East The Magazine of East Carolina University
fall 2008
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Biggest freshman class ever!
East The Magazine of East Carolina University
fall 2008
34
14
24
F E A T U R E S
14 B IG G EST FRESH MAN C LA S EVER !
Officials were working overtime to prepare for a record 4,600
or more freshmen for fall semester, pushing total enrollment to
around 27,000. ECU is leasing private apartments to house 300
still on a waiting list for dorm rooms.
22 FAC U LT Y SA L A R I ES RI SE 2 0 PERCENT
By Bethany Bradsher Faculty salaries have risen 20 percent or
more over the past five years, raising the paycheck of a typical full
professor to $94,900 in 2007. While the pay hikes are impressive,
faculty salaries remains below the national average and are
strikingly less than the pay at N.C. State and UNC Chapel Hill.
24 A F IRM FO U NDATION
By Steve Tuttle Roddy Jones ’58, who built Crabtree Valley Mall and
many other Raleigh landmarks, believes in building things up, not
tearing things down.
30 C R EAT ING C R EAT IVI TY , M US I C A LY
By Steve Row Professor Eddie Jacobs has ways of bringing the
music out of students, even those who admit coming to class
unprepared. In those cases, he often asks the student do one
simple thing: Play one note on the keyboard.
34 LUXU R Y SU I TES IN STA D IUM E X PANS ION
By Bethany Bradsher Plans are in the works to add 4,500 seats
plus 24 private suites to Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium by enclosing
the east end zone. Also in the works are a new women’s softball
stadium, a new track and field facility and a new auxiliary gym at
Minges Coliseum.
D E P A R T M E N T S
FRO M OUR REA DERS 3
THE ECU RE PORT . 4
FALL ARTS CALEN DAR . 13
PIRATE NAT ION 40
CLASS NOTES 43
UPON THE PAST . 56
30
viewfinder
Office on the Go
Leading three initiatives
produces a packed calendar
for Director of Student
Outreach Tarrick Cox ’96
’07. He runs the Legislators’
School for Youth Leadership
Development and he
advises the Gospel Choir
and the Student N.C.A.E.
Club. Always on the run, his
office is anywhere he can
get the Internet.
2
Touchdo wn, Mc Ge
I enjoy the East magazine and especially the
recent article on my friend, fellow ECU grad
and fellow ACC football official Dr. Jerry
McGee ’65. It’s always nice to read about
successful alums and us officials are definitely
glad for positive publicity like this. Even
though I live in Greenville, it’s nice to keep
up with all the Pirate happenings through
your magazine. Keep up the good work.
—Darrell Harrison ’74 ’79, Greenville
It turns out we have three ECU alumni working
ACC games. McGee is the dean of the crew with
35 years experience as a side judge at ACC
football games. His day job is being president of
Wingate University near Charlotte. Harrison
has officiated at football games for 15 years. He,
like McGee, is a side judge. Harrison’s day job
is running Document Solutions East, a licensed
Xerox agency. Raymie Styons ’84 of Greenville
has officiated at ACC basketball games since
1989. He owns an insurance agency.
Bub a says thanks
I want to thank you and Steve Row for the
article on Beth Grant in the summer edition
of East magazine. It was a fine tribute to a
great actress and more importantly, a great
Pirate. I literally had dozens of ECU people
come up to me at the baseball regionals in
Myrtle Beach and tell me about the great
article in East magazine. They all expressed
how proud they were of Beth, but none were
as proud as her brother!
—Bubba Grant ’86, Cary
My dad was in the Coed Club
I enjoyed the “Upon the Past” in the last
issue [about how men students went from
a decided minority to a majority of the
student body right after World War II]. My
father, Alfred McLawhorn, is in the group
photo [of the Coed Club]. I have never seen
that particular photo, so you can imagine
how excited I was to see it. He used to talk
about those early days at ECTC and being
outnumbered by the girls. A lot of the guys
mentioned in that article went on to be
successful and prominent men.
—Ryan McLawhorn ’76, Winterville
Readers can order reprints of pictures seen on
the “Upon the Past” page from University Archives.
For information, call 252-328-0272.
Count ing adject ives
Editor’s note: A few issues back we reported that
Robert Rutter IV ’03 won $500,000 on Are
You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? by correctly
answering 10 questions, including this one: How
many adjectives are in the following sentence:
“Spencer takes good care of his hairy dog.” Rutter
said there are two. A retired faculty member wrote
in to say that’s wrong.
In my view there are three [adjectives in the
sentence]: “good,” “his” and “hairy.” I see
no way to eliminate any of those. “Good”
sometimes appears as a noun, as in “He
went about doing good,” or “I am concerned
for the good of the nation.” “Hairy” is an
adjective modifying the noun “dog.” And
“his” is a possessive adjective, also modifying
the noun dog. East is a superior publication.
My wife, Patricia Morrison ’67, and I, a
member of the foreign languages faculty from
1958–67, enjoy reading most of every issue.
—Robert Morrison, Hawthorne, Fla.
We asked English professor and grammar expert
O. Bruce Southard to settle the question. He
said the sentence has three adjectives. By the
way, Rutter is now studying chemistry at the
University of South Florida and plans to apply to
the medical school there next year.
Orientation There’s nothing quite as still and expectant as an empty college campus
in summer, or so I thought until I turned the corner at the School of
Communication building and ran headlong into a throng of parents and
teenagers touring the grounds during a new student orientation session.
East Carolina will welcome roughly 4,600 new freshmen this fall,
a record number. Hundreds of them and their parents have spilled
across the mall this summer during eight two-day briefings. A campus
already swollen with five years of record enrollment growth is bracing
for another wave. Including transfers, officials say the new student
population will approach 6,000.
All the new buildings funded by the state’s $3.2 billion higher education
bond issue of a few years ago already are full to bursting. The university
had to hire about 50 new faculty to accommodate this year’s growth and
was forced to convert the ground floor of Umstead Residence Hall on
the Main Campus to faculty offices. Total enrollment this fall should be
up about 1,000 to stand at roughly 27,000.
Actually, admitting 4,600 new freshmen is the last step in a process
that began last winter with evaluating nearly 16,000 applications.
The Admissions Office says that’s roughly 1,000 more applicants
than last year, with much of that reflecting greater interest from
out-of-state residents.
We take a look at this new crop of students in the cover story in
this issue. We also offer a few stories on how growth has changed
East Carolina, how the whole college experience has changed since
your day, and what kind of college town Greenville has become.
Call it your personal orientation session.
And so another year begins at East Carolina. Thousands of young
people will turn a corner and run smack into an exciting but uncertain
future. Parents will worry about money and ask questions that mortify
their kids. Move-In Day, as usual, will fall on the hottest Saturday of
the year. Classes will begin and the university quickly will settle into
comfortable, age-old routines. Somewhere on campus, a student will
look up and think: I’m a little scared but I believe I can do this.
I can become somebody.
For 4,600 young lives, tomorrow will start here.
from the edi tor
Volume 7, Number 1
East is published four times a year by
East Carolina University
Division of University Advancement
2200 South Charles Blvd.
Greenville, NC 27858
h
EDITOR
Steve Tuttle
252-328-2068 / tuttles@ecu.edu
ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER
Brent Burch
PHOTOGRAPHER
Forrest Croce
COPY EDITOR
Jimmy Rostar ’94
CONTRIBUTING ARTIST
Michael Dorsey
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Marion Blackburn, Bethany Bradsher,
Erica Plouffe Lazure, Steve Row
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Jay Clark, Lois Greenfield,
Marc Kawanishi, Fred Prouser
CLASS NOTES EDITOR
Leanne Elizabeth Smith ’04 ’06
ecuclassnotes@ecu.edu
ADMINISTRATION
Michelle Sloan
h
DIRECTOR OF UNIVERSITY MARKETING
Clint Bailey
East Carolina University is a constituent institution of
The University of North Carolina. It is a public doctoral/
research intensive university offering baccalaureate, master’s,
specialist and doctoral degrees in the liberal arts, sciences
and professional fields, including medicine. Dedicated to the
achievement of excellence, responsible stewardship of the
public trust and academic freedom, ECU values the
contributions of a diverse community, supports shared
governance and guarantees equality of opportunity.
©2008 by East Carolina University
Printed by The Lane Press
U.P. 08-466 60,656 copies of this public document were
printed at a cost of $45,551.77 or $.75 per copy.
East The Magazine of East Carolina University
fall 2008
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3
4 5
The ECU RE PORT
Universities need $6 billion
for new buildings
The 16 campuses of the University of
North Carolina need roughly $6 billion
in capital improvements to respond to
an unprecedented and continuing boom
in enrollment, according to a long-range
construction plan adopted by the Board of
Governors. The biggest chunk of that
money would go for new classroom
buildings to provide seats for the 30,000
additional students expected to enroll in
the next four years.
The 2007–13 Capital Improvements Plan
provides for some new or renovated buildings
at every campus but it directs a lion’s share
of spending to those that have experienced
the most growth. For East Carolina, the
fastest-growing UNC campus over the past
five years, the plan calls for $786 million in
spending on 34 projects.
ECU’s top bricks-and-mortar priorities
are the dental school and the new Family
Medicine Center. The General Assembly
funded both by including $107.3 million in
the new state budget.
Next on ECU’s wish list are two major
classroom buildings—a $130 million home
for biology and science plus an $84.5 million
classroom building to be shared by the
colleges of Education and Business. The plan
also calls for major renovations to more than
a dozen existing buildings around campus.
Both N.C. State and UNC Chapel Hill need
more than $1 billion for new and renovated
buildings. Under the plan, State’s top
priorities are a new library at the Centennial
Campus, estimated to cost $114 million, and
a $214 million complex for the College of
Engineering. Expansion of its dental school
is Carolina’s top priority, a $99 million
project that is being coordinated with ECU.
Next on its list is $169 million for initial
development of the Carolina North campus.
Classrooms are the top priority at many
campuses in the UNC system, including:
Appalachian State, $42 million for a new
College of Nursing and Health Sciences
building; Elizabeth City State, $20 million
for a School of Education building:
Fayetteville State, $43 million for a general
classroom building; N.C. A&T, $27
million for a general classroom building;
N.C. Central, $25 million for a School of
Nursing building; UNC Asheville, $27
million to replace Carmichael and University
lecture halls; UNC Greensboro; $48 million
for a classroom and office building; UNC
Wilmington, $43 million for a health
sciences classroom building; and Western
Carolina, $40 million for an education
classroom building.
Enrollment at North Carolina’s public
universities grew by 37,000 in the last six
years, to roughly 215,000, and is projected
to climb by another 30,000 students by
2012, for an overall 33 percent growth
in enrollment over the decade. ECU’s
enrollment spurted from 20,600 in 2002
to 26,000 last year and is planned to hit
28,500 in 2012, a 38 percent growth in
students. Ten years from now, ECU is
projected to have an enrollment of 37,000.
State approves $107 million
to build dental school,
Family Medicine Center
East Carolina “had its best year ever in the
General Assembly,” according to Chancellor
Steve Ballard, receiving appropriations
totaling $107 million to build the new dental
school and a new Family Medicine Center for
the medical school. With full funding now in
place, both projects will begin construction
and be ready in about two years.
The $36.8 million appropriated by the
General Assembly in early July for the Family
Medicine Center will create a new jewel on
the Health Sciences Campus. Brody will
have three times the space it now rents from
Pitt County Memorial Hospital. Legislators
also appropriated $69 million to complete
construction on the new dental school
and earmarked $1.5 million for its initial
operating costs.
ECU doctors and medical students treat
52,000 patients a year at the Family
Medicine Center, more than twice the
number the facility was built for. The new
structure will be 117,561 square feet and
include a geriatric care practice. Architectural
drawings show a facility with 33 exam rooms
in the clinical area plus 12 other exam rooms
for geriatrics.
In addition to the $36.8 million in state
funding, East Carolina has set aside $10
million of its own money. BSOM also
received a $2.5 million gift from the Monk
family in Farmville and a $1 million grant
from the Golden LEAF Foundation.
Groundbreaking will be this fall, with
construction taking two years.
“We are out of teaching space, and this
facility will allow us to teach more medical
students,” said Dr. Kenneth Steinweg,
interim director of the Department of
Family Medicine.
—Greenville Daily Reflector
ECU’s Top 10 Capital Needs Estimated Already 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12
dollars in millions Cost Funded Request Request Request Request
1. School of Dentistry $ 90.0 $ 28.0 $ 62.0 $ $ $
2. Family Medicine/Geriatric Center 		 36.8
	
	
3. Biology/Science Classroom Building 130.0 		 58.5 71.5
4. Business/Education Classroom Building 84.5 		 42.3 42.3
5. Performing Arts Building 85.0 		 8.5 38.3 38.3
6. Campus Utility Infrastructure Improvements 9.9 		 9.9
	
7. IT Infrastructure Improvements, Phase I 3.8 		 3.8
	
8. Health and Human Performance Building Expansion 11.7 		 1.2 10.5
9. Facilities Services Building 10.5 		 1.1 9.4
10. Austin Building Modernization 13.3 			 1.3 12.0 Myrmekiaphila
neilyoungi
Biology professor Jason Bond didn’t
want Comedy Central talk show
host Stephen Colbert to feel jealous
when he was being interviewed for
the June 24 show about how he had
named a new species of trapdoor
spider after classic rocker Neil
Young. To be gracious, Bond agreed
to name a spider after Colbert, too.
After all, Bond has plenty of naming
opportunities. He’s discovered 27
new spider species in the past 10
years, including one he found in
rural Alabama in 2007 and named
after Young. That spider now
officially is known as Myrmekiaphila
neilyoungi. Its body is about half an
inch long and its bite is not harmful
to humans.
