Navigate

Hark the Sounds

Ep. 24: A Long Reflection

Jack Hughes ’39 has seen a lot of history in his 101 years, including a front row seat at the D-Day invasion. Listen to the story of his assignment on the healing end of history’s largest naval invasion, in his own words.

Read more about Jack Hughes in the September/October ’21 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review.


Ep. 23: A Daily Dose of Nature

Timothy Beatley ’85 (MA, ’86 PhD) believes in the benefits of maximizing connections and contact with the natural world. Read more about Timothy Beatley in “Friendlier Cities for Our Feathered Friends” in the March/April ’21 Carolina Alumni Review.


Ep. 22: Take Me Out to the Dean Dome

Because you can’t go to the Smith Center this season, we’ll bring the Smith Center to you. Put on your lucky jersey and get ready to jump around.


Ep. 21: Her Christmas Story

In a life defined by her love of books, The Night Before Christmas holds a special meaning for Elinor Dixon Hawkins ’50 that extends well beyond the holiday season.

Read more about the amazing life of Elinor Hawkins in the November/December issue of the Carolina Alumni Review.


Ep. 20: Elevating History

Elijah Heyward ’18 (PhD) has always been interested a richer, more complete American story. As COO of the Museum of African American History, now rising on the Charleston waterfront, he’s getting the chance to build that narrative from the ground up. Heyward is profiled in the July/August issue of the Carolina Alumni Review.


Episode 19: Wilmington’s Lie

In a career defined by covering foreign wars, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Zucchino ‘73 discovered the conflict that drives his third book closer to home. In 1898, less than a hundred miles from where he lived as a teenager, white supremacists overthrew the multiracial government of Wilmington, N.C.

It remains the only coup d’état ever to take place on American soil.

For decades, American history textbooks wrongly cast the black victims as instigators, and the perpetrators as heroes. It took almost a century for the true story to come to light. Zucchino tells that story in the book Wilmington’s Lie.


Episode 18: Hoofing It

Everybody knows that Hinton James, Carolina’s first student, walked to Chapel Hill from Wilmington…or did he? University Archivist Nicholas Graham ’98 (MSLS) takes on the enduring campus legend.

Want more? Check out the Review‘s coverage of the first Hinton James Day, held during the University’s Sesquicentennial in 1945:


Episode 17: The Perfect Fit

Acting on an impulse, Whitney Brown ’10 (MA) changed the course of her life. A Phi Beta Kappa perfectionist, intent on a career studying folklore, she turned down a promising job with the Smithsonian Institution and instead ran off to Wales to learn the ancient art of building dry-stone walls. Learn more about Whitney Brown in the Jan/Feb ’20 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review.


Episode 16: The Reckoning

History, says UNC professor William Sturkey, isn’t necessarily what happened. “It’s what gets written down.”

Recent events like the renaming of Saunders Hall, and the national attention focused on the Silent Sam confederate monument, have forced Carolina to reckon with the unwritten parts of its racial history.

That’s the point of the “Race and Memory at UNC” class taught by Sturkey, an assistant professor of history. His class is one of 18 in the University’s shared learning initiative, titled “Reckoning: Race, Memory and Reimagining the Public University.” Over 800 students are taking courses. Sturkey’s class is the only one designed specifically for the initiative. It is by far the largest, with over 100 students enrolled.

Sturkey doesn’t want to reinvent the wheel. He just wants to teach history in a much more transparent and honest way. And if that makes some folks uncomfortable, well, that gives him fuel for the fire. Because he doesn’t want his grandchildren to be having these same racial arguments 100 years from now.

Find out more about William Sturkey: “Some Things That Are Just Wrong,” in the November/December 2019 Carolina Alumni Review.


Episode 15: Been There, Done That, Bought the T-shirt

Danny Rosin ’90 paid his way though college “leveraging my love for Carolina (and hatred for dook). I did this through a small business enterprise on campus, where I was the guy knocking on dorm doors.” The business was selling T-shirts, which included the iconic ’25 things you need to do before you graduate from UNC.’

Today, as the founder of promotional products company Brand Fuel, “we hold CLC licenses to manage the protection of UNC’s sacred marks versus the production of rogue that helped fund my education.” Take a nostalgic trip down the Franklin Street of the 1980s as Danny tells his unlikely tale.

(See the shirt in question at bit.ly/unc-top-25-things, and share your personal Chapel Hill experiences at bit.ly/unc-top-25-comments.)


