East The Magazine of East Carolina University
The New
Hands of
Medicine
sum er 2009
East The Magazine of East Carolina University
sum er 2009
40
14
24
F E A T URES
14 THE NE W HAN DS OF M EDICINE
By Crystal Baity Health care once was delivered by a
doctor, a nurse and maybe a pharmacist. Now many other
specialists have joined them to deliver care focused not just
on saving lives but making life better.
24 S OLVI NG PRO BLE MS , SE T T LING IN
By Steve Tuttle After leading East Carolina through
five years of frenetic growth, Chancellor Steve Ballard
considered leaving Greenville. We talk with the chancellor
about his record and whether he’ll stay another five years.
32 MADAM MAYOR
By Marion Blackburn After 30 years on the faculty and a
lifetime helping others, Pat Dunn starts a new job running
City Hall.
36 WHA T AN ECU ENGINER LOOKS LI KE
By Steve Row Paul Kauffmann designed a program focused
on preparing students for real-world problems.
40 TRA C K FIN DS I TS ST RI DE
By Bethany Bradsher It’s one of the largest sports teams on
campus, with more than 90 athletes lining up against some
of the top teams in the nation. But track lacks decent fields,
so it can’t host home events. Still, records are falling.
D E P A R T M E N T S
FRO M OUR REA DERS 3
THE ECU RE POR T . 4
SUMMER AR TS CALEN DAR 12
PIRA TE NA TION . 44
CLASS NO TES 45
UPON THE PAST 56
32
viewfinder
After nearly two years of work,
the new fountain in Wright
Circle is again welcoming
students and visitors to the
heart of campus. Failing
underground utilities forced
the removal of the original
fountain dedicated in 1932 to
East Carolina’s first president,
Robert Wright. A time-lapse film
chronicling construction of the
new fountain is available here.
2
Anoth er ECU beauty queen
Editor’s note: Here’s an update on the number
of East Carolina students chosen as Miss
North Carolina or Miss North Carolina
USA, a topic that occupied this page in the
previous two issues as we debated whether
there have been six or seven of them. Well,
now there are eight.
Kristen Dalton, who was to graduate in May
with degrees in psychology and Spanish,
was crowned Miss North Carolina USA last
November and Miss USA in April. She is a
singer and dancer whose mother was Miss
North Carolina USA in 1982. The 21-year-old
aspiring motivational speaker from
Wilmington beat out 50 other beauty queens
in a live pageant televised nationally.
The title comes with a year’s use of a New
York apartment, a public relations team, a
two-year scholarship at the New York Film
Academy and an undisclosed salary. Dalton
will go to the Bahamas in August to compete
in the Miss Universe pageant.
More on monkeypox
Thanks for publishing the article about
my research. It’s always nice to receive such
recognition of my work. However, there was
an error in the article [that] would probably
only be noticed by microbiologists. The
article states: “Brody School of Medicine
microbiologist Dr. Rachel Roper is attracting
national attention, and a major grant, for
research that brings doctors a step closer
to stopping the spread of monkeypox, a
coronavirus that’s a cousin of smallpox.”
This is correct except the word in bold,
“coronavirus,” should be “poxvirus.” It is
true that I work with both.
—Rachel L. Roper, Ph.D.
Brody Medical Sciences
Editor’s note: Alert readers spotted two other
errors in the Spring issue. James L. (Jim)
Ratledge ’51 wrote from Charleston, S.C.,
to point out that we had the wrong date
in a headline over the Timeline item about
John Messick’s last year as president. That
was 50 years ago, not 40, and Jim should
know because that’s when he was a student
here. We also got titles wrong in an Alumni
Spotlight about a major scholarship gift
from BB&T honoring W. Kendall Chalk ’68
’71. Ken was BB&T’s chief credit officer,
not chief financial officer, as was Henry
Williamson ’69 ’72. The text in the online
version of the magazine was corrected as
soon as we learned of these errors, for which
I apologize.