He says he honored Young because
he is a well-known peace advocate
who supports environmental causes.
Many species of spiders,
Bond says, are being
threatened by pollution and
loss of habitat. Besides, Bond is
a big Neil Young fan. “I play the
guitar a little bit and I like
to play his songs. I guess my
favorites are Cowgirl in the Sand and
The Needle and the Damage Done.”
Previously, Bond honored
Nelson Mandela and his
wife with spider names.
Angelina Jolie also
is on his list of people to honor,
spiderwise. He received a number
of grants from the National Science
Foundation in 2005 and 2006 to
classify the trapdoor spider species
and contribute to the foundation’s
Tree of Life project. He described
the new genus of trapdoor spider
in a paper he co-wrote with
Norman I. Platnick, curator at the
American Museum of Natural
History in New York. Bond is both
a spider systematis—someone who
studies organisms and how they
are classified—and taxonomist—
someone who classifies new species.
Spiders in the trapdoor genus
are distinguished on the basis of
differences in genitalia, Bond said.
He confirmed through DNA tests
that each species of spider is distinct
within the trapdoor genus. For the
one that will be named after him,
Colbert told Bond on the TV show
that he would like to examine the as-yet-
unnamed species and choose
one that is the best fit.
Professor turns Colbert into spider man
6 7
the ecu report
Cunningham returns as dean
of Brody School of Medicine
Paul R. G.
Cunningham,
who taught at the
Brody School of
Medicine for 21
years before
leaving in 2002
to become head
of surgery at the
State University
of New York
Upstate Medical
Center, is returning to East Carolina as the
new dean of the medical school. He also will
serve as senior associate vice chancellor for
medical affairs. Cunningham is believed to be
the first African-American to lead a medical
school in North Carolina.
Chancellor Steve Ballard said Cunningham
“is a highly accomplished, widely respected
physician. He is familiar with the school’s
mission and with the health care challenges
facing this region and state.” Ballard thanked
Phyllis Horns, the dean of the College
of Nursing who also directed the medical
school during the yearlong search for a new
medical dean.
Cunningham said the medical school and the
entire Health Sciences Campus have grown
since he left. He said the university has all
the tools in place to achieve “measurable
positive statistics in the health indices for
eastern North Carolina.”
A native of Jamaica, Cunningham graduated
from the University of the West Indies in
Jamaica. He completed surgery training there
and at Mount Sinai Hospital, Bronx Veterans
Administration Hospital and City Hospital at
Elmhurst, all in New York City.
After beginning his career as a surgeon in
New York, Cunningham moved to the Bertie
County town of Windsor in 1981. He
practiced there, was vice chief of the medical
staff at Bertie Memorial Hospital and
taught ECU medical students who rotated
through his practice. Cunningham joined the
ECU faculty full time in 1984 and became
medical director of trauma the following
year. He was interim director of the organ
transplant division from 1990–1991 and
chief of the medical staff at Pitt County
Memorial Hospital in 1991. He rose to
professor of surgery in 1993 and was chief
of general surgery from 1999–2002. From
1990–1998 he also served as a major in the
Army Reserve Medical Corps.
Walter Pories, a professor and former chair
of surgery who recruited Cunningham to
ECU in the 1980s, called him a role model,
an excellent teacher and physician and a
skillful leader. “I think we’re fortunate to
have, first of all, someone who’s a passionate,
thoughtful and highly competent physician,”
Pories said. “He has the unusual capacity
to pull segments together and unite. I can’t
think of anybody who is more fitting in
these times and the challenges that we face.”
He said his goals include expanding student
enrollment, stabilizing the school’s finances
and increasing the diversity of the school’s
faculty and administration. He credited
his wife, Sydney, with encouraging him to
consider and accept the job as dean. They
have four children, all of whom live in
North Carolina.
Busy hurricane season predicted
After several years with hardly any severe
weather, the East Coast likely will see
between two and five major storms make
landfall between August and September,
the National Weather Service said in
predicating what it called an above-average
hurricane season. The forecast is based on
above-normal sea-surface temperatures in
the Atlantic as well as lingering La Niña
atmospheric conditions.
Some are worried that several years without
a major hurricane has lulled coastal North
Carolina into complacency. A similar lull
came to an abrupt end in 1996 when Bertha
and Fran devastated eastern North Carolina.
The cycle continued with hurricanes Bonnie
in 1998 and Dennis and Floyd in 1999. The
four Category Four hurricanes that struck
in 1999 were the most since records were
first kept in 1886. Since then, only Isabel in
2003 caused major damage to the region.
Officials say the absence of hurricanes the
last few years is a fundamental cause of the
drought gripping the region.
Should a hurricane threaten the Carolina
coast, East Carolina will follow a natural
disaster emergency plan that kicks in when
the storm is still two to three days away.
Second Century campaign
off to energetic beginning
Generous support from alumni and friends
has allowed East Carolina to surpass the
halfway mark in its goal of raising $200
million. Just six months into the public
phase of the Second Century Campaign,
officials said more than $105 million has
been raised for scholarships, faculty support
and new campus facilities.
“We are absolutely ecstatic that we are off
to such a good start and excited about what
the future holds,” said Mickey Dowdy, vice
chancellor for university advancement.
Dowdy pointed to a 120 percent increase
in gifts to the East Carolina University
Foundation this fiscal year over last as
evidence of widespread support for the
campaign. He also highlighted a 17 percent
increase in gifts to the ECU Educational
Foundation, more commonly known as
the Pirate Club. Plus, the ECU Medical
& Health Sciences Foundation leads the
way in raising funds for distinguished
professorships, having established seven new
ones since the campaign’s inception. This
fiscal year alone campaign donations include
more than $2.7 million for new scholarships.
“We are benefiting from strong volunteer
leadership by members of the boards
of directors of the university’s Board of
Trustees, the three foundations, the Alumni
Association and the Board of Visitors,”
Dowdy added. “We have seen a 40 percent
increase in new members joining the Alumni
Association. As we had hoped, the campaign
is providing a margin of excellence for ECU
as it supports the university’s strategic plan.”
To date, he said the campaign has recorded a
26 percent increase in deferred gifts received
and more than 1,400 new first-time gifts to
the annual fund.
Dowdy said the impressive totals come on
the heels of generous individual, corporate
and foundation support last year that funded
the creation of the ECU Access Scholarship
program, which is now providing full in-state
tuition scholarships for 58 financially needy
students.
Alumni and friends who have not yet
contributed to the Second Century Campaign
may send in a check using the postage-paid
envelope inserted in the magazine.
Hurricane Floyd
Robert J. “Bob” Greczyn Jr. ’73 of Durham, president and CEO of Blue Cross
and Blue Shield of North Carolina, was re-elected chairman of the ECU Board
of Trustees at the board’s July meeting. Greczyn has served on the board since
2003. David S. Brody of Kinston, managing partner of Brody Associates and
other enterprises, was re-elected vice chairman. Robbie O. Hill of Kinston was
elected secretary. The new president of the Student Government Association
joined the board. He is Andrew H. Griffin, a senior finance major from Fuquay-
Varina who is president of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Meanwhile, Steve
Jones ’91 of Raleigh, an executive with RBC Centura, was elected chairman of
the Board of Visitors, succeeding Carl Davis ’73 of Raleigh.
the ecu report
8 9
NCAA
penalizes
basketball
team
The men’s basketball
program will lose one
scholarship next season
and will have to cut its
weekly practice time from 20
hours to 18 because it failed to
meet the NCAA’s standard for academic
progress. The men’s team reported an
academic progress rate (APR) of 861, an
improvement of 12 points over the previous
year but still below the 900 threshold
required to avoid NCAA sanctions.
The football team reported a 922 APR and
also must develop an academic improvement
plan, though it will not be penalized.
The APR was developed to better measure
in “real time” how athletes and teams are
doing in the classroom, based on eligibility,
retention and graduation rather than just on
six-year graduation rates. This is the fourth
year of APR data.
East Carolina said it developed a required
academic improvement plan for men’s
basketball and that the two lost hours of
practice time would be replaced by additional
tutoring and study halls. Athletics Director
Terry Holland said the grades of basketball
players have improved in recent years, rising
from 2.13 in 2004 to 2.78 in 2007. Holland
said that every men’s basketball student-athlete
recruited since the coaching change
in 2005 has been eligible every semester in
attendance and those who transferred did so
in good academic standing.
Holland said the team played all of its non-conference
schedule last season without
missing a single class. By using chartered
airplanes, the team missed only two days of
classes throughout the 16-game conference
schedule.
Sixty-two scholarship athletes were honored
at this year’s Academic Excellence Awards
banquet for posting GPAs of 3.5 or higher,
up from 59 last year. Ten of the 59 scholar
athletes boasted a GPA of 4.0.
“Our men’s basketball staff has worked
extremely hard to address the factors
under their control and the resulting GPA
improvement is nothing short of spectacular,”
ECU Chancellor Steve Ballard said.
The highest multi-year APR scores at East
Carolina were earned by the women’s tennis
(1,000), volleyball (994), women’s swimming
(988), men’s golf (985) and women’s golf
(984). Women’s tennis and volleyball,
were cited as being in the top-10 percent
nationwide for their respective sports.
Spiking the ball, hitting the books
The volleyball team is succeeding on the court
and in the classroom, winning 16 games and
compiling a team GPA of 3.521, the highest
in team history. Senior Kelley Wernert, chosen
for the 2007 Conference USA All-Academic
team, achieved a perfect 4.0 mark spring
semester. Every member of the team was on
the honor roll; seven of the 12 were either on
the Chancellor’s List (4.0 semester GPA) or
the Dean’s List (3.5 or higher). “Our team
goal since I’ve stepped foot on campus three
years ago has always been to have a yearly team
GPA above 3.3 and to have everyone above a
3.0 in a given semester,” said head coach Chris
Rushing. “Our team GPA has steadily risen
since that day and this was the semester that
eventually put us over the top. We shattered
our goal this year with the high expectations
these athletes have put on themselves.” The
Pirates return 11 letterwinners and welcome
five newcomers for the 2008 season, which
began in August.
2 0 0 8 – 2 0 0 9 F o o tb a l l s c h ed u l e
Date Opponent Location Time
Aug. 30 Virginia Tech* Charlotte 12:00 p.m.
Sept. 6 West Virginia* Greenville 4:30 p.m.
Sept. 13 Tulane * New Orleans 3:00 p.m.
Sept. 20 N.C. State Raleigh TBA
Sept. 27 Houston* Greenville 3:30 p.m.
Oct. 11 Virginia Charlottesville TBA
Oct. 18 Memphis* Greenville 12:00 p.m.
Nov. 2 Central Florida* Orlando 8:00 p.m.
Nov. 8 Marshall (Homecoming) Greenville 3:30 p.m.
Nov. 15 Southern Miss * Hattiesburg TBA
Nov. 22 Alabama Birmingham* Birmingham TBA
Nov. 28 Texas El Paso* Greenville 1:00 p.m.
* indicates televised games
Kelley Wernert
Athletics posts $1 million surplus
Revenue from East Carolina’s appearance
in the Hawaii Bowl and an overall increase
in football ticket sales helped the athletics
department post a $1 million surplus for
the fiscal year ended July 31, according to a
report to the Board of Trustees. The budget
surplus sharply reduces the $1.5 million
deficit compiled the previous year, the report
indicates.
Football ticket sales of $5.6 million were
$270,000 over budget while the actual cost
of football operations, at $6.2 million, was
slightly more than expected. Total athletics
revenues were $25.6 million, or about
$2.7 million more than budgeted. Total
expenditures for the year were $24.2 million,
abut $1.4 million higher than expected, for
an overall surplus of $1.067 million.
East Carolina received $924,200 for its
appearance in the December bowl game.
After paying all expenses associated with the
game, including flying the team and dozens
of officials to Hawaii, East Carolina still
made a profit of around $30,000 on the
game, the report says.
ECU set a new stadium attendance record
for the second straight year in 2007,
averaging 41,537 fans in six home games.
Total tickets sold for the year was 249,219.
School Number of Plates
UNC Chapel Hill 7,751
N.C. State University 5,523
Appalachian State University 2,370
East Carolina University 2,088
Clemson University 1,395
University of Florida 1,341
Wake Forest University 1,276
Duke University 1,134
NC Central University 1,122
Virginia Tech 1,118
Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback David Garrard ’01, right, takes a break from filming
a TV spot for a medication for Crohn’s disease, which he has. Garrard and a crew from
NFL Films were on campus in July to film the public service announcement at the
football stadium. Garrard recently signed a six-year, $60 million contract with the team.
We’re No. 4 in license plates East Carolina ranks fourth in the number
of collegiate license plates issued by
the North Carolina
Division of Motor
Vehicles. A collegiate
plate costs $25 and
can be personalized
for an additional
$30, of which $15
is remitted to the
school.
the ecu report
E a s t C a ro l i n a t i m e l i ne
First master’s
Deanie Boone Haskett ’26 of
Greenville, who had been
teaching at Rose Hill
High School, returns to
enroll in East Carolina’s
new master’s degree
program and in August
1933 receives the
first master’s degree
conferred by the
college. For her thesis
she collects more than
300 pages of poetry
by North Carolina
writers. Fifty years later,
the school awards its
first Ph.D., in anatomy, to
Thomas Curry Jr.
Archaeologist makes waves
Underwater archaeologist
Gordon Watts, co-director of
ECU ’s program in Maritime
History and Underwater
Research, captures
international attention in
August 1983 when he recovers
the anchor and other artifacts
from the Civil War ironclad
Monitor, which sank during a
storm off the North Carolina
coast in 1862.
