Looking Back Over 30 Years of Change
Posted on Sept. 14, 1996Thirty years ago, on a hot, humid September Saturday afternoon, with assistance from my mother, we carried my foot locker and other belongings up to the third floor of Alexander Dorm. This was the beginning of my fateful transition from Fayetteville Senior High School to Carolina.
Quite frankly, I was nervous, for while I had done well as a high school student, I knew that the transition to the freedoms and academic rigor of college was not easy. I had 8 a.m. and even Saturday classes. I recall mapping out a rigid schedule for myself and slavishly following it. I can recall the anxiety over how I was going to complete all the reading assignments and the exhilaration that came when I realized how many of the courses I was taking related to each other. It was sobering to discover how little I knew but comforting to experience the true joy of learning. I was delighted to again encounter my high school colleague, Rusty Clark ’69, and enjoy the continued excitement of championship-level basketball.
While the campus was growing, Chapel Hill was still a village. Under the leadership of the dean of women, Katherine Carmichael, women were expected to wear dresses or skirts and were required to adhere to a curfew. The Y Court was the center of student activity, and the Student Union was still in Graham Memorial. The UNC System was only six campuses, not 16, and higher education enjoyed broad public support. UNC alumni predominated in both the House and Senate of the N .C. General Assembly.
Sixteen years later, on Memorial Day evening, I recall sharing with the search committee that interviewed me for alumni director that, as an Army brat, I was used to moving every two or three years. When Dad was killed in Vietnam, our family made what seemed to us to be an obvious choice — to continue to live in Fayetteville. Fort Bragg was the home of the Airborne, of which my dad was a proud member, and North Carolina had become as much of a home as our family had ever known. But it was my choice of Carolina that provided the steadying influence and guiding compass for my personal and professional development. From the time I entered in the fall of 1966 until I returned in July 1982, either I or one of my three brothers was a Carolina student.
Much has changed about higher education, Chapel Hill and our University in the intervening 30 years. The numbers tell some of the story. The faculty has grown from approximately 1,200 in 1966 to 2,500 in 1996. The student body has grown from almost 14,000 in 1966 to almost 25 ,000 in 1996. The arrival of Interstate 40 in Chapel Hill removed what little illusion may have remained that Chapel Hill was still a village. Gone are public higher education leaders like Clark Kerr at California, Robben Fleming at Michigan and William C. Friday ’48. Today, the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley and UCLA are each searching for new CEOs. In state legislatures, public higher education is receiving a declining proportion of state budgets while prisons are receiving increases. Understandably, our many publics are demanding greater accountability. Even tenure for faculty is receiving increasing scrutiny.
Our North Carolina alumni have growing opportunities to provide much needed help with the General Assembly. This fall, candidates for the General Assembly should be asked to reaffirm their commitment to ensuring that North Carolina’s “priceless gem,” our University, continues to be internationally competitive. We take pride in Carolina’s special relationship with the people of the North Carolina and are comforted knowing that no other public university has tile unparalleled combination of boundaryless public service, outstanding teaching and cutting-edge research.
Little did I know when I climbed those stairs in Alexander Dorm that I would look back 30 years later and realize that I was beginning a special relationship with a place and people that would bring me back to Chapel Hill in a professional capacity. I am privileged to work with a talented GAA staff and loyal alumni volunteers possessed of unlimited passion for Carolina and devoted to ensuring that future generations will be able to share that passion and reflect that pride that has sustained our University for more than 200 years.
Yours at Carolina,
Douglas S. Dibbert ’70