Steve Ballard It’s a Saturday night in a banquet room at the Greenville Hilton, and the Sigma
Alpha Epsilon brothers are looking a bit stiff in their shirts and ties. You can tell
they’re trying hard to impress all us parents gathered for this annual dinner, plus
the fraternity has landed a boffo speaker, Chancellor Steve Ballard. The student
serving as MC mangles a few lines, but gets nice applause when he recounts how
the brothers raised $2,100 this year for charity. He introduces the chancellor, who
rises to speak just as whoops and shouts erupt in the adjoining banquet room where
some Mary Kay ladies are getting pumped up. Shouting to be heard, Ballard keeps
his remarks brief and soon releases the brothers and their parents for the reception
to follow.
There’s a lot more gray in his hair now than when he arrived as chancellor five years
ago, but Steve Ballard otherwise hasn’t changed much. He’s still harping on the same
themes he raised at his installation. He still tells the same jokes, such as the light-hearted
exchange he provokes every year with Terry Holland about pulling rank so
he can play on the baseball team.
A Pirate nation rattled by the embarrassing controversies of the Muse
administration quickly became comfortable with Ballard’s steady hand, reassured
by his consistent approach to running things. But this comfortable sameness
was knocked akilter in January when he applied for the top job at Kansas State
University. Days later, though, Ballard announced his intent to remain in Greenville.
It was then that I called for an interview for the story that begins on page 24.
East Carolina is a different place now than when Ballard arrived. Enrollment has
exploded nearly 30 percent, the university budget has grown almost 40 percent and
total employment to more than 5,000. Thirteen new or remodeled buildings have
opened on Main Campus and an unprecedented expansion of the Health Sciences
Campus is ongoing. Problems inevitably arose from that rapid growth and the
record shows that Ballard solved problems methodically and moved forward.
At his first faculty convocation he talked about the importance of finding the
right people to “get on the bus” and help him steer East Carolina forward. Now,
most of the top administrators and a majority of the deans are Ballard hires.
There apparently are no glass ceilings on Ballard’s bus: Among his most visible
appointments are three women and the first African-American to head a North
Carolina medical school.
Even as they give him high marks for effective leadership, many prominent Pirates
privately wish Steve Ballard had a higher public profile. He’s been called “the Mike
Easley of university chancellors” because he doesn’t show up for every university
function. True, Steve Ballard isn’t a polished orator and he doesn’t crave the
spotlight. He’s a sensible Midwesterner adjusting to beach music and barbecue. But
given where ECU was then and is now, low-profile efficiency feels quite comfortable.
from the editor
Volume 7, Number 4
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 WRITERS
Crystal Baity, Marion Blackburn,
Bethany Bradsher, Steve Row,
Spaine Stephens
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Rhett Butler, Jay Clark, Elaine Darby,
Cliff Hollis, Jane Spooner
CLASS NOTES EDITOR
Leanne Elizabeth Smith ’04 ’06
ecuclassnotes@ecu.edu
ADMINISTRATION
Michelle Sloan
h
Assistant Vice Chancelor
for 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.
©2009 by East Carolina University
East The Magazine of East Carolina University
sum er 2009
from our readers
Read East online at
www.ecu.edu/east
How do I subscribe?
Send a check to the ECU Foundation,
using the postage-paid reply envelope
stuffed in every issue of the magazine.
How much is up to you, but we suggest
a minimum of $25. Your generosity is
appreciated.
n 252-328-9550
n www.ecu.edu/devt
n give2ecu@ecu.edu
Join the Alumni Association and receive
a subscription as well as other benefits
and services. Minimum dues are $35.
n 1-800-ECU-GRA D
n www.piratealumni.com
n alumni@PirateAlumni.com
Join the Pirate Club and get the
magazine as well as other benefits
appreciated by sports fans. Minimum dues
are $75.