Images courtesy University Archives
Old Austin falls
In the fall of 1968
work begins to raze
Old Austin, one of the
four remaining original
buildings on campus, to
make way for the new
Jenkins Fine Arts Center.
As the demolition begins,
members of the faculty
raise $3,800 to preserve
the building’s distinctive
bell tower, or cupola. But
when the crane tries to
lift it from the roof, the
cupola collapses into
pieces. A twice-life-size
replica now adorns the
campus lawn.
The Big Yellow House Incident
Forty-seven students, mostly guys and their dates, are
suspended for 10 days and four other male students
are expelled for the rest of the term after officials raid a
party at a large, yellow house near campus on Jan. 10,
1959. The party, something of an alternative to the formal
senior dance in the gym that night, featured “a record
player going at high pitch” and a bartender. The students
are charged with having alcohol and conducting an
unchaperoned party. The girls are charged with violating
dorm sign-out rules. Smoldering resentment over the raid
forces President J.D. Messick to meet with the student
body. He defends the women’s dorms regulations and rules
against public displays of affection. His attempts at defining
what is an acceptable kiss (which is not “this clinging kiss
of such a long nature [that] will cause people to begin
talking”) prompt a flood of newspaper stories across the
country. Historians say the Big Yellow House incident is
the origin of the myth of ECU as a big party school.
75
YEARS AGO 25
YEARS AGO 40
YEARS AGO 50
YEARS AGO
Campus construction update
New Wright Fountain: Construction has
begun on a new fountain on Wright Circle.
The $600,000 project, which will replace
the original fountain with an enhanced
model, was undertaken when decaying utility
lines caused the fountain to begin sinking.
The old fountain was removed in early 2007.
The project is expected to be completed in
early fall 2008. The new fountain will have
a stronger, more visible plume, better seating
and markers containing trustees’ names.
Mendenhall renovation delayed: The $38
million renovation of the Mendenhall
Student Center has been delayed because
officials believed the plan didn’t offer enough
additional space to accommodate East
Carolina’s growing student body. The decision
came at the April meeting of the ECU Board
of Trustees, who were told that the project
would add only 7,000 square feet of space.
Kevin Seitz, vice chancellor for administration
and finance, said that renovating Mendenhall
will take two years, and staff members want
to be sure that the outcome will justify the
inconvenience. “We want to be more
proactive in looking at the planning
for future projects and make sure that
we are looking at the distant future,”
Seitz said. “We have a number of things
going on institutionally that will have an
impact on this project.”
Chancellor’s residence: Trustees have
endorsed a plan advanced by its facilities and
resources committee to form a commission
to study updating or renovating Dail House,
the chancellor’s residence. Over the past two
years the board has considered and rejected a
series of proposals to improve the residence.
The house hosts many university functions
and is essentially the same structure as it was
when it was purchased in 1948. Trustees
considered a suggestion for buying a larger
house near campus but no suitable properties
were available. The board also considered
buying an adjacent property, demolishing it
and building an expansion onto the current
chancellor’s residence. Officials dismissed
the proposal because of likely neighborhood
resistance. Trustees then considered building
a new house in the Rock Springs area, but
that idea drew little support. A plan to give
the chancellor a housing allowance and allow
him to live where he wants, while keeping
the Dail House for official functions, died
because the UNC General Administration
does not allow such a stipend. Trustees
said they want the committee to get input
from several groups on ways to improve the
housing for the chancellor.
Chitwood passes milestone
Chief of Surgery Dr. W. Randolph Chitwood
Jr. performed his 400th robot-assisted mitral
valve repair in June and now has performed
more of these surgeries than anyone. The
operation took place at Pitt County Memorial
Hospital, the teaching hospital of the
Brody School of Medicine, with 11 cardiac
surgeons from across the county obvserving
the procedure while attending a two-day
training program. Chitwood is a pioneer in
the development and expansion of mitral valve
repair surgery, producing outcomes better than
valve replacement, a once-prevalent surgical
treatment for a leaky or narrowing mitral
valve. An estimated 40,000 patients a year,
many under the age of 50, have operations
on their mitral valve, the inflow valve for the
left side of the heart. Most standard mitral
valve operations require a sternotomy, or
cracking of the sternum, resulting in a 12-
week recovery. With a robotic device there are
only three small incisions, scarring is minimal,
infection rate is lower and recovery time is
lessened to two weeks.
Film touts professor’s
‘forgiveness’ research
The old adage “forgive and forget” could
be good advice for the body as well as for
the mind and heart, according to Kathleen
Row, the chair of the psychology department
who studies correlations between a person’s
health and the ability to forgive. Row has
been studying how forgiveness relates to
spirituality, well-being and health for almost a
decade. Her findings were reported in a PBS
documentary, The Power of Forgiveness, that
aired in June. The documentary won the Best
Film award at the Sun Valley Film Festival.
“Some people would like to forgive and they
can’t; but they still see it as a value. Religions
treat it as a value,” Row said. “From a
psychological perspective, instead of moral
or spiritual value, does forgiveness have a
physical value?”
Row’s research has shown a marked difference
in the blood pressure and heart rate recovery
levels of those who can more easily forgive
compared to those who cannot. “You literally
carry it around with you,” Row said. “If you
had a heavy sack on your back, your blood
pressure would raise to let you be able to
carry it around with you. My question is:
how is forgiveness mapped onto the body?”
Row has found that older people, in general,
are more likely to be forgiving, and that women
are more likely to be forgiving than men,
although men had shown to be more forgiving
when considering specific situations.
For much of her 25-plus year career in
psychophysiology, Row studied the mind-body
connection of how certain behaviors
could be predictors of cardiovascular disease.
Her work in the past seven years, she said,
validates that forgiveness can yield positive
benefits not only for the forgiven, but for the
forgiver as well.
—Erica Plouffe Lazure
Kathleen Row
From a psychological
perspective, instead
of moral or spiritual
value, does forgiveness
have a physical value?
13
Linda Patriarca,
who spent 25
years on the
faculty of
Michigan State
University, is the
new dean of the
College of
Education. She
comes to ECU
from Caldwell
College in New Jersey, where she was
associate dean of education. She was
national president of the Teacher Education
Division of the Inter­national
Council for
Exceptional Children.
Donna Gooden
Payne was
named university
attorney. She
previously held a
similar position
at UNC
Pembroke. A
native of Bladen
County, Payne is
a graduate of
UNC Chapel Hill, where she was a
Morehead Scholar, and she holds a law
degree from the University of Texas at
Austin. She succeeds Kitty Wetherington,
who resigned to join a law firm in Greenville.
James N. Gehlhar was named associate
vice chancellor for international affairs. He
comes from the University of Tennessee at
Knoxville where he was director of its Center
for International Education for 16 years.
Louis Warren, who teaches curriculum and
instruction in the College of Education,
won this year’s UNC Board of Governors
Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest
teaching award given at the university. He
received a commemorative bronze medallion
and a $7,500 prize. Other faculty members
recognized as top teachers were Fred
Schadler, Heather Vance-Chalcraft, John
Howard, Gregg Hecimovich, Daniel J. Bara,
Carol Goodwillie, Carl Haish, Andrew
Morehead, Laura Prividera and Karen
Vail-Smith.
College of Business Associate Dean Stanley
Eakins and Assistant Professor Samuel
Tibbs won the 2008 Charles H. Dow Award
from the Market Technicians Association.
Eakins and Tibbs each received a $2,000
prize for their work exploring how past
performance can predict future performance
when looking at certain groups of stocks.
Gale Brown Adcock ’78, Hazel J. Brown,
Gabriel “Gabe” Cipau ’74 and Walter L.
Williams ’51 ’55 were appointed to the
Medical & Health Sciences Foundation.
Ralph Rogers, dean of the College of
Technology and Computer Science during
five years of significant growth in grant
funding, scholarships and enrollments,
resigned to become vice chancellor for
academic affairs at Purdue University
Calumet in Hammond, Ind. Under
Rogers’ leadership, the college initiated
an engineering degree program and its
first graduates were honored at May
commencement.
Steve Duncan, director of military
programs, was presented with the General
William E. DePuy Award by the U.S. Army
Cadet Command. The award is considered
the most prestigious honor given by the
Cadet Command, the parent organization of
the Army ROTC program.
Leonard G. Trujillo was named chairman of
the Department of Occupational Therapy
in the College of Allied Health Sciences.
Trujillo has been an occupational therapist
for 30 years with the majority of his clinical
experience in the U.S. Air Force.
Four students admitted to the Class of
2012 have been awarded the Brody Medical
Scholarship: Nabeel H. Arastu ’07, son
of Dr. Hyder and Mrs. Shamim Arastu of
Greenville; Mary Elizabeth Windham ’07,
daughter of Dr. Charlie Sang Jr. and Mrs.
Jonsi Sang of Greenville; Bryan Howington,
a graduate of UNC Pembroke and son
of Spencer and Frankie Howington of
Pembroke; and Wesley Thomas O’Neal,
an N.C. State University graduate and son
of Mr. and Mrs. James Wyatt O’Neal of
Wilson. The Brody Medical Scholarship
provides full tuition and fees, along with
most living expenses, for four years of
medical school. The scholarship also funds
summer enrichment programs, such as travel
abroad, in addition to any service projects the
scholars undertake during medical school.
Three student-athletes were named to ESPN
The Magazine’s Academic All-District at-large
teams. Senior swimmer Geoff Handsfield
(3.97 GPA in physics) was named to the
District 3 University Division men’s at-large
first team, while junior golfer Markus
Leandersson (4.0 GPA in finance) was named
second team. Senior tennis player Hannah
Priest (3.98 GPA in physical education) was
voted to the women’s second at-large team.
You Should Go
Former CNN
CEO Walter
Isaacson, now
CEO of the
Aspen Institute,
will discuss “Six
Thinkers Who
Influenced
History” during
this year’s
Voyages of
Discovery lectures on Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. in
Wright Auditorium. Tickets are $10.
On Nov. 18, Marcus Borg, emeritus
professor of religion and culture at Oregon
State University, will discuss “Christians in
an Age of Empire,” at The Jarvis Lecture in
Religion and Culture.
U n i v e r s i t y L i f e
12
FI NE ARTS
The fall schedule of S. Rudolph
Alexander Performing Arts
Series begins Sept. 19 with
the North Carolina Symphony
Orchestra performing Dvorak’s
New World symphony and Elgar’s
In the South. Philadanco (the
Philadelphia Dance Company), a
contemporary dance ensemble,
will perform Oct. 23. Begun
by Joan Myers Brown in 1970,
Philadanco helped found the
International Conference of
Black Dance Companies and
International Association of Blacks
in Dance. Marvin Hamlisch will
appear with the ECU Symphony
Orchestra at Wright Auditorium
Nov. 21. Hamlisch has earned
three Oscars, four Grammys, four
Emmys, a Tony award and three
Golden Globes—in addition to
a Pulitzer Prize—for his musical
compositions. The King’s
Singers will bring their blend of
choral skill and showmanship to
Greenville on Dec. 11. Equally at
ease singing motets by Tallis and
Byrd and the music of Lennon
and McCartney, the King’s Singers
encompass music from medieval,
Renaissance, Romantic and
contemporary periods.
CHAM BER MUSI C
The Four Seasons Chamber Music
Festival opens this year with three
offerings on campus. Music director
Ara Gregorian will team with
pianist Robert McDonald and cellist
Emanuel Gruber in performances
of a Janacek sonata for violin and
piano, Beethoven’s Ghost piano trio
and Franck’s sonata for violin and
piano. The concerts take place in
Fletcher Recital Hall the evenings
of Sept. 4–5.
The Festival’s October program
will consist of Mozart’s Quintet
for Clarinet and Strings, a
Mendelssohn string quartet
and a Smetana string quartet.
Joining Gregorian will be violinist
Hagai Shaham, violist Nicholas
Cords, cellist Michael Kannen and
clarinetist Christopher Grymes
from the ECU faculty. The concerts
will take place Oct. 16–17 in
Fletcher Recital Hall and Oct. 18 at
the History Place in Morehead City.
OPERA
The ECU Opera Theater will
present Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS
Pinafore Oct. 23–25, conducted
by Daniel Bara, director of choral
music activities. Subtitled The
Lass That Loved a Sailor, the play
includes such G&S songs as I’m
Called Little Buttercup, We Sail
the Ocean Blue and Oh Joy, Oh
Rapture Unforeseen.
THEATER
The ECU/Loessin Playhouse
opens the season with Of Thee I
Sing, George and Ira Gershwin’s
Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, at
McGinnis Theater Oct. 2–7. Love
Is Sweeping the Country and the
title song are among the better
known Gershwin tunes. The
second play of the season will be
Moliere’s comedy The Imaginary
Invalid Nov. 20–25.
CHORAL MUSI C
The ECU Chamber Singers,
accompanied by the ECU
Symphony Orchestra, will
present Mozart’s Requiem on All
Saints’ Day on Nov. 1 at St. Paul’s
Episcopal Church. The Chamber
Singers also will present a concert
Oct. 3, and the University Chorale
and St. Cecilia Singers will
present a concert Nov. 16. The
Mozart program will be repeated
Nov. 10 at the North Carolina
Music Educators Association
meeting in Winston-Salem.
