Alumna to Be First Woman to Chair Board of Governors

Posted on June 17, 2008

For the first time, the UNC System Board of Governors will be led by a woman. Hannah Dawson Gage ’75 was elected to a two-year term as chair.

Gage graduated with a journalism degree and went on to found and, for a time, own Cape Fear Broadcasting Co. She served on the UNC-Wilmington board of trustees for eight years before being elected to the BOG in 2001.

Gage is currently chair of the board’s personnel and tenure committee, and she previously chaired the committees on educational planning, policies and programs and the audit committee. She served as co-chair on the Tuition Policy Task Force and the Task Force on Teacher Recruitment and Retention, the University-Community College Task Force, the Presidential Search Committee and the UNC Tomorrow Commission.

Gage lives in Wilmington, grew up in Fayetteville and has family ties to multiple UNC campuses. She serves on the boards of WHQR Public Radio and Wachovia Bank.

Peter Hans ’91 was elected vice chair. Hans is a Raleigh government relations consultant and a member of the BOG since 2003. He grew up in Southport and Hendersonville and graduated with a degree in political science. Early in his career, he worked in Washington, D.C., as senior policy adviser to then-U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth and then-U.S. Rep. (now U.S. Sen.) Richard Burr. Hans recently completed a six-year term on the State Board of Community Colleges.

Gage’s term as head of the 16-campus policy-making body begins July 1.

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Related coverage is available online:

• Alumnus Elected to Head UNC System Board of Governors
  News report from June 2006

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