
if you should cross the footbridge over the creek into the woods, the park and the apartments, the swings and falling castle, and the complex tall with the noise of living too far away to hear, too everyday to bother hearing — briefly and barely, all of it vanishes, annihilated, you might even say, to a green shade where, free of body, for a moment overhead, you can almost see it, the marvel of a willing nectarine and peach bending the end branches to the hands that only have to open, never reach.
➤ From Life Pig (The University of Chicago Press), a poetry collection by Shapiro, the William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of English and creative writing. Shapiro, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has published many books, including Reel to Reel, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His new collection of essays, That Self-Forgetful Perfectly Useless Concentration, is also available from The University of Chicago Press. Find more books by College faculty and alumni at magazine.college.unc.edu.
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Paul Hester
FINALE
BEADS
Hirschfield’s bead art, Houston International Airport
An installation by Jim Hirschfield and Sonya Ishii, Beads welcomes visitors to the International Arrivals Hall in Terminal E of George Bush International Airport in Houston. “We used beads as a concept since beads are used by so many contemporary and ancient cultures, reflecting the many aspects of a society,” Hirschfield said. “As Houston is a community known for its cultural diversity, beads became an appropriate icon for the ‘meeter-greeter lobby’ of the airport, where visitors from around the world first enter Houston. While adding color to the space, our bead columns become animated focal points that poetically address an important component of the site and the city itself.” Hirschfield, chair of the department of art, has been a professor at UNC for 28 years. In the early 1990s, he began focusing on public art. Having installed over 40 public art commissions, he has created a variety of projects, from a pedestrian bridge at a zoological park to a meditation room in a children’s hospital. Ishii is his wife and artistic partner.
THE UNIVERSITY o f N O RT H C A RO L I N A COLLEGE OF A RT S & S C I E N C E S T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N O RT H C A RO L I N A AT C H A P E L H I L L C A M P U S B OX 3 1 0 0 205 SOUTH BUILDING CHAPEL HILL, NC 27599-3100
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