Episode 14: A Helping Hand

The academic rigors and culture of college can trip up even the best-prepared. Jeff Powell ’15 fell back on his love of creating objects, and that eventually led him to Holden Mora. In this episode, Powell discusses the trials and tribulations he encountered while building his first prosthetic hand for the 5-year-old boy.

Find out more about Jeff Powell and The Helping Hand Project at alumni.unc.edu/news/a-hands-on-education/.


Episode 13: It’s All About the Argyle

To the rest of the world, Alexander Julian ’69 is a an internationally-acclaimed designer who credits his style to his Chapel Hill upbringing. To the Tar Heel faithful, he’s the man behind the iconic argyle designs on all of the Tar Heel sports uniforms. Hear him tell the story of how that came to be.


Episode 12: Not All Who Wander Are Lost

From a childhood bedroom in Greensboro gazing at National Geographic maps tacked to the walls to planting a Tar Heel flag on the North Pole, Dr. Ranjan Sharma ’82 has accomplished a feat most travelers can only dream about. Sharma was featured in the March/April 2019 issue of the Review (“An Allergist With a Travel Bug”).


Episode 11: Something to Say

One day in the future, he might lose his ability to speak. So to Sam Anthony ’91, each second counts. Every word matters. And every person he meets is important.


Episode 10: Jump Around

Step into the ropes with athletes from the Carolina Jump Rope club as they prepare to host and compete in the National Collegiate Jump Rope Championships.


Episode 9: Sounds of the Season

Instead of our usual stories about Carolina, and Carolina alumni, our latest episode features a selection of a cappella holiday music courtesy of the UNC Loreleis and Clef Hangers. The session was recorded during a recent performance at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center.


Episode 8: Through Their Eyes

Photographer Tyler Cunningham ’97 believed that she could do more with her camera. A podcast introduced her to Through Our Eyes. The project distributes cameras to members of the homeless communities, allowing participants to tell the stories of their lives through images of their own creation. Cunningham decided to bring the project to Raleigh. With the help of her church and local organizations, she handed out over 100 cameras just days before Hurricane Florence battered the Triangle.


Episode 7: Telling a Fateful Story

The text message read something like, “I have ALS. I need you to tell my story.” And just like that, a wildlife documentary about red wolves in eastern North Carolina became a documentary about life, and death, and friendship. So Jeff Mittelstadt ’07 (MBA) quit his day job and learned to cry quietly behind his camera as he filmed the final years of his friend Chris Lucash’s life.


Episode 6: The Journey Begins

More than 4,000 of the newest members of the Carolina family have arrived in Chapel Hill, ready to begin their Tar Heel journey – just as soon as they deal with move-in, family, roommates and simply finding their way around campus.


Episode 5: Voices of ’68

1968 was a watershed year in American history. For college students, Vietnam, civil rights and the sexual revolution mixed with the more mundane realities of daily life on campus. Back in Chapel Hill for their 50th reunion – some of them for the first time since graduation – the UNC class of 1968 gathered to reminisce about what it was like to live through that historic time.


Episode 4: Step Into Those Shoes

Mike Wiley ’04 has been performing for school and regional theater audiences for almost two decades as a solo artist, and he often plays more than two dozen characters during a performance. “You almost feel like you have multiple personality disorder,” he says.


Episode 3: Small Stature, Big Life

Martha Gunter Caldwell ’39 was on the small side from the beginning and topped out at 4-foot-10, but she has lived a big — and long — life. Caldwell, who turned 100 in April, graduated from UNC at a time when few women attended college.

“I still love Chapel Hill — I still love it. And every time somebody goes, I say, ‘Blow a kiss to the Old Well for me,’ ” Caldwell says. “Yes, I’m a Tar Heel. Hark the sound!”

Find the full story at the GAA website.


Episode 2: Oral Histories

Jim White ’71 tells the story of the Jim White Oral History collection at UNC, and how he and his high school students became oral historians. The full story, “Nobody Asked Me That Before,” and some veterans’ stories from the collection are in the November/December 2017 Carolina Alumni Review.


Episode 1: History of The University of North Carolina, Part II (1835-61)

Freddie Kiger ’74, teacher of the GAA’s overwhelmingly popular N.C. History Series, gives us a preview of his class “History of The University of North Carolina, Part II (1835-61),” marking the rise of UNC — a “golden age,” if you will — before the destructive whirlwind of secession and the Civil War.