INSTRUM ENTAL MUSI C
Highlights this fall include
performances by the ECU Wind
Ensemble and Symphonic Band
on Sept. 25, a concert by the
ECU Symphony on Sept. 28,
Bandorama on Nov. 6. and a
concert by the ECU Chamber
Orchestra on Nov. 8. The full
symphony will play Verdi’s
overture to The Force of Destiny,
Bartók’s viola concerto, featuring
ECU faculty member Melissa
Reardon, and Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 5. The Chamber
Orchestra will play Britten’s Simple
Symphony, Haydn’s Symphony
No. 49 and Vivaldi’s Concerto for
Flute, with ECU faculty member
Christine Gustafson.
FI NE/VISUAL ARTS
Don’t miss a special exhibit Sept.
3–Oct. 1 of ceramics from the
Dwight M. Holland Ceramics
Teaching Collection, named for
the Asheboro art teacher who
donated his collection of folk,
national and international pottery
and contemporary ceramics
to ECU in the late 1990s. The
annual ECU faculty exhibition is
scheduled Oct. 17–Nov. 22, and
the annual holiday exhibition is
scheduled Dec. 4–6.
OCTUBAF EST
Tom McCaslin is planning a
second Octubafest to highlight
the contributions of the lower
brass instruments Oct. 29–30. The
program includes two concerts
that will feature a mixture of solos
and chamber piece performed by
ECU students.
WH O’S IN TOWN?
John Wustman, considered “dean
of American accompanists,”
will serve as Robert L. Jones
Distinguished Professor of Music
for the 2008–09 academic year.
Wustman became affiliated with
Robert Shaw early in his career,
and he has appeared in concert
halls worldwide. North Carolina
native Julianne Baird, a soprano
widely known for her skill in
interpreting early music, will visit
Oct. 27–28. She is best known for
performances and recordings of
Bach and Handel.
—Steve Row
© Lois Greenfield 2007
2008 Fall Arts Calendar
Philadanco
14 15
University officials were working overtime to
prepare for a record 4,600 or more freshmen
about to hit town for fall semester, a number
that is straining campus facilities and forcing
some unprecedented maneuvers. At the last
minute, the university was forced to lease
private apartments around Greenville to
house 300 freshmen still on a waiting list for
dorm rooms. Officials also were rounding up
at least 50 additional faculty members and
converting the ground floor of one residence
hall as their offices. Total enrollment should
be around 27,000, up about 1,000 students
since this time last year.
With the campus full to bursting, this may
be the last semester that East Carolina’s
enrollment grows at the heady pace that
it has for five years running. A task force
appointed by Chancellor Steve Ballard is
preparing recommendations for a fall report
that many believe will propose raising
ECU’s admissions standards as a means of
managing enrollment growth.
East Carolina offered seven orientation
sessions in 2007 that were attended by
roughly 3,900 new freshmen and their parents,
according to Admissions Director Anthony
Britt. Not all incoming freshmen attend
orientation. By the time school started last
year, 4,222 freshmen were enrolled. Demand
this year prompted the addition of an eighth
orientation session, with total attendance of
4,498 new freshmen and their parents. “If
we just go by the numbers from orientation,
which generally is a good guide, I would say
the freshman class would be around 4,700,”
Britt says. “But to be conservative, I would
say it would be between 4,500 and 4,600
freshmen. Either way, it will be a record.”
While 4,600 freshmen is a big number,
it is only about a quarter of the roughly
16,000 high school freshmen who applied
for admission, Britt says. His office also
evaluated about 3,000 applications from
students hoping to transfer to East Carolina
from some other college and admitted less
than half of them.
East Carolina has no plans at present to
build additional residence halls, but an
Atlanta company has begun construction
on a private dormitory overlooking the
Tar River on First Street in downtown
Greenville. The building is expected to be
ready by next fall semester. Place Properties
of Atlanta is developing the four-story,
193-unit building, to be called First Street
Place. The company currently owns private
dorms serving N.C. State University, UNC
Charlotte and UNC Pembroke.
The private apartments that East Carolina is
leasing for this fall will have all the same safety
features as on-campus dorms. Officials say
the unprecedented move will cost $600,000,
which should mostly be covered by rents paid
by the students. The plan is to move as many
of them as possible to campus as dorm rooms
become available later in the semester.
Ten years ago, the new freshman class
numbered 2,819, with transfer students
adding 1,089 to the total enrollment of
18,263. This fall there should be around
6,000 new students for an expected total
enrollment of 27,000. “Every indication is we
will grow to 36,000 within 10 years or less,”
Britt says, citing enrollment targets set for East
Carolina by the UNC Board of Governors.
“The bottom line is we are seeing more
applicants and better applicants,” Britt says.
“They are more well-rounded in terms
of extracurricular things and leadership
opportunities and an increasing number have
college credits when they arrive [from taking
community college courses.]” The average
SAT score of admitted freshman was 1,044
Marc Kawanishi
Back to
Campus
I s s u e
17
What’s different about
college these days?
By Marion Blackburn
You graduated from ECU a few years ago
(we’re not counting how many) and now
your child or a nephew or the kid across
the street is heading to campus. You want
to share some of your wisdom, but you’re
wondering: How has college changed?
English, history and biology . college must
be about the same, right? Well, not exactly.
Here is a rundown of the new academic
landscape and how it differs from the
student experience of a generation ago.
The foundation’s the same: You’ll certainly
find recognizable courses like chemistry,
art history and political science, especially
during the first two years. These courses
reflect the liberal arts approach that is vital
to becoming a fully educated individual and
are called the Foundations Curriculum.
“These are the familiar liberal arts courses
we’ve always required, such as English,
history, math and art,” said Linner W. Griffin,
associate vice chancellor for academic
affairs. “But the courses have evolved
and their content has, too.” But in those
traditional disciplines you should expect
some new ideas and perspectives, he added.
More specialties: The junior and senior years
offer students a banquet of majors, minors and
everything in between. Programs these days
allow students to focus on professional goals
while experiencing a broad range of topics.
The biggest change is the types and numbers
of degree programs available. If you attended
ECU before 1977, when the School of Medicine
enrolled its first students, no doctorate
programs were available. Then, the university
offered roughly 50 master’s programs and
less than 75 undergraduate programs.
Today, there are 19 doctoral programs, 77
master’s degrees and certificates of advanced
study and 104 bachelor’s degree programs.
Students can also supplement their education
by choosing from nearly 70 departmental
certificates in many academic areas.
While familiar majors like math and business
are evergreen, students today are likely to
consider areas like engineering, health services
management, construction management and
information and computer technology.
“When our faculty are developing new
programs, they’re thinking about emerging
areas in their fields of study and we
encourage them to also consider degrees
that are suitable for our region,” says Sharon
Morris Bland, assistant vice chancellor for
Janet Taylor of Mount Olive attended
orientation with her only child, daughter
Courtney, and said efforts by the Office of
Admissions to make parents feel welcome
and informed helped her feel better about
Courtney leaving home for college. “It’s
hard. She’s the only one. But I feel good
about it because everyone here is so helpful.
I really feel she’ll be good here. She’s met a
lot of people already, and she’s excited about
her classes,” Taylor said.
New students and parents were formally
welcomed to ECU in Wright Auditorium
by Phyllis Horns, interim vice chancellor
for health sciences and interim dean of the
Brody School of Medicine; Associate Provost
Austin Bunch; Kemal Atkins, vice provost for
student affairs; and ECU student Andrew
Griffin. Together they offered encouragement
and insight into what it means to become a
member of the ECU community.
“Every person, every student on this
campus, has the opportunity to grow and
learn,” said Horns. “How to be a really
productive citizen, how to engage with
people who are different from the people
you know from high school and your
local communities—that’s as important
a part of the educational experience, we
believe here at East Carolina University, as
anything that you learn in the classroom.”
Griffin offered himself as an example of
what to do, and what not to do, to succeed
in college. “Go to class, go to class, go to
class,” he said to loud applause from parents.
“I used to not go to class, and that didn’t
work. So now I do go to class and I make
good grades. It’s amazing.”
He also encouraged students to get involved
on campus and take the opportunities
afforded at ECU to try new things.
“Whatever your name was in high school, or
whatever you were classified as, it’s over. You
are in college. You have a chance to reinvent
yourself, and a chance to be whatever you
want to be,” he said.
At capacity
It’s doubtful whether East Carolina can
continue growing at the blistering pace it
has recorded in recent years. According to
Marilyn Sheerer, interim provost and vice
chancellor for academic and student affairs,
the campus has about reached its maximum
physical capacity. “There are no empty
classrooms; there are no empty faculty
offices. We are full,” she says emphatically.
“Because of the enrollment growth, [this
summer] we had to hire new faculty
members. To accommodate them, we are in
the process of converting the ground floor
of Umstead Residence Hall into faculty
offices,” she says.
“We had nowhere else to go,” she adds.
“We are in a critical situation with space.
We are looking at renting more space off
campus.” The university badly needs two
additional, large classroom buildings and has
made their construction a top priority. One
would provide additional space for biology
and science classes; the other would provide
a new home for the growing colleges of
Education and Business.
“One short-term option would be to take
one of the residence halls and refurbish it
[as classrooms] and replace it with a new
residence hall. We are looking at establishing
some public-private partnerships for residence
halls,” Sheerer says. “Wilmington has some
new dorms on campus but they were built by
a private entity and leased to the university.”
In the meantime, administrators are trying
to get maximum use out of existing space,
particularly Joyner Library. But the only
solution is a major injection of money.
“We are hoping for another [$3 billion]
state bond issue like we had a few years ago.
Something on that scale is the only thing
that will address the need.”
academic program development. “We try
to help them think in broad terms, say of
economic benefits to the region, but also
to focus on programs that will serve the
university’s goals and mission. We need to
make sure our graduates are prepared for
the 21st-century job market.”
Some degree options available now that you
would not have seen at ECU some years ago
include engineering, nutrition and dietetics,
distribution and logistics, hospitality
management and child life.
What’s more, students today can pursue
departmental certificates—a credential
that gives them valuable expertise beyond
their major. For example, English majors
can obtain certificates in multicultural
and transnational literature; education
majors have certificate options in autism
and international teaching. A certificate in
security studies is also available.
It’s a different atmosphere: If arts and
sciences was once the central academic
grouping on campus, the years since 2000
have brought major changes. The university
now organizes itself into nine colleges, the
School of Dentistry, the Brody School of
Medicine and the Graduate School.
New approaches have come to campus,
as well. Computers are everywhere and
completing assignments online is a mainstay
of academic work, along with essays,
research papers and lab reports.
Bigger, sure, but better, too: Rapid growth
in the student body is pushing programs to
evolve. That wave has led the university to
create new structures, such as the Office of
Enrollment Management, to accommodate
them. The student body has about doubled
from the 13,000–14,000 students here during
the Leo Jenkins years. Numbers are only part
of the story, however.
“It’s more than how many students you admit
and how many you graduate,” says Judith
Bailey, senior executive director of enrollment
management. “It’s how you sustain them
through graduation in programs of relevance
to them and to the state of North Carolina.”
Burning the midnight oil: With all the new
degrees and disciplines, has anything about
East Carolina stayed the same? Well, yes.
Students still are rabid about football. They
still head downtown for fun. It still takes long
hours and late nights studying to graduate.
“Grading for our courses has the same
standards,” said Griffin. “Parents may
sometimes say to their children, ‘Your
education is not as difficult as mine was.’
That may be romanticizing what we
experienced. There are the same academic
expectations as always for our students.”
16
last year; it’s 1,056 this year.
After talking to hundreds of parents and
students during orientation sessions, Britt
says he repeatedly hears three reasons cited
for ECU’s popularity. “I would say the
biggest reason I hear them say is the diversity
of academic programs offered and that we
offer enough of those classes so students can
complete their degree in four years.
“Kids these days want to study something
they can get a good job doing after college.
The degrees we offer in the health care field
are very attractive. We are getting a lot of
questions about the new dental school, and
I believe that will only add to the interest by
incoming students in our health care offerings.
“Second, I hear folks comment all the time
about what a beautiful campus we have.
They say it looks like a college campus
ought to look, with the traditional grassy
mall surrounded by classroom buildings and
residence halls. One student at orientation
who was interested in studying art said
she didn’t have any trouble finding the art
building because of all the statues and works
of art around the building.
“Third, they talk about how warm and
welcoming the people are here. They say
everyone they meet is friendly. One woman
said she got lost and a student came up to
her and said, ‘Can I help you find where you
need to go?’ And when he had gotten her
there, she said she thanked the student for
helping with orientation, and he replied,
‘Oh, I’m not a tour guide. You just looked
like you needed help.’”
Getting acclimated
For most, attending orientation was their
first time on campus since being admitted.
The two–day sessions begin with check-in
and walking tours of the main campus,
followed by registration for fall classes,
placement tests, and learning about life as a
student. The experience was an eye-opener
for many.
“I didn’t realize it was such a close-knit
college,” said incoming freshman James Jeter
of Fayetteville, who attended orientation
with his parents, Bruce and Linda. “I just
figured it was a big school, just a bunch
of people. But they do care here. They
care about the students, they care that we
succeed.”
The goal of orientation is to acclimate new
students to the place they will call home for
the next four years, and to introduce them
to the mechanics of academic and social
life. Students learn about Banner, OneStop,
Blackboard and other technological resources.
They also are introduced to extracurricular
activities and organizations at the Student
Involvement Fair. Many questions focus on
financial matters—including university fees,
payment options, and even meetings with
representatives from local banks.
18 19
Who knows better about surviving freshman
year than the juniors and seniors to whom
the shocks of that transition are still fresh in
mind? So we asked them in a survey to share
their tips and insights with this year’s crop of
freshmen. Our thanks go to professor John
Howard for offering two of his School of
Communication classes as our survey sample.
Sixty-one of his students answered our 10
questions. Here are their responses:
Thinking back to my
freshman year…
When I left home for college I packed
way too many ______.
