A Friendly Merger

Posted on Oct. 20, 1994

From the University Report (published by the GAA 1970-94)

So often farewells are difficult. But they can also be harbinger to exciting change. And so it is with this issue, the last of The University Alumni Report.

After 24 years as a General Alumni Association publication, the Report is being merged with our quarterly magazine, the Carolina Alumni Review. This new, expanded Review will come to our readers every other month and will include all elements now found in the Report and the Review.

But that is jumping ahead. Looking back, the Report, initially known as The University Report, began under the sponsorship of the University’s fund-raising office. Long-time University Development Director Charlie Shaffer ’35 recalls that for 17 years the University Report was a four-page, 8 1/2 x 11 publication. In 1970 your General Alumni Association assumed responsibility for its publication.

The first Report published by the GAA announced the formation of the Chancellor Search Committee. Sound familiar? Among the candidates recommended by the committee was N. Ferebee Taylor ’42. (By the way, that committee had 14 members, including one student, Tom Bello ’71, then student body president.) A headline boasted of “Sweeping Curriculum Changes ‘Made,” and the article noted that after careful review the undergraduate curriculum requirements were being relaxed, and freshman seminars would be offered on 45 topics. Eight-percent faculty salary increases were requested for each year of the 1971-73 biennium in order to put the six Consolidated University of North Carolina campuses at the national average by 1973 and in the top quartile in 1975. Alumni Annual Giving collections totaled $232,203 from 9,135 contributors — an all-time record.

This 16-page issue contained Clarence Whitefield’s (’44) first University Report column as alumni secretary. He wrote that perhaps the most important undertaking for the year would be the computerization of alumni records in preparation for publishing the first Alumni Directory since 1953. The GAA Board’s top goal was the strengthening of local alumni chapters. Annual dues were $10, and the life-member rate was $150 for an individual. Life members doubled that fall to 100.

A decade later, the September issue of The University Alumni Report noted that new University Chancellor Dr. Christopher C. Fordham III ’47 would formally be inaugurated on University Day, Oct. 12, 1980. The Report wrote that nearly one-fourth of the $485 million appropriated to the 16-campus University of North Carolina System was allocated to the Chapel Hill campus by the System’s Board of Governors. Of the 100,000 students in the System, approximately one-fifth (20,000) were on our campus.

This 36-page edition also announced that Hargrove “Skipper” Bowles ’41 of Greensboro was the new chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees, succeeding Ralph N. Strayhorn ’47 of Winston-Salem. Record collections of $651,696 from 12,046 donors were reported to Carolina Annual Giving.

Annual Carolina Alumni membership was then $15, while life membership was up to $200. There were more than 7,700 life members!

By October 1990, The University Alumni Report had grown to 52 pages. The 50th-class-reunion gift from the class of 1940 was $1,515,448. GAA annual dues were $25, while life member dues were up ‘to $300. There were 22,900 life members. The George Watts Hill Alumni Center was under construction, and preparations for a Bicentennial Alumni Directory were announced.

Then GAA President Wade M. Smith ’60 of Raleigh, noted that the decline in state resources was forcing a 5-percent cut in state funding of higher education. He asked alumni to encourage their legislative candidates to affirm their support for expanded University funding.

For 24 years your General Alumni Association has proudly provided this publication for our Association members and the University community. In preparing this column I am reminded of how much of our University’s history is captured within our alumni publications. I marvel at the abundance of class notes and sadly observe the growing number of obituaries.

As we bid farewell to The University Alumni Report, please join me in saluting our volunteers and staff who have guided the The University Alumni Report over these years. They have brought this publication to the point that we now enthusiastically merge it into what we are confident will be an enhanced Carolina Alumni Review.

Yours at Carolina,

 

 

 

 

Douglas S. Dibbert ’70