New Faces, New Places
Posted on Sept. 14, 1997For many Carolina alumni, fall is our favorite season in Chapel Hill. For those of us fortunate to work on the Carolina campus, fall brings the opportunity to begin again. We start with an undefeated football team, students who are all brilliant because they have yet to take a test, and the weather gives occasional hints of lower humidity, cooler temperatures and falling leaves.
As I walk the brick paths that crisscross our campus, I often am struck by the youthful first-year students (it is no longer politically correct in some quarters to refer to them as “freshmen”) who greet every face they pass with an engaging smile and a warm hello. This is particularly true as they pass through the Alumni Center heading to and from class.
Those new students join others who will be experiencing their first Chapel Hill fall. We have new deans in the College of Arts and Sciences, the schools of medicine and public health while awaiting the announcements of the new deans in the schools of education and business. A familiar face returns in a new role, as Dick Baddour ’65 begins as UNC’s athletic director. We also welcome an experienced but unfamiliar education leader as the new head of the UNC System — Molly Broad.
We have new and expanded buildings and facilities. A bigger Kenan Stadium and new fieldhouse greet Carolina’s highly touted football team and fans while a new, nearly 200,000-square-foot business school awaits our undergraduate and graduate business students. Construction continues on a major addition to the law school, and the addition to the Lineberger Cancer Center is nearly complete. Lenoir Dining Hall is closed as it undergoes a complete makeover, while the Paul Green Theater remains open amidst its significant expansion. And for many faculty and students the most important construction under way is below ground as the campus continues to get “wired” to become more competitive in a world that is increasingly technology-driven.
While we have much about which to be excited, Carolina alumni, students, faculty and staff will start this new academic year without our longtime friend and devoted alumnus Charles Kuralt ’55. It was my great pleasure to come to know this distinguished North Carolinian. I first worked with Charles in 1982, when he generously worked with us on what became an award-winning sound-slide show. Producer Bob Brewer ’70 sent Charles a script, which Charles carefully edited and then recorded in one sitting. He responded enthusiastically to invitations to address local Carolina Club gatherings in Charlotte and New York.
Only two years ago, when we presented Charles with the association’s highest award — the GAA’s Distinguished Service Medal — he flew down that Saturday morning, graciously participated in the luncheon, stopped by WUNC to tape North Carolina People with UNC System President Emeritus William Friday ’48, and returned to New York. Charles and I already had agreed that, now that his Charles Kuralt’s America was finished, he would host and lecture to Carolina alumni and friends on a GAA-sponsored cruise.
It was the School of Social Work that commanded Charles’ most personal commitment, for his parents were social workers. He knew his native state well and understood that North Carolina needed more social workers and more programs devoted to addressing the needs of its people. Charles worked with former Dean John Turner, new Dean Richard Edwards, alumnus Jack Tate ’38 and many others to see that a much-needed building to house the School of Social Work and its growing programs received state appropriations. He provided funds for a named professorship in honor of his father. And this fall he was to serve as master of ceremonies for a major fund raiser for the Jordan Institute, just as he had served in a similar capacity for a kickoff event in the Smith Center for the Bicentennial Campaign.
North Carolina’s state motto is: “To be rather than to seem.” While Carolina has many wonderful alumni, few have ever lived their lives as faithful to that motto as did Charles Kuralt. His form of journalism was rare, but his genuineness may have been rarer. He considered himself fortunate to be permitted all those years to peruse his unique form of journalism. In so doing, he brought great pleasure to many and great honor to his native state and to his alma mater.
Yes, we look forward with joy and anticipation to another fall in Chapel Hill and on the Carolina campus. We welcome our new leaders and new students and will enjoy the new facilities. And we are comforted that if Charles Kuralt must be gone from this world that he chose as his final resting place the center of our campus in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.
Yours at Carolina,
Douglas S. Dibbert ’70
