A New Beginning and a Challenge to Carolina Alumni
Posted on Oct. 1, 1988Excitement and anticipation abound in Chapel Hill as this new academic year begins. A class of 3200 freshmen, awesome in their academic credentials and anxious to begin their Carolina experience, has come to town. They come at a time of change. We have a dynamic new Chancellor — Paul Hardin, who brings enthusiasm, determination and vision. We have a new faculty chairman, Dr. Harry Gooder, a respected, thoughtful academic leader. and we have an exciting new football coach — Mack Brown, who is hard working, articulate, and experienced.
Regular readers of this column know that I often emphasize that of the “four constituencies of a university community — administration, faculty, students and alumni — only the alumni constituency is permanent. As we have seen during the past year, many administrators come and go. Faculty develop a commitment that is largely to their disciplines . One half of our faculty was not at Carolina ten years ago. Students join us and four or five years later leave and become alumni. But the status of an alumnus is permanent.
Alumni often develop an emotional attachment to the University based upon memories of special experiences, professors, relationships, and friendships. However, we also know that the value of our diploma is measured not by what the reputation of the University was when we attended, but by its present standing.
I recently addressed a professional conference at which I talked about this partnership that alumni should share with administration, faculty and students. For alumni, this is a particularly challenging notion because to be a partner and fully participate means that we must prepare ourselves, be well informed and fully involved on behalf of Carolina. We cannot content ourselves to write checks to the annual fund, though this is important, or to attend athletic events, though this is fun and means much to the University and to the youngsters who compete. We need to assume an expanding presence in our communities to represent the University, to help recruit outstanding students, to be persuasive with members of the General Assembly in advancing Carolina’s needs, to provide advice on the quality of the curriculum, to help recruit outstanding administrators, and, yes, to provide that loving criticism that will assure that the ideals and traditions for which the University of North Carolina has stood for nearly 200 years continue.
As we welcome Paul Hardin, let us all commit ourselves not to advancing only the school or college that we attended, though we need to support them fully, but let us all advance the entire University. The University’s strength is found in the College of Arts and Sciences, the Business School, the Dental School, the School of Education, the Journalism School, the Law School, the School of Library Science, the Medical School, the Nursing School, the Pharmacy School, the School of Public Health and each of the institutes.
But as students, we grew from the special experiences that come from the combination of strengths that are found in a comprehensive research university that is committed to serving the people of North Carolina, the region and the nation with outstanding teaching, public service and research. As alumni, our charge is not to advance only the college or school from which we graduated, or the athletic program. Our challenge is to advance the entire University, for if Carolina is to be faithful to those who have led us in the past and to meet the challenges of the future, we must forever realize that the real strength of the University of North Carolina is found in the strength and support it receives from the people of the State of North Carolina. It is their hopes, their dreams, and their nourishment that has sustained this University for so long.
This magazine, The Carolina Alumni Review, for the first time in the magazine’s’ 76-year history is being sent to all address-known alumni. We hope not only to introduce you to Paul Hardin and to Mack Brown, but for those who are not dues-paying members of the Association and, therefore, do not regularly receive this magazine, we want to remind you that we are one University with common ties that bind us, though our academic disciplines may differ, and with a shared set of hopes, dreams, and visions. The University is a very special place. It is ours not only to enjoy, but to advance and to protect.
We hope you like this issue of The Carolina Alumni Review. Please keep it, read it, and share it. Write us. Tell us your thoughts and reactions, not only to this magazine but to the challenges facing the University. More importantly, we hope you will support the University — support it not just as a dues-paying member of the Association or as a contributor to the many academic needs of the University, but serve Carolina as an ambassador, thoughtful, knowledgeable, fully informed, and knowing that the University’s future is in our hands — the hands of Carolina’s 170,000 former students — Carolina alumni!
Yours at Carolina,
Douglas S. Dibbert ’70