Clothes, clothes, clothes. Almost all the
students surveyed said they brought too
many of everything, including shoes and
even toiletries. And don’t even think about
bringing winter clothes, three students said.
“It never gets really cold here,” one wrote.
Nobody told me I needed so many ___.
Things that fall under the broad category
of “stuff you need to study”—notebooks,
note cards, highlighters, pencils, pens—were
mentioned most frequently in the survey.
“Money for food,” aka Pirate Bucks, was
next on their lists.
Other items our juniors and seniors never
thought they would need in such abundance:
n Boxes and storage bins (“to keep your junk
separate from her junk,” one student wrote).
n Bubble sheets for taking exams.
n Late-night snacks
n Tylenol
n Flip-flops
Oddly, electric extension cords turned up
on both the “packed way too many” and
“nobody told me I needed so many” lists.
You figure.
Don’t bother bringing ______.
We have a three-way tie, with seven mentions
each:
n Your car, because there’s nowhere to park it.
n Your high school girlfriend/boyfriend,
their photos or phone numbers, because,
well, you know.
n Pets. Apparently some people still don’t
read the memo.
Other practical tips for lightening the
suitcase load:
n A stereo, because you listen to music
through your laptop
n Napkins, plastic spoons/forks and
condiments, because you can lift those
from the dining halls
n A phone (the old-fashioned kind, silly)
n A first aid kit (“We have a free clinic for a
reason,” one wrote.)
Perhaps the most hopeful advice was the
student who wrote: “Your anxiety—
everything will work out for the best.”
Don’t ever lose your ______.
The winners here are the twin constants
of freshman existence, the 1 Card, with 22
votes, and dorm room key, with 10. If you
lose one you don’t eat and if you lose the
other you don’t sleep. Enough said.
Other items freshmen should avoid losing:
n Focus—7 votes
n Wallet—5 votes
n Cell phone—4
n Shower shoes—3
n Personality
n Flash drive
The best way to get along with a
roommate is ______.
Fifteen said, in so many words: You have
to learn how to communicate with a
roommate, to speak up and talk things
out. Nine others offered this similar
advice: Be friendly and patient, be
accepting and don’t be judgmental. Agree
on ground rules from day one and learn to
compromise, six others said. Don’t room
with your best friend from high school,
several others said, apparently speaking
from sad experience. Some practical
advice: Have an escape plan, like a friend’s
room you can go to, for those times when
you can���t stand roomie one more second.
The worst thing that can happen is ___.
Flunking out, obviously. That’s what nearly
half of the students surveyed said. Several
others said it was indulging in behaviors
often associated with academic problems,
like excessive drinking and partying. You
can almost feel the pain lingering from
the student who wrote: “Getting so drunk
and stupid that everyone remembers you
as ‘that girl.’” Looking back, some said the
worst thing is “not taking advantage of
opportunities” or “taking classes seriously.”
Five said the worst thing that can happen is
not making new friends.
Other horrors mentioned:
n Being in the shower when the fire alarm
goes off
n Getting walked to your dorm room by a
campus cop
n Missing the last bus
n Getting your car towed (see “Don’t bother
bringing” above.)
The best way to avoid looking stupid
is ______.
Our juniors and seniors clearly agree on
what is the most embarrassing thing that
can happen to a freshman. It’s seen every fall
on campus: A lost kid, carrying a load of
books and anxiously scanning the names of
buildings to find his next class, doesn’t see the
curb and takes a header into the grass, books
and papers flying. It’s a terrible fate you can
avoid, our upperclassmen said, if you just
do what you were told at orientation: The
day before classes begin, print out your class
schedule and slowly walk the mall observing
the locations of buildings and plotting the
path you will walk from class to class. Failing
that, “just keep your head down and keep
walking if you trip,” one veteran advised.
“When you fall when walking to class,”
another wrote, “just lay on the ground and
no one will notice.” Another seemed resigned
to the inevitable: “Never care about it because
it’s going to happen, so accept it.”
Other ways to avoid looking stupid and their
votes:
n Just be yourself—7
n Act mature/ask questions—4
n Get your work done and go to class—4
n Laugh at yourself—3
n Don’t wear high heels to class—3
n Think before you speak—2
n Get someone else to do it first—2
I finally felt like a real college student
when I stopped ______.
Now this is maturity talking: Thirteen
students said, in so many words, that the
change came when they stopped partying
and started studying. Or as one said, “When
I started going to class because I wanted to
and not because I thought I had to.” Five
said it came when they stopped going home
most weekends and five others said it was
when they stopped caring how they looked.
“It was when I stopped calling my Mom
every day,” one student wrote.
Others said they felt more mature when they
stopped:
n Dating my high school girlfriend/hanging
out with my high school friends
n Asking for directions
n Sleeping (“Partying or studying, all-nighters
are the norm,” one wrote.)
n Following the crowd
n Eating at McDonald’s and started fixing
my own meals
Your folks won’t get too upset unless
your GPA falls below ______.
This is interesting. You might expect the
juniors and seniors would say that a 2.0 is
the survival line, and that’s exactly what 25
students put down. But 20 other students
said it takes a 2.5 to keep the parents off
your back and 10 said they had to get a 3.0
to keep mom and pop happy. In case you’re
wondering, that averages out to a 2.36.
It’s more important to ______.
n Show up for every class—43 votes
n Turn in every piece of homework—16
n Sit in the front row—2
Hopefully, this solves the deepest mystery
of freshman life, which is how to make good
grades without really trying.
Things Every Freshman Should Know
By Steve Tuttle
Back to
Campus
I s s u e
With a population now in excess of 70,000,
Greenville offers at least one of nearly
everything most college students—and their
parents—expect to find in a college town.
But most of the time, it’s only one.
The population center of the eastern third
of North Carolina doesn’t have quite the
same breadth of attractions or commercial
development as Chapel Hill, Raleigh
or Greensboro, but the coziness of the
community enables new students and their
families to more easily discover their new
home. May we recommend:
Restaurants: A nice mix of dining choices is
one of Greenville’s bright spots, The city has
three beef/steak/chophouse-type restaurants
(be sure parents pick up the tab; the prices at
these places can raise an eyebrow or two), and
a variety of ethnic restaurants. Try Finelli’s
for Italian, Lemongrass for Thai, Chico’s for
Mexican. Consistently tasty, well-prepared
meals (lunch and dinner) and some to-die-for
desserts can be found at The Daily Grind.
Other upscale eateries include Christinne’s at
the Hilton and Chef ’s 505, but if you want
to impress a special friend, or the parents,
you might try the Lakeview Room at Brook
Valley Country Club, southeast of campus,
which has a spectacular view, good food and
more reasonable prices.
Despite its proximity to three coastal fishing
centers (the Outer Banks, the Crystal Coast
and Wilmington), the Greenville area still
lacks an upscale restaurant specializing in
local Atlantic seafood, although several
restaurant menus boast fine fish and
seafood entrees, and Calabash-style
seafood restaurants are available.
Greenville has a Dunkin’ Donuts near
the medical campus and a Krispy Kreme
across the street from the Main Campus.
The town has four Starbucks, a Panera Bread,
a Bear Rock Café, and a McAllister’s Deli. A
good variety of homemade sandwiches and
baked goods can be found at Swiss Chalet
not far from campus.
Shopping: Greenville has one enclosed mall,
now known as Greenville Mall, anchored
by JCPenney and Belk and also containing
Aeropostale, Gap and American Eagle. It’s
located just blocks south of the football
stadium. The city also has many strip
shopping centers plus one Wal-Mart, one
Kmart, one Target, one Sears, one Staples,
one Office Depot. A handful of upscale
retailers can be found (Talbot’s for women
and Jos. A. Bank, Steinbeck’s and Coffman’s
for men). Several locally owned, trendy and
boutique-y type shops and stores are not far
from campus.
Greenville’s tiny downtown sits at the west
end of campus and is dominated, as one
might expect, by several bars, restaurants
and a few retailers catering to students—
University Book Exchange, Tipsy Teapot
(a comfortable used book store as well as
a nice café), the Bicycle Post, the Catalog
Connection, for example—but local officials
say downtown (promoted as “Uptown
Greenville”) is still a work in progress.
Most students likely will head south to the
strip malls along Greenville Boulevard to find
more of what they want: Rugged Wearhouse,
Old Navy, Great Outdoor Provision Co. and
a range of additional clothing stores, such as
Ross and T.J. Maxx at the lower end to Stein
Mart at the middle range.
A new shopping center is under development
on the southwest side of town, with an older
Sears store to be linked to a newer Kohl’s
by several stores and shops. This center
could begin to fill out by the time incoming
freshmen finish their sophomore year.
Northeast of town, the
North Campus Crossing
apartment complex is
proving to be a magnet for
new stores and restaurants.
Entertainment: Blockbuster
and Hollywood Video have
local stores, as do Circuit
City, Best Buy, F.Y.E. and
East Coast Music + Video.
The Barnes & Noble store
has plenty of books but no
music section. Greenville
now has two multiscreen
movie complexes, one
operated by Carmike and
one by Regal, but they show virtually the same
movies. Neither complex devotes a screen to
independent or foreign films. Various film
series offered on campus partially fill that void.
Food: Students planning to cook a bit on
their own will find several grocery stores
nearby, but only one—a Harris Teeter—is
within walking distance from campus.
Further out are a Kroger, another Harris
Teeter, and several Food Lions. The upscale
Lowe’s Foods has one store, and by the
beginning of 2009, the area’s first Fresh
Market should be open on the southwest
side of town (near Sears and Kohl’s). This
store will provide some great bakery and
pastry items, but many of the groceries likely
will be priced out of reach of most students.
Culture: The culture of Greenville pretty
much depends on the university. Nearly
all the good live theater comes from the
School of Theatre and Dance, which puts on
comedies, tragedies, musicals, contemporary
plays and Shakespeare each year and is
generally recognized as one of the best
theatrical programs in the region. Likewise,
just about all the good, serious music comes
from the School of Music (the Four Seasons
Chamber Music Festival is a special treat
each year); ECU also hosts a new music
festival and the Billy Taylor Jazz Festival.
The broadest variety of world-class
entertainment is the S. Rudolph Alexander
Performing Arts Series, which brings
renowned performers in music and dance
from September through April. Garrison
Keillor and some of his “Prairie Home
Companion” acting company visited in April,
for instance, and this year, the King’s Singers,
Marvin Hamlisch and the North Carolina
Symphony will be among the performers. See
the full schedule of fall cultural events on page 13.
Off campus, the Folk Arts Society
of Greenville stages traditional and
contemporary music series and sponsors
twice-monthly contra dances. Touring big-name
pop concerts come to, well, Raleigh,
80 miles to the west.
The area plays host to several festivals and
fun events, some right next to campus,
some farther away. In early October is the
Pitt County Fair, on the northeast side of
town, and St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church
sponsors a popular Lobster Fair in late
October. Early December means the annual
Christmas Parade, and a Festival of Trees
takes place throughout December in the
Greenville Convention Center.
Greenville has a small art museum with
occasional special exhibits, an extreme
sports park, as well as other more traditional
recreational areas, and River Park North has
hiking trails, five ponds, picnic areas and
frontage along the Tar River. The park also
contains the Walter L. Stasavich Science and
Nature Center, which includes a 70-seat
theater and a variety of exhibits, including
a 10,000-gallon freshwater aquarium and
turtle touch tank. East
What’s Greenville Like
as a College Town?
At the end of Move-In Day, hundreds of new students and their families
likely will hop in the car in search of a meal, a mall or maybe a movie.
What impressions will they form as they explore Greenville for perhaps
the first time? What words of advice would help these new Pirates be
welcomed and well fed? We put together this newcomers guide.
B y S t e v e R o w
Greenville City Hall
Back to
Campus
I s s u e
21
22 23
I
Associate Assistant 	Average
Average salaries paid at: Professor Professor Professor Instructor all faculty
UNC Chapel Hill $ 138,500 $ 90,900 $ 76,900 $ 78,700 $ 101,900
N.C. State 110,800 82,000 69,900 49,200 84,600
UNC Charlotte 105,000 77,200 67,000 * 73,300
UNC Greensboro 103,200 75,600 62,800 55,000 70,100
UNC Wilmington 91,000 72,600 60,500 * 69,900
Appalachian State 86,800 71,700 59,600 49,100 69,100
East Carolina 94,900 73,500 65,200 53,700 68,100
UNC Asheville 84,000 65,500 57,700 * 65,300
National average $ 106,495 $ 74,075 $ 63,131 $ 43,541 $ 79,448
*Does not employ instructors
Source: American Association of University Professors figures for 2007–08
If money does indeed talk, then East Carolina
is sending a clear message to the faculty: “We
appreciate you.” Faculty salaries have risen
20 percent or more over the past five years,
raising the paycheck of a typical full professor
to $94,900 in 2007. That’s according to the
American Association of University Professors,
which gathers salary data from universities
nationwide to produce an annual report.
“It really is philosophically a statement of
worth,” said English professor Janice Tovey,
who became chair of the Faculty Senate on
July 1. “They are asking, ‘What’s my value to
the department, to the university?’ We want
to say, ‘We value what you do. We value your
teaching, your research.’ One of the few ways
we can say that is with a raise.”
The average pay for other faculty ranks
also has jumped by double digits. An
associate professor here on average earned
$73,500 in 2007 compared to $60,265
in 2002. An assistant professor was paid
$65,200 last year, up from $51,366 five
years ago, and an instructor made $53,700,
up from $43,324 in 2002.
