Today, according to the Chapel Hill Herald, is the day.
An agenda for the UNC Board of Governors' monthly round of meetings includes a mid-day session of the full board Thursday with a closed-session report of the Committee on Personnel and Tenure, followed by an open report and a final item: "Election of a Chancellor."
The BOG typically spends Thursday in committee meetings, gathering in a limited full board session at 5 p.m. before adjourning until the regular meeting on Friday morning.
Details about candidates for chancellor have been carefully guarded since the UNC Chancellor Search committee was formed last September. Nelson Schwab, a UNC Trustee and chair of the search committee, has said repeatedly that only the final choice would be announced publicly.
The BOG must vote to approve the Search Committee's recommendation.
We should know something after 2:30 P.M. Lot's of rumors on the front runners, and especially their connections to UNC and North Carolina.
We shall see.
[Front-paged, added link, & updated date by Ruby.]
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Two Related Observations
My wife and I just returned from DC where we attended our 40th Class reunion at Howard University. Interestingly enough, the major topic of conversation was the Wednesday announcement of our new president. The current president was a student when our class was in residence, earning a BA in 1965 and receiving his law degree with us in 1968, so he was a "friend" of many of us.
The debate was familiar - the Trustees ratified the recommendation of the selection committee chaired by Gen. Colin Powell and Richard Parsons, Chair of the Time Warner Board. The new president is Dr. Sidney Ribeau, currently the president of Bowling Green State University. Some were bothered that he had no prior connection with Howard and it would take him a long while to ramp up. Sound familiar?
The institution has only had two of the 15 former presidents receive degrees there. The current president has been there 13 years and has been presidents of two other schools. The first graduate president was there only four years and had many problems before leaving.
So back and forth it went, with no resolution on what model worked best. One classmate who is a dean elsewhere observed that after the long tenure of an "insider," an "outsider" has some definite advantages. I tend to agree. Is the reverse true as well?
The other topic of discussion was the absence of three of our more "well known/highly placed" classmates: The Prime Minister of Bermuda, the Mayor of Atlanta, and The Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Could have gotten real interesting!
Today at graduation, when the president uttered those words about "by the power invested in me by the Board of Trustees, I do hereby confer the degree of ..." to the Divinity School degree recipients, instead of ending with "congratulations" like he did all of the others, he said, "Please pray for us!" I would have never paid any special attention to that if not for the discussion here.
Oh - and tomorrow's UNC-Chapel Hill graduation speaker is oprah singer Jessie Norman, HU Class of 1967, along with the former singer and song writer Donny Hathaway.
Maybe Roberta Flack will show up.
Fred,
Hathaway and Flack's voices went so well together.
Too Bad She Didn't
She was Class of '58 but didn't attend any of the festivities where we saw the 50-year class.
PS: Above, make that Jessye Norman!
oprah singer
what a wonderful keyboard slip! I understand Oprah's mother misspelled the word too!
My exposure to opera has
Or . . .
Hmmmm.....
I hope the event organizers know how important it is to keep things moving. Musical interludes gobble time while the people fan themselves and the graduates get restless. Plus the Smith Center is challenging in terms of access and comfort for older/disabled folks, especially in foul weather.
And apparently there's no such thing as an inoffensive invocation any more...! One notices that it's called an invocation, not a prayer. I'd like to try my hand at composing one that doesn't end with Amen.
Smith Center?
What happened at the Smith Center?
Dr. Norman's Speech
Here is the link to her prepared "rained-out" remarks:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/campus-and-community/jessye-norman-commencement-speech.html
Wrong assumption
I wish it had
The University made it clear that it would only move commencement in to the Smith Center if there was "severe weather" not simply for rain. It defined severe weather as high winds or lightning.
I was scheduled to walk yesterday for my Master's but couldn't see putting my wife, small kids and In-Laws through two hours of 53 degree rain. So, we skipped the ceremony completely.
severe weather in 1995... the olden days
Now I must tell you about my graduation in 1995... it was scheduled for Kenan Stadium even though there was a forecast for rain because (and I'm half-quoting, half-paraphrasing here) in 200 years it never rained during graduation at UNC. They were returfing Kenan and the entire field was covered up with some kind of thick matting.
Johnetta Cole gave an excellent speech, and then it started to drizzle. The parents started leaving. And then began the REALLY BORING part where the PhDs get their degrees, and the drizzle turned to a deluge.
Paul Hardin stopped the ceremony and said something like, "Whatever degree you were expecting today, I now confer upon you." And we all ran out of the stadium to find cover. My cap got soggy (you can see it wilting in the photos). It was fantastic.
I skipped my Master's graduation ceremony because I was on a plane to Ethiopia to meet my son.
(Can someone please cue "Memories"?)
All this cheesiness is why people care so much about their alma maters, eh?
Blessing in disguise?
Seems merciful to cut the proceedings a little shorter than usual - unfortunate though that the she did not actually get to speak. Even that would have been an improvement over the 1993 graduation at which we listened to Ted Turner speak extemporaneously for about a half hour - appalling.
she did speak
Walked yesterday
I finally walked yesterday, about two years after I had intended to. I'm not much one for ceremonies so in my humble opinion, besides being soaked to the bone it worked out well. I never expected to have to wear a parka under my gown.
I didn't have the chance to see her, but according to her son, Valerie Foushee walked yesterday as well.
Congrats
Only 5
Congrats anyway !
Congrats on the Master's and your wise decision to skip the ceremony. That's the dumbest foul weather policy I've ever heard. But high winds and/or lightning would make it just as hard to transport small kids and in-laws to the Smith Center. So it was rained out any way you cut it.
Dr. Norman's address is worth a look (see Fred's link above). I like the angle and the call to action.
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