New Chancellor

This is fun.  I like the welcome occurring immeidately after the confirmation.  

 And I applaud the search committee's decision to conduct a confidential search and  maintain the confidentiality of the non-selected applicants.   .  It was the best way to attract the top candidates and ultimately our University will benefit.   

I just wish we had more notice of the event.   I am sure there are people who cannot attend due to short notice, myself being one of them.   :(  I hope you had a short list--like our elected officials, etc--that you gave more of a head's up. 

I don't know much about him, but he looks like a great fit.  I'm happy to see someone from within the University community get this position, this says a lot about the priorities of the administration.

Holden Thorp, a chemist and dean of UNC-Chapel Hill's College of Arts and Sciences, will be named the university's next chancellor today, sources close to the search said.

Thorp, 43, is a North Carolina native and UNC-CH alumnus who has spent the bulk of his career at the university, climbing the ranks to become chairman of the chemistry department and, last summer, dean of arts and sciences.

He holds a coveted Kenan professorship and was director of the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center from 2001 to 2005.

- http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1065276.html

Perhaps the point was that the people Mark noticed and chose to identify were all white men. There were plenty of women and people of color there that I know he knows (me and Delores Bailey just to cover both those categories). I could see him, so I expect he saw me....Delores was downstairs, so maybe he missed her.

Mark, I promise I mean that with humor. I appreciated your attending and reporting on the event and didn't even notice who you had pointed out until it was pointed out.

I'm a pre-Title 9 girl who for the past 9 years has reflexively counted the number of men and women at University meetings. But just recently, I noticed I've stopped doing that because there are almost always more women. Lots more women. In my world at least, women are everywhere. To my total surprise, I've started wishing there were more men and that I wasn't the resident Jew (actually, that's changing too). Don't much care what color just as long as they are smart, fun to be with, honest, good communicators, etc etc etc.

We have a new Chancellor, it was a lovely event, lots of hugs and old friends greeting one another, Commencement is Sunday. The air is electric on campus. I hope everyone stops by over the next few days.

Linda C.

Linda Convissor

MIT's chancellor Philip L. Clay.

(Incidentally, I appreciated Linda's comment about being the resident Jew!  This is something I've come to notice too in my 10 years at this university.  Just a couple of weeks ago an adminstrator with whom I was discussing a problem told me that the problem was "just something we were going to have to pray on," seemingly unaware of how, well, Christian that saying is.)

Please don't get me wrong:  there's nothing wrong with that expression, and this fellow had every right to use it!  I just took it as another subtle reminder of how pervasively Christian the university's administration is (and continues to be).

Well, tell you the truth, I saw lots of people there, although I do not know (or recall) all of their names.  The folks I mentioned above were the folks that I 1) remembered the names of and 2) thought gave some of the flavor of the moment.  Of course I saw Delores Bailey, for example, but she was the only local non-profit director I saw so I didn't partcularly mention it, whereas there were lots of folks such as Tony Waldrop from South Building.

In fact the crowd was definitely a mix of males and females.  I don't recall that there were a lot of people of color, although people of color were definitely a discernable presence. 

The event was open to the public and free.  I received the same mass emailing that many OP readers probably did.  I think all students faculty and staff got that email (my grad student wife did).  And also, notably, the email did mention that staff were expressly encouraged to come as a part of their hours working for the State of North Carolina.

So, I don't know.  It was a last minute event and I think the crowd had a certain level of diversity.  But I do realize that the crowd was not exactly Ruby's point.

Chancellor-Elect Thorp is relatively young. And he's not coming from a traditional background you'd expect--as in, a high up admin with years of experience at another school.

None of these is a criticism. On the contrary, it's great that UNC is finding leaders from within the university family. 

As I said above, none of my criticism is of the new chancellor but of the dominant culture of the UNC administration. When I was student, our chancellor showed that he was not listening to the voices of students of color as much as white students.  I want to make sure no student ever feels their concerns are less important becasue they don't look enough like the chancellor of UNC.

Chancellor Thorp certainly seems to be a step in the right direction. I have found many cultural biases are so ingrained that only a new generation can truly change the culture.  I have high hopes for his administration in terms of longevity, transparency, and diversity.

I still think that in this day and age, the University should be making more than token gestures at inclusion to show the entire student body and the entire state of North Carolina that it's our school too.

George, it was your request that someone "enlighten" you about "whether non-Christians pray", so that you would not "go through life ill-informed," that had the tone of snark to it.  I'm glad it's not what you intended.

And I'm glad that Ruby's points about Buddhists, etc., persuaded you, even if my points did not.

Catherine, prayer is not under attack here, so it needs no defense.  Indeed, nothing is under attack.  I simply noted a particular usage of speech that's common in this area as an illustration of the sort of subtle isolation that non-Christians can experience, which was my own extension of Linda C's point.

It's a usage of speech in conversation, and not prayer itself, that I was commenting on.

As soon as I heard the annoucement on WUNC, I knew there'd be flack cause the new chancellor is not of someone else's favorite population niche.  Ya know, Dr. Thorp can't help it that he's 1) male and 2) white.  Would Dr. Condoleezza Rice have been a more pleasing selection to some?  I know, I know, she'd rather be Commissioner of the National Football League. 

Course, hiring based on on sex and ethinicity is illegal.  Discriminating against Dookies is allowable, though Paul Hardin overcame that hurdle.

Lastly, when my UNC academic counselor, Dean Rosalind Fuse-Hall, became UNC Secretary, I had no doubt that she was qualified.  She just happens to be black.