While the pay hikes are impressive, faculty
salaries remain well below the national
average and are strikingly below the pay at
N.C. State and UNC Chapel Hill. A stated
goal of East Carolina for some time has been
to raise faculty salaries to 80 percent of the
average of its peer universities.
Rising faculty salaries are made possible by
several factors: a priority from legislators
as expressed in the state budget and the
judicious and creative use of funds by the
deans. The focus has not been to increase all
salaries across the board, but on a university-wide
commitment to working toward
competitive salaries for faculty of all ranks,
genders and ethnic backgrounds.
To Marilyn Sheerer, the interim provost and
vice chancellor for academic and student
affairs, and other administrators who look at
the numbers daily, the process of eliminating
salary inequities can seem like the leaks
that spring up in a dike each time another
one is repaired. “My goal at the College
of Education was always to get our mean
salary for each of the levels above what our
peer group was,” said Sheerer, who served as
education dean her first eight years at ECU.
“You have to keep playing with it. You have to
keep your eye on the compression issues that
occur for faculty who have been here for some
time; and you have to be constantly thinking
of creative ways to move money around.”
Even if pursuing a favorable salary range
is a never-ending challenge, East Carolina
is enjoying the best climate in years for
reaching its stated goal of 80th percentile in
salaries. It’s a brighter outlook that can be
credited to UNC System President Erskine
Bowles, who has emphasized competitive
salaries across the system with promises
backed up by policy.
“I think there’s been, bottom line, a more
definitive emphasis on increasing faculty
salaries with Erskine,” Sheerer said.
The measures instituted by Bowles include
a decree that 25 percent of any campus-based
tuition hike must go to faculty salaries.
Growing universities like ECU also get
enrollment-increase money each year that
goes to fund new faculty positions and to
augment the salaries of deserving faculty.
Bowles also created a special fund to offer
raises to excellent professors who are being
courted by other universities.
That’s how East Carolina recently managed
to hang on to a valuable member of the
School of Music faculty. Sheerer said the
professor was offered a job with higher pay
elsewhere. East Carolina countered the other
school’s offer, and the professor is still part
of the ECU family.
“You win some and you lose some,” said
Mark Taggart, who served as chair of the
Faculty Senate for two years before Tovey
took over. “There is always going to be
turnover. What I liked to see when I was
chair here was to make this a very welcoming,
open, nourishing environment for faculty.”
When turnover does occur, competitive
salaries—plus the lower cost of living
here—put ECU in the running for some of
the brightest minds to fill vacancies. Those
factors, plus ECU’s designation as a doctoral
institution in 1997, have enticed many
professors to come to Greenville, even from
larger universities with deeper pockets.
Sheerer tells of a professor in special
education who came east after five years at
UNC Chapel Hill because ECU offered
a larger, more collegial department whose
faculty was engaged in various grant projects
and outreach programs. He came even
though, from a salary standpoint, ECU is
still behind the state’s “big two”; UNC-CH
professors averaged $138,500 and N.C.
State’s made $110,800, according to the
AAUP report.
Other attractions for new
faculty are the quality of
certain programs and the
administration’s willingness to
offer perks that increase job
satisfaction. For instance, a
professor might be offered a
leave from teaching while he
does research, or an assistant
professor in the College of
Education might make extra
money teaching in the school’s
extensive summer programs.
Salary is an important factor in
the equation, but research and
service opportunities also figure
in prominently, Sheerer said.
“We are definitely shifting to a research
university,” Sheerer said. “Some of the
really strong candidates want to know that.
The more resources we have, the more
we can become known as a multifaceted
research university as compared to just a
teaching university. Now I’m not trying to
deemphasize teaching, but the research piece
and the service piece, those pieces are really
important. And you need resources to be
able to handle them.”
University officials acknowledge that ECU is
about middle of the pack in faculty salaries
among its peer institutions. Compared to
ECU’s average 2007 salary of $94,900,
four of ECU’s peer schools average a lower
salary for their professors. The other seven
peer institutions pay their professors more
than ECU, with the highest, University of
Nevada-Reno, averaging $116,500.
“We’ve got a ways to go,” Taggart said. “We’re
still very below the 80th percentile, and
certain disciplines are worse than others.
Faculty salaries in the performing and creative
arts are a lot lower than in science and math.”
The N.C. General Assembly showed its
support by including $34.6 million in the
new state budget to help the campuses deal
with enrollment growth. Enrollment in the
public colleges is up around 8,000 this year
alone. More students require more teachers,
which puts pressure on salary budgets. The
additional funding means East Carolina and
other schools won’t have to be quite so tight
with a dollar in hiring decisions this year.
East
Faculty salaries
up 20 percent
in five years
By Bethany Bradsher
Average professor salaries at peer universities
University of Nevada-Reno $116,500
Virginia Commonwealth $110,500
Florida International $103,800
University of Missouri-Kansas City $101,700
Texas Tech $99,900
Wright State $97,500
Ohio University $96,400
East Carolina $94,900
Western Michigan $92,600
Northern Illinois $90,300
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee $89,700
University of North Dakota $80,300
Source: American Association of University
Professors figures for 2007–08
Although it happened 33 years ago, Roddy
Jones ’58 remembers the phone call from
Leo Jenkins like it was yesterday. The call
from the president of East Carolina came
shortly after the UNC Board of Governors
had pointedly declined to reappoint Jones to
the ECU Board of Trustees, which he had
chaired the past two years. “Do you know
what those b******* did today?,” Jenkins
shouted into the phone.
Jones hadn’t heard the news but he knew
he had irritated university leaders with
his strong advocacy for a medical school
in Greenville. Bill Friday, who then was
president of the nascent UNC system,
thought people inside the 16-campus
university system should remain neutral in
the political debate over a medical school
in Greenville. Jones admittedly had become
“quite verbose in several newspaper articles”
in favor of the medical school.
Jenkins told Jones that the unprecedented
move so upset David Whichard, the
Greenville Daily Reflector publisher who sat
on the Board of Governors, that he had
nominated Jones from the floor for another
term, to no avail. (“His removal from the
board strikes us as a petty act that is not
becoming to the University of North
Carolina system,” Whichard wrote in an
understated editorial the next day.)
Jones tried calming Jenkins down by putting
things in perspective. “If getting kicked off
the board of trustees is what I have to do
to get the medical school here, then that’s a
mighty small price to pay,” he said flatly.
Such a personal slight would infuriate some
people. Others might have vowed revenge.
Not Roddy Jones, a tall, lanky man with a
quick smile and a soft laugh who only seems
interested in building things up, not tearing
things down.
Firm
Foundation
Roddy Jones, who constructed many
Raleigh landmarks, believes in building
things up, not tearing things down
By Steve Tuttle
24 25
MP3 Hear Roddy Jones talk about the
phone call from Leo Jenkins at
our web site, www.ecu.edu/east.
26 27
A well-heeled and politically well-connected
Raleigh developer who had built Crabtree
Valley Mall and many of Raleigh’s finest
homes, Jones knew how to handle touchy
political situations like this one. He didn’t
complain; he made it a point to continue
supporting higher education across the
state by serving on other school boards,
including the one at Shaw University.
Active in Democratic politics, he continued
writing big campaign contribution checks
to politicians who put education at the top
of their agendas, particularly that newcomer
from Wilson, Jim Hunt.
Two years later Hunt was elected governor
and Jones was his first appointment to the
Board of Governors. He served on the board
quietly and diligently for the next 11 years.
In 1988 he was elected board chairman,
becoming the first person who was not a
graduate of UNC Chapel Hill and the first
non-lawyer to preside over public higher
education in North Carolina. He served on
the board for 18 years.
He says he tried to treat everyone fairly and
focused on healing bruised feelings. “During
my term [as chairman] there was a coming
together to be more fair across the system
because [until then] it was always the bigger
got bigger and the smaller got stepped on. I
think we brought some parity there.”
To this day he remains diplomatic about
East Carolina’s sometimes sensitive
relationships with UNC Chapel Hill
and N.C. State University. “We have to
support the two flagship institutions and
we recognized that. But [East Carolina]
had so much to offer and the state had so
much to gain by building up that campus in
Greenville. The flagships will continue to get
favorable treatment because they are involved
in so many things. But things are much more
fair now.”
He pauses, looks out the window and
considers the tectonic changes that East
Carolina has undergone over the past 50
years, and his central role in many of those
events. “We have established ourselves and
achieved the high end of the results we were
after,” he says simply.
Joining the family business
Roddy Jones knew he had a job waiting for
him after college if he wanted it. His father
and great uncle had created one of Raleigh’s
largest construction companies, Davidson
and Jones. Founded in 1918, the company
had built more than 100 churches and many
of the city’s finest homes, including several
in the toney Hayes-Barton and Country
Club Hills neighborhoods. He did carpentry
work for the company most summers and
knew how to handle a hammer. His father,
Seby Jones, who later was mayor of Raleigh,
wanted his son to join the family business.
Jones relished college life and admittedly
was something of a party animal. He helped
organize the first panty raid at East Carolina,
in 1956. “These things sound so silly to the
kids these days.” A geology major, he also
was among a small group of students who
organized the first fraternities and sororities
on campus.
“Dr. Leo was vice president at that time and
Dr. [John] Messick was president, and he
was 100 percent against that sort of thing.
Dr. Leo told us how to do it [by drafting an
innocuous-sounding proposal to the board
of trustees that, somewhere down in the fine
print, allowed local groups to affiliate with
national Greek organizations]. We followed
his road map and we got them. We got the
board to agree to approve it without the
president even knowing it was going to come
up.” Months later, he and others founded the
Sigma Nu chapter on campus. He served as
Intra-Fraternity Council president in 1957,
his junior year.
Near the end of senior year, his father said it
was time to decide on a career. “Dad asked
me if I wanted to get into the business, and I
said I didn’t know. Graduation day, he asked,
‘Are you coming into the business or not, I
have to know.’ I said I would give it a shot.
This was a Sunday. He said, ‘OK, be in the
office tomorrow morning at 7 o’clock.’ I said
wait, I’m going to the beach tomorrow. He
said, ‘If you want to give it a shot, be in the
office at 7 o’clock.’ And I was.”
He became an apprentice carpenter. “At
that time we were about 50-50, still doing
a lot of residential and some commercial
work, and I cut my teeth building some
of Raleigh’s larger homes.”
And then disaster struck. “My dad came
down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome after I
had been out of college a couple of years.
He was at home [recuperating] and out of
the business for two years. I had to pick it
up. So I got a crash Ph.D. in how to run a
construction company.”
Becoming a major player
Davidson and Jones survived, even thrived,
under the 20-something Jones. He put a
new emphasis on commercial construction
and shifted away from the company’s core
business of building churches and expensive
homes. By the dawn of the 1970s he was
ready to take on what then was the biggest
construction project in Wake County’s
history, Crabtree Valley Mall and its more
than one million square feet of stores and
a high-rise hotel. He became president of
Davidson and Jones in 1973 and stayed in
that post for the next 20 years.
He was named a distinguished alumnus in
1972, the same year Crabtree opened. He
joined the board of trustees in 1973 and was
immediately elected chairman, succeeding
Robert Morgan. He has remained active
and involved in East Carolina affairs ever
since. He chaired the fundraising effort for
the football stadium expansion in 1977. He
created and continues funding several grants
and scholarships, including the annual Robert
L. Jones Award for Outstanding Teaching
and the Robert L. Jones Distinguished
Professorship in the School of Music.
He also assumed his father’s mantle as
a pillar of Raleigh’s business and civic
communities. He was a founder of
Highwoods Properties, a Raleigh real estate
development company that went public in
1994 and is traded on the New York Stock
Exchange. He served as president of the
Carolinas chapter of the Associated General
Contractors of America. He served on the
boards of trustees at Peace College, Shaw
Roddy Jones with President Leo Jenkins at a 1975 trustees meeting
Jones is continuing traditions
begun by his father and uncle,
who founded the company.
28
University, Ravenscroft School, and the
Babcock School of Wake Forest University.
He chaired the Greater Raleigh Chamber
of Commerce and was on the boards of the
Tammy Lynn Home and the Raleigh Rescue
Mission. He was a director of Carolina
Federal Savings and Loan Association,
NCNB of North Carolina, cement maker
Giant Corp. and Carolina Power & Light Co.
In 1983 he was one of the founders of
Wake Education Partnership, the first
independent local education fund in North
Carolina. Using seed money from The
Ford Foundation, the organization brought
together business leaders and local educators
to boost the local school system. He still
serves on its board.
“I think I got it beat into me early that you
don’t just go to work and go home. I think
I forgot to say no too many times because I
was on too many boards. But I have always
enjoyed civic life. I think more people should
do things like that.”
Over the years Raleigh came to appreciate
Roddy Jones as head of one of the Big Three
families in the construction business. The
three families largely built the Capital City
as it exists today. Besides the Joneses, there
were the Yorks (Willie and son Smedes),
who built Cameron Village and other major
properties; and the Richards family, who
built North Hills Mall.
“We are fortunate he is in here in Raleigh,”
says Smedes York, also a former mayor. “He
has always been a friend and somebody I
could count on. He is responsive and very
talented and gets things done. He has created
a lot of things that have done good for
Raleigh. In many ways, when you look at
Raleigh, you’re looking at Roddy Jones.”
Although the Yorks and the Joneses competed
in business, they cooperated in numerous
civic endeavors. Both families were and remain
prominent in progressive Democratic politics.
Jones, who turned 72 this summer,
remembers once when competition between
the families turned into cooperation, based
on nothing more than a handshake. “Several
years ago we had some land in Cary and the
Yorks had some [adjoining] land in Cary,
and we both wanted to build a mall there.
