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Gray-Little Takes Fast Track to UNC Provost Position

Bernadette Gray-Little, since 2004 the dean of UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, was named Feb. 8 to succeed Robert Shelton as executive vice chancellor and provost, the University’s top academic officer.

Saying he never had seen such unanimity among trustees, vice chancellors, deans and faculty over his choice, Chancellor James Moeser acted on the appointment just 12 days after Shelton announced he was leaving to be president of the University of Arizona.

Moeser said he exhorted his vice chancellors to march to Gray-Little’s office and ask her if she would take the job. He said he had expected to name an interim provost and start a search, but the unanimous approval of the UNC trustees and the chancellor’s faculty advisory committee moved him to take the shortcut. The trustees voted by mail ballot.

“It became clear that one person stood above all others,” Moeser said.

“I am honored, I’m humbled, I’m excited and I’m a little frightened,” Gray-Little told a general meeting of the faculty in the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.

Moeser said the search for a new dean of the college would begin immediately. Gray-Little will assume the new position July 1, when Shelton is scheduled to start work at Arizona.

Gray-Little is a native of Washington, N.C. She joined the University in 1971 as a faculty member and later became chair and director of undergraduate studies for the department of psychology, director of the clinical psychology graduate program and senior associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Arts and Sciences. Gray-Little served as the executive associate provost for two and a half years before becoming dean of the college.

In her previous work in the college, Gray-Little helped overhaul the undergraduate advising system and oversaw the Office of Undergraduate Research, the Honors Program, the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, a curriculum review and the beginning of the First-Year Seminar Program.

In her own specialty, she has directed the clinical psychology program. Her research interests include the association of ethnicity and social status to self-esteem, decision-making strategies in marital relationships, relationship violence and the influence of demographic characteristics on diagnostic accuracy.

Gray-Little had been a finalist for positions similar to the deanship at the College of William and Mary, Emory University and the University of New Hampshire.

She earned her undergraduate degree from Marywood College in Scranton, Pa., and her master’s and doctoral degrees from St. Louis University.

Gray-Little got into the public spotlight last year when some faculty and students questioned the handling of a proposal to fund a major addition to the undergraduate curriculum in Western civilization from a politically conservative donor whose foundation has been openly critical of UNC faculty.

Responding to concerns that a donor, in this case, Art Pope ’78 of Raleigh, was wielding undue influence over the curriculum and that expansion of Western civ should not be a priority, she said forcefully that she was not aware of any instance in which donors had been allowed improper curriculum or faculty selection control. She said a proposal worked out between the Pope family and a faculty committee “would support the academic priorities of the College and the University while enhancing our undergraduate curriculum.”

The family ultimately withdrew most of its support for the program when it could not see eye to eye with the faculty critics, and the plan has remained on the shelf.

The executive vice chancellor and provost serves as chief academic officer and oversees all academic operations, including 13 schools and the College of Arts and Sciences, the University Library, a variety of centers and several cultural and educational units.


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