Things were getting pretty complicated. And
then I remember Willie York proposing a
solution: We would build the mall buildings
and they would build the service center.
Today that’s called Cary Towne Center.”
Going national, coming home
With Roddy Jones pushing hard into
commercial real estate development,
particularly hotels, Davidson and Jones
branched out into several states in the
early 1980s, with projects from Ohio to
Florida and a branch office in Orlando.
But during those boom times many of the
company’s most notable projects rose in
North Carolina. Jones built Eastland Mall in
Charlotte, the Raleigh Civic and Convention
Center, the Highwoods office complex
in Raleigh, several buildings for IBM in
Research Triangle Park and the American
Airlines terminal at Raleigh-Durham
International Airport. Davidson and Jones
built the N.C. Biotechnology Center and the
N.C. Microelectronics Center, both in RTP.
His personal favorite is the Imperial Center
in RTP, an office and hotel complex visible
from I-40. Opened in 1984, the Imperial
Center and its attached Sheraton hotel
still boasts the largest convention facilities
in the Triangle.
But then the real estate market abruptly
collapsed in the late ’80s, leaving Davidson
and Jones with unsold projects and
mountains of debt. Rather than seek the
safety of bankruptcy, as many developers
did, Jones personally visited each creditor to
negotiate resolutions, often swapping equity
for debt. In a 1992 interview in Business
North Carolina magazine, Jones said those
debt workout meetings were devastating to
him personally. “When you’re home-grown
and have to sit across the table from friends
you’ve known a long time, or you’ve known
their bosses for a long time, it’s a humbling
experience. I don’t think the Lord meant
for us to have too much pride, so maybe
He has a way of lowering our self-esteem
sometimes.”
It took more than two years of 12- and
14-hour days to resolve the company’s debt
issues, and Jones was looking forward to
better times when, in 1993, he suffered
a heart attack. His doctor said it was
imperative that he reduce the stress in his
life, which led Jones to sell the company to
the Beers concern. But he refused to sell the
Imperial Center and continues to manage
that property.
He didn’t need the heart attack to let him
know it was time to slow down. “You know
you’ve been working longer than you feel
like when the buildings you built are now
being torn down. We built the original Civic
Center and how it’s been torn down. You
build them to stay forever but times change.”
But that’s not the end of the Davidson and
Jones story. His son, Robert Davidson Jones
’94, an industrial technology major, came
to him a couple of years ago and said he
wanted to revive Davidson and Jones and
start building houses again. He agreed and
gave his son the same advice he got from
his father: “My dad taught me early on to
never fall in love with a rooftop. There’s a
time to build them and a time to sell them.
But people are different. When you make a
friend, when you make a commitment, you
keep those forever.”
It’s been 50 years since Roddy Jones
graduated from East Carolina, and he has
remained a true friend of the university ever
since. “I celebrated the 50th anniversary in
1957 when I was a student there. I was back
there last year for the 100th anniversary. I
know that school has been good for me all
these years and the friendships I made there.
I still see a lot of them. And now I’ve been in
this business 50 years.”
As he and every good carpenter knows, a
good building starts with a firm foundation.
East
30
from the classroom
31
Eddie Jacobs has ways of bringing the music
out of students, even those who admit coming
to class unprepared. In those cases, Jacobs
often asks the student do one simple thing:
Play one note on the keyboard. He then asks
the student to play a second note, then a third
and a fourth note. Then he sets a timer for
five minutes and tells the student to compose
something based on those four notes.
“Generally works every time,” says Jacobs,
associate professor of music composition,
theory and electronic music in the ECU
School of Music.
A member of the ECU faculty since 1998,
Jacobs teaches one of the most difficult
courses in any college catalog—a course
based almost entirely on student creativity.
A course with no single right answer and
very few wrong answers.
Although he has his own ideas about
composing—his own works carry such titles
as Time As A Fly, Ensemblespiel and The Thing
With Feathers—he tries not to impose those
ideas on his students. “I don’t care what
they do stylistically, but the demands they
encounter are that this is a process of constant
decision-making. As we meet each week and
review materials, it’s my job to ask what works,
what doesn’t, why it doesn��t. I hope that in the
process, they will get rid of the chaff,” he says.
“But everything is so subjective.”
Jacobs encounters three broad groups of
students in composition classes—those
curious to know what it’s like to create,
those who think they have something to say,
and those who think composition is their
life’s path.
Few, if any, come to him having had training
or instruction in creating music; younger
students generally come into composition
with some performance experience, such
as a local orchestra, Suzuki instruction or
marching band, but not much in the way of
thinking creatively about music.
“For me, composition is approached in
multiple stages by dipping into one’s
creativity. You write down ideas and filter
through them to find the best one idea to
pursue. You decide, ‘Which ones are good
thesis statements?’”
J. Christopher Buddo, director of the School
of Music, admires Jacobs’ way of staying
current in an ever-changing field as he
teaches. “One of the things that I find most
fascinating is that Eddie is always keeping
abreast of what’s new. He stays on top of
things, and this lets him engage students in a
way that reaches them where they are.”
Jacobs “always brings a level of quality to his
teaching, because he is quite demanding of
his students in a way that turns them on, not
off,” Buddo adds.
A jazz saxophone player from age 10
through college, Jacobs earned a bachelor’s
degree in music composition from the
University of Massachusetts in 1984, a
master’s from the University of California-
Berkeley in 1986 and a doctor of musical
arts from Columbia University in 1994.
He taught at Wabash College in Indiana
from 1995 to 1998 before coming to ECU.
Before Wabash, he also was a part-time or
adjunct instructor at Columbia, Manhattan
College and Yeshiva College.
Creating creativity, musically B y S t e v e R o w
Jennifer Kurowicki
competes in the Strong
Woman games held each
summer. Football players
spend summers working
out in the Murphy Center.
In addition to teaching, Jacobs has been
active in conducting. He founded the
Wabash College Chamber Orchestra
and conducted the Wabash Brass
Ensemble, Columbia University
Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra. He
also was a guest conductor with the
ECU Symphony Orchestra in 2002.
One of his most prominent roles on
the ECU campus, however, is founder
and director of the New Music @ ECU
Festival, which concluded its eighth
annual session in the early part of the
spring semester.
‘An interest in hearing
this stuff’
The festival started almost by accident.
Jacobs recalls that then-School of
Music dean Brad Foley had “told me
on the first day I was here we need to
hear your music.” In 1999, a year later,
Jacobs put together a program that
featured his own music and that of
ECU faculty member Mark Richardson,
which prompted another faculty
member to suggest that perhaps more
contemporary music should be available
on campus.
In spring 2001, Jacobs asked soprano
Christine Schadeberg to perform Pierrot
lunaire, a 45-minute “landmark piece”
for voice and instruments by Arnold
Schoenberg from 1912, and even
though it was a Friday afternoon, “the
recital hall was packed,” Jacobs says.
The performance prompted a standing
ovation, and she performed the music a
second time that evening. The hall was
packed again.
“That made me think that there is
an interest here in hearing this stuff,”
he says, and the idea of continuing
a contemporary music festival-type
program took hold.
Not only does the festival expose
local audiences to a wide range of
contemporary music, but it also exposes
music students to contemporary music
composers and performers. “Student
composers will write an exercise for
great artists to review and evaluate and
for performance,” he points out.
The 2008 festival, for example, featured
Speculum Musicae, a New York-based
ensemble that served as Robert L. Jones
Distinguished Visiting Professor of
Music during the academic year. Also
performing were the ECU New Music
Camerata with soprano Louise Toppin;
pianist Geoffrey Burleson; the ECU
Chamber Orchestra; and ECU faculty
member and clarinetist Christopher
Grymes. Organist Colin Andrews gave a
recital to mark the 100th anniversary of
the birth of composer Olivier Messiaen.
“There’s always a teaching component to
the festival,” Buddo says. “His students
always have the chance to interact with
the composers and performers.”
Jacobs has composed more than 30
pieces of music since 1983, and his
work in composition drew national
attention in 2005, when he was named
a winner of a $15,000 Charles Ives
Fellowship from the American Academy
of Arts and Letters. He was one of
more than 50 composers, artists,
architects and writers to receive cash
awards for their work.
“It’s a wonderful honor to be recognized
alongside so many distinct composers,”
Jacobs said at the time. “I’m flattered
to be included among such a wonderful
group.”
His work continues to get exposure
before a larger audience. During the final
concert of the 2007–08 Four Seasons
Chamber Music Festival, for example,
artistic director Ara Gregorian included
Jacobs’ Time As A Fly, a piece for string
quintet that had been completed only
a short time before. His composition
shared a program with quintets by
Brahms and Mendelssohn.
“If you put Brahms and Jacobs next
to each other, they complement each
other,” Jacobs says. “In fact, I’m greatly
influenced by Brahms. I believe that
contemporary and older music both sort
of inform each other.”
Gregorian is a fan of Jacobs. “I can see
the great relationships that students have
with him and the amount of respect
that they have for him. Eddie is greatly
respected by me and all of his colleagues
for the quality of his work and for the
way that he interacts with the students
as well as his colleagues. He is a true
leader in the School of Music.”
A teacher first
Jacobs, who was nominated for the
ECU Alumni Distinguished Teaching
Award in 2004, considers himself a
teacher first, then composer, conductor
and festival director. And he does not
restrict his teaching to ECU classrooms.
He goes into local schools to work with
fourth through sixth grade students in a
“young composers” program.
“The kids make music, and the teachers
teach note names, rhythms and values,”
he says. “At first, they learn that we’re
just playing with sound. But then we
do the same thing with percussion
instruments, then recorders, then guitars.
I act as a secretary, and the students
tell me what to cut and paste to create
a melody.”
Some of the results are impressive, the
same as some of the results he hears in
his ECU classroom.
“What I look forward to the most is
going into the classroom. So much of
what I teach is based on music with
which I am very familiar, and yet every
time I teach it, it’s like I’m hearing it
for the first time. I enjoy hearing the
students hearing the music,” he says.
Why they hate us
In his new book, history professor
Michael Palmer answers the
question that’s been on the minds
of Americans since 9/11, which is
“Why do they hate us so?” They
hate us now, Palmer argues, the
same way they hated us centuries
ago when the Crusades invaded
their insular world. Much of the
Islamic world, particularly the
parts of it the U.S. has invaded or
bombed, feels attacked by
the West in what they see as a
new crusade.
Palmer eschews political
correctness to address a singular
difference between the western
and Islamic worlds. Much of the
Muslim world spent four centuries
under the thumb of the Ottoman
Empire in a society that embraced
feudalism even after the West
rejected it for democracy and an
open, secular society. Islam did
not experience a Renaissance,
a reformation or enlightenment.
Thus, two points of view now
conflict: Someone who is a radical
Islamist in our eyes is a religious
reformer in theirs.
Some would call Palmer a hawk
for contending that we probably
will win the political war against
the jihadists, and that the sooner
we do so, the less brutal it will be.
The Last Crusade: Americanism
and the Islamic Reformation
273 pages. Potomac Books
$17.95
from the classroom
32
Bo ks by Faculty
33
35
Luxury suites in
stadium expansion plan
By Bethany Bradsher
Backed by Pirate Club fundraising, East
Carolina plans to add 4,500 seats to
Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium by building
bleachers topped by luxury suites in what
is now the open east end zone with the
Jumbotron TV screen. The Student Pirate
Club section probably would move to the
new horseshoe to make that end zone hostile
space for visitors or welcoming arms for
the home team. To manage the $24 million
project, East Carolina has retained the same
Chapel Hill architectural firm that oversaw
the latest stadium expansions at N.C. State
and UNC Chapel Hill.
Just 10 years after the last Dowdy-Ficklen
expansion, the project planning already
is under way, at least underground where
a sewer pipe needs to be upgraded. That
$800,000 improvement began earlier this
year. The hope is that the expansion, which
will raise the stadium’s seating capacity to
48,000, will be completed by the start of
the 2010 season.
While the details of the new horseshoe
section remain in flux, Jimmy Bass, senior
associate director of athletics for external
operations, said that Pirate Club demand
and the visions of Terry Holland and Skip
Holtz have shown that East Carolina must
have better football facilities. “We’re trying
to create for all of our sports world-class
facilities so that they’ll have a chance to
recruit, and for those student-athletes to
compete on the very best surfaces available,”
Bass said.
Long term, officials are mulling a phase two
expansion of Dowdy-Ficklen. Some existing
spaces in the stadium will be freshened up.
The press box and other spaces on the south
side will be refurbished. Those renovations
will be done with the future in mind. The
work will prepare the top portion of the
south side with footings for another upper
deck years down the road.
The football stadium expansion is the
centerpiece of a broader sports facilities
upgrade plan that will impact virtually every
sport. The university has committed to a
range of projects, including a new women’s
softball stadium, a new track and field
facility and a new auxiliary gym at Minges
Coliseum that will house practice courts for
the men’s and women’s basketball teams and
the volleyball team. Now, the basketball and
volleyball teams all must share one gym for
practice and games.
Also on the list are 12 new tennis courts,
a women’s soccer field and practice facility,
a women’s sports field house and a sports
medicine facility. The university is financing
that part of the facilities plan from
indebtedness to be repaid from a $70 annual
student debt service fee and gifts.
“ECU may be the only Division IA
institution in the country with only one gym
for three sports,” Holland said. “Health
and Human Performance also uses the one
gym until after lunch each class day. Many
schools now have separate practice facilities
for all three sports that are available to those
student-athletes 24-7.”
Funding for all of these new digs will come
from a variety of sources, but current plans
don’t call for a capital campaign. The first
phase of the Dowdy-Ficklen expansion—the
east end zone seating and luxury suites—
won’t rely on the sale of seat licenses or
similar investments as once contemplated.
The Board of Governors has approved the
use of self-liquidating bonds for the funding.
Much of the money will come from the sale
of season tickets in the space vacated by the
students when they move to the new end
zone seats and from the revenue generated by
the luxury boxes.
The relocation of the Student Pirate Club
(SPC) to the new end zone section makes
sense from both atmospheric and financial
angles, Bass said. The largest student
organization on campus, SPC members
received 4,200 tickets last season, so they
will fill that section easily. Students will have
the horseshoe to themselves where can create
a “Pirate Pound” pandemonium that could
make a difference in a close game.
“Most importantly,” Bass added, “[the
expansion] would open about 3,000 seats
for us on the north side that we could sell to
Pirate Club donors and open up new revenue
streams.” A scheduled reseating of Dowdy-
Ficklen Stadium planned for 2009 likely
will be postponed until 2010 to allow for
the adjustments that the new end zone will
necessitate. Prime seats in other parts of the
stadium could also be vacated when boosters
move in to one of the planned luxury boxes.
There have been questions about how
good the view will be from luxury suites
situated high over the end zone instead of
midfield. However, a recent survey of Pirate
Club donors indicates the club will have
few problems selling as many as 28 boxes,
each containing 16 seats. The survey asked
respondents to rate their interest in a luxury
box. Twenty-two percent of the 2,529
respondents indicated some level of interest
in leasing a luxury box.
Bass said that end zone luxury boxes at
other schools have been well received. “The
suites create a premier seating option for
those who can contribute the larger gifts we
need to be competitive in today’s world of
big time intercollegiate athletics,” Holland said.
Carolina is adding 20 luxury boxes in
the west end zone of its stadium; similar
layouts house fans at West Virginia and
Virginia Tech. When a Pirate contingency
toured Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, an
administrator there said that only one of
their 30 end zone boxes had turned over in
10 years.
Pirate Club director Mark Wharton said he
is trying to educate the Pirate Nation on the
uniqueness of the end zone project. “I think
there’s still a lot of cloudiness on whether
we’re going to put boxes on the press box
side, Wharton said. “The answer to that
right now is no, these are the only boxes we’re
going to have”
East
34
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37
Presented by the Hilton Greenville
Friday, October 17, 2008
Grab your clubs and call your golfing buddies to
make a team for the ECU Alumni Scholarship Classic
at Ironwood Golf and Country Club. This annual
tournament raises funds for Alumni Scholarships given
to deserving ECU undergraduates. 2007 was a banner
year for our golf tournament, which raised more than
$25,000. Let’s make history again in 2008.
The night before you play, bring friends to the Hilton for
our Pirate’s Bounty Scholarship Auction, a fun evening with
beach music, hors d’oeuvres, Pirate beverages, and auction
items. Our four-person superball tournament begins Friday
with breakfast from ARAMARK at 8 a.m. followed by
the first flight at 9 a.m. Then enjoy a catered lunch form
O’Charley’s and the second flight at 2 p.m. Join fellow
players for the 19th Hole Reception at the clubhouse after
a great day on the links as part of your player package.
Visit our web site at PirateAlumni.com/golf for complete
details and to see all of the businesses that make our
tournament a success. Please contact Liz Ellerbe at
800-ECU -GRA D for sponsorship details.
Alumni Tailgate 2008
Tailgating is a tradition at ECU and the
East Carolina Alumni Association provides
the perfect opportunity to leave your
grill at home and join our family-friendly
Alumni Tailgate two-and-a-half hours prior
to kick-off. Enjoy food provided by local
restaurants, plenty of cold beverages, a
chance to see Pee Dee the Pirate and the
ECU Cheerleaders, and win great door prizes
under our Tailgate tent. Alumni Tailgate is
located outside Gate 1 of Minges Coliseum
on the north side of Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
The cost is $5 per person for Alumni
Association members and $10 per person for
non-members; children 10 and under are free.
Not a member of the Alumni Association?
Show your Pirate Pride and join today. Go to
PirateAlumni.com/jointoday for details about
the many benefits of membership, including
Alumni Tailgate, or call us at 800-ECU -GRA D.
Note: Tailgate and kickoff times are subject
to change.
Ho me Alumni Tailgate s
Sept. 6, WVU. vs. ECU. Tailgate 2:00–4:00
p.m., kickoff, 4:30 p.m., sponsored by
O’Charley’s and ARA MARK
Sept. 27, Houston vs. ECU. Tailgate 1:00–
3:00 p.m., kickoff at 3:30 p.m. sponsored by
Chico’s, Fuddrucker’s and ARA MARK
Oct. 18, Memphis vs. ECU. Tailgate 9:30–
11:30 a.m., kickoff at 12 noon sponsored by
The Honeybaked Ham Co. and Café and
ARA MARK
Nov. 8, Marshall vs. ECU, Homecoming
2008. Tailgate 1:00–3:00 p.m., kickoff at 3:30
p.m. sponsored by ARA MARK
Nov. 28, UTEP vs. ECU. Tailgate 10:30 a.m.–
12:30 p.m., kickoff at 1:00 p.m. sponsored by
ARA MARK
In addition to our home Tailgates, join the
Alumni Association and the Pirate Club as we
take Tailgate on the road. This year we are
excited to offer Tailgate at five away games.
Away game Tailgates offer the same family-friendly
atmosphere you’ve come to expect
during home Tailgates, along with great food
and plenty of prizes. Away game Tailgates are
$20 per person; children 10 and under are free.
Away Game Alumni Tailgate s
August 30, Va. Tech vs. ECU in Charlotte.
Tailgate 9:30–11:30 a.m., kickoff at 12 noon
Sept. 13, ECU vs. Tulane. Tailgate 11:30 a.m.–
1:30 p.m. CT , kickoff at 2 p.m. CT
Sept. 20, ECU vs. N.C. State. Tailgate TBA,
kickoff TBA
Oct. 11, ECU vs. UV a. Tailgate TBA,
kickoff TBA
Nov. 2, ECU vs. UCF. Tailgate 5:30–7:30 p.m.,
kickoff at 8 p.m.
Fall Alumni Events Homecoming 2008
ECU Goes for the
Thank you to our Alumni Tailgate sponsors:
Gdlodlo Come home to East Carolina University to participate in the many events for alumni taking
place this fall. Bring your family and join us for Alumni Tailgate, the ECU Alumni Scholarship Classic and
Homecoming 2008: ECU Goes for the Gold. We hope you will come back to Greenville to renew old friendships
and make new ones with fellow Pirates. Be sure to visit our Web site at PirateAlumni.com for event details and
registration forms, or give us a call at 800-ECU-GRAD. Welcome home.
ECU Alumni Scholarship Clasic
Friday , November 7
Homecoming Luncheon
11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., Mendenhall Student
Center, Great Room
Start your Homecoming weekend off with
a great meal at Mendenhall Student Center.
Vice Chancellor for Administration and
Finance Kevin Seitz will share future plans
for the campus. Parking is available behind
Mendenhall.
Bus Tour of Campus
1:00–2:00 p.m., Bus will depart from the
Joyner Library clock tower
Join host Jim Westmoreland ’74, ’77 for a bus
tour of ECU ’s campus. This tour is the perfect
opportunity to see your old residence hall and
favorite hangout.
ECU Classroom Experiences take alumni
back to college days and provide unique
learning opportunities. The Alumni
Association is proud to offer three ECU
Classroom Experiences during Homecoming:
ECU history professor and author
Dr. Gerald J. Prokopowicz will lead a
discussion on his thought provoking
book, Did Lincoln Own Slaves?: And
Other Frequently Asked Questions
About Abraham Lincoln.
1:00–2:00 p.m., Joyner Library,
2nd Floor Conference Room
Lt. General Gary North ’76,
Commander of the 9th Air Force
and U.S. Central Command Air Forces,
and 2008 Outstanding Alumni Award
recipient returns to campus.
2:15 p.m., Mendenhall Student Center,
Great Room
Explore ECU
Special Collections and Archives
2:15 p.m., Joyner Library
Reception Honoring
Reverend Kenneth Hammond ’73, ’83, ’85
4:00 p.m., Ledonia Wright Cultural Center
The Black Alumni Chapter of the East
Carolina Alumni Association will host a
reception in honor of Rev. Kenneth Hammond,
2008 Outstanding Alumni Award recipient.
Hammond is senior pastor at Union Baptist
Church, one of the largest congregations in
Durham, NC , and a charter member of ECU ’s
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.
Alumni Awards Cocktail Reception
6:00 p.m., Hilton Greenville
Take a moment to congratulate this year’s
award recipients before the awards dinner.
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Alumni Awards Ceremony
7:00 p.m., Hilton Greenville
Join us in recognizing alumni who have
demonstrated outstanding merit and
achievement as we honor this year’s award
recipients:
Outstanding Alumni Award recipients
Capt. David M. Fitzgerald, Jr. ’66, retired U.S.
Navy captain, 2007 Congressional Veteran
Commendation recipient
Rev. Kenneth R. Hammond ’73, ’83, ’85,
senior pastor of Union Baptist Church, pastor
mentor for Duke Divinity School, and adjunct
professor of United Christian Bible Institute
Dr. Jerry E. McGee ’65, president of Wingate
University, and NCA football official
Lt. Gen. Gary L. North ’76, U.S. Air Force
Commander, 9th Air Force and U.S. Central
Command Air Forces, Shaw Air Force Base, S.C.
Distinguished Service Award recipient
Stephen D. Showfety ’70, president of
Koury Corporation, board member, ECU
Foundation; member, Henry VanSant Society
of the Pirate Club; former Vice Chairman,
ECU Board of Visitors; former Secretary,
Vice Chairman, and Chairman, ECU Board
of Trustees
Honorary Alumni
Dr. Richard R. “Dick” Eakin, ninth Chancellor
of East Carolina University, and Mrs. Jo Ann
“Jo” McGeehan Eakin, wife of Dr. Eakin and
ECU campus beautification advocate
Charles Rogers, owner of Lifetime Houses
and avid volunteer and supporter of
numerous ECU organizations
Saturday, November 8
Alumni Open House
9:00 a.m., Taylor-Slaughter Alumni Center
Start your day with a complimentary
breakfast with the Alumni Association. Then
grab a front-row seat for the Homecoming
parade.
Homecoming Parade
10:00 a.m., Fifth Street
Watch the annual ECU Homecoming parade
as the Marching Pirates and plenty of
decorated floats parade down Fifth Street.
Homecoming Alumni Tailgate
1:00–3:00 p.m.
See the Alumni Tailgate section on the
preceding pages for Alumni Tailgate
information.
While you’re in town…
Fr iday, November 7
Volleyball: Southern Miss vs. ECU
7:00 p.m., Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum
Saturday, November 8
1st Annual ECU Army ROTC Pirate Battalion
Wounded Warrior 10K and 1 Mile Road
Races: Warriors Supporting Warriors
8:30 a.m., Lynndale neighborhood behind
Food Lion on Red Banks Road
This race benefits the Fort Bragg Wounded
Warrior Program.
Swimming and Diving: College of
Charleston, Catawba vs. ECU
8:30 a.m., Minges Natatorium in Minges
Aquatic Center
sund ay, November 9
Volleyball: UCF vs. ECU
1:00 p.m., Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum
On-Campus Ho meco ming Discount s
Dowdy Student Stores
“Welcome Back” Celebration
Thursday, November 6–Saturday, November 8
Visit the Dowdy Student Store to view
various ECU memorabilia and take
advantage of our “Show Us Your Ring Sale.”
We will open early on Saturday, for pre-parade
shopping!
Student Recreation Center free workout
Friday, November 7–Saturday, November 8
Alumni and a guest will be admitted for free
at the Student Recreational Center. Stop
by the registration desk when entering the
Recreation Center. Alumni may bring two
additional guests for $5 each.
Homecoming 2008
Black Alumni Reunion
This year’s Black Alumni Reunion
weekend will be better than ever. We’ve
planned something for everyone with
activities on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Start this fun-filled reunion weekend on
Friday with a reception honoring 2008
Outstanding Alumni Award recipient Rev.
Kenneth Hammond ’73, ’83, ’85. Then
take your pick of attending the Alumni
Awards Ceremony or the energetic Step
Show at Wright Auditorium. Later, we’ll
get together for midnight bowling and
catching up with friends.
On Saturday, start the day by watching
the lively Homecoming Parade. We’ll
pre-game at the Alumni Tailgate before
heading over to Dowdy-Ficklen for the
Homecoming game.
After the game, enjoy the smooth sounds
of renowned jazz artist Carroll Dashiell
and his jazz combo during the Jazz Social.
Dashiell is director of ECU ’s Jazz Ensemble
“A,” an internationally recognized group
that has played at Carnegie Hall, Birdland
Jazz Club in New York City, and on The
Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Continue the night at the After Hours
Dance Party, dancing to a mix of the
latest jams and some old favorites. Shuttle
service will be provided for reunion
participants, and childcare will be offered
for children ages 1 month–12 years.
Before heading out of town on Sunday
morning, gather with fellow black alumni
for worship at Cornerstone Missionary
Baptist Church and brunch at K&W
Cafeteria.
Be sure to register early and order a
Black Alumni polo shirt. Proceeds from
the sale of the polos will go toward the
Black Alumni Chapter’s textbook gift
certificate program.
Homecoming Reunions
ECTC and ECC Alumni Reunion Dinner Dance featuring The Collegians
Share memories of East Carolina Teachers College and East Carolina College with former
classmates throughout the weekend. A number of other activities