n 252-328-4540
n www.ecupirateclub.com
n contact@ecupirateclub.com
Contact us
n 252-328-2068
n easteditor@ecu.edu
n www.ecu.edu/east
Customer Service
To start or stop a subscription,
or to let us know about a change of
address, please contact Lisa Gurkin,
gurkinl@ecu.edu or 252-328-9561
Send letters to the editor to
easteditor@ecu.edu or
1206 Charles Blvd.
Building 198
East Carolina University
Greenville, N. C. 27858
Send class notes to
ecuclassnotes@ecu.edu
or use the form on page 50
3
4
the ecU Report
Dozens of construction management students gave up their spring break to labor on 12-hour shifts helping build a new home for a
Jamesville family featured on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition TV show. The 75 to 80 ECU students were among more than 1,000
volunteers who gave their time building the home for a decorated and disabled Gulf War veteran. “The most impressive part of this is
the magnitude of it,” said Jerry Langston, a senior ECU student in construction management. “It’s not the fact that we’re building a huge
house. It’s the fact that there is a coordinated effort of people who are volunteering their time and doing what should be a 16- to 24-week
project in 106 hours or less.” The Jamesville episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was scheduled to air on ABC in early May.
5
would normally go to Europe isn’t going,
or when a family that would normally go to
Disney World every year isn’t going.
“Instead, for the first time, a person who has
never thought about eastern North Carolina
is really intrigued by the idea of renting a
beach house for a few days and then tooling
around the region to see what he can find.
We are the alternative to Disney World.”
Culture thrives amid recession
Even though its financial support from the
university is dropping precipitously, East
Carolina’s S. Rudolph Alexander Performing
Arts Series is in the black and planning
another impressive season for next school
year. Cost cutting and increased fund-raising
have kept the series in decent financial shape,
according to Jeffrey Elwell, dean of the
College of Fine Arts and Communication
that manages the program.
“We looked more closely at the bottom
line for ways to clamp down on spending,”
says Elwell, who also serves as the series’
producer, chief financial officer and principal
booking negotiator. “We also secured more
than $94,000 in grant support from external
agencies.” Those moves have about offset
declines in subsidies from the university,
which come from reallocated funds.
During the 2006–07 season, the subsidy
was $125,000; the next year it dropped to
$100,000, and for the season just ended, it
was $75,000. For the new season starting
this fall, the university contribution will be
just $23,000.
Other campus cultural programs are
cutting back, though. Tighter budgets are
behind the decision by the ECU/Loessin
Summer Theatre series to produce only
one, instead of the usual two or three,
summer stage productions. To make up
for that a bit, the one stage production on
campus this summer, Big River, a musical
adapted from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn,
will have more than the usual number of
performances—12—during its June 16–27
run. (See the Summer Arts Calendar, page 12.)
There may be a silver lining in this gray cloud.
“We have found out that the fees have not
gone up, because many venues have less money
to spend, and if the artists want to perform,
they must adjust their fees,” Elwell says. “In
some respects, the economy is helping us.”
ECU’s premier cultural series is named for
S. Rudolph Alexander ’52 ’53, who worked
here from 1962 to 1995 as associate dean
of student activities and director of student
unions. In his first year on the job he booked a
string of highbrow performers and acclaimed
musical groups as a way to bring some culture
to campus. Over the years the series has
showcased a number of symphony orchestras,
world-class musicians and several opera and
Broadway productions. Actress Dame Judith
Anderson, comedienne Carol Channing
and public radio star Garrison Keillor have
appeared here as part of the series.
When Alexander retired, management
of the series shifted to the Division of
Student Life. At the time the program had
a surplus of about $200,000. But without
Alexander at the helm the series lost focus
and patrons; annual operating deficits ate
up the surplus. In 2005, supervision of the
series shifted to the College of Fine Arts
and Communication, where it seems to be
thriving. The series patrons’ board remains
active in helping plan programs and day-to-
day management is running smoothly
under Michael Crane, the assistant dean who
became artistic director and co-producer
of the series in January. “We’ve run in the
black since we’ve started, and we still bring in
world-class artists,” Crane says.
Crane says Alexander series programs typically
average about 60 percent capacity of Wright
Auditorium’s nearly 1,500 seats, although
some programs sell out. The series also adds
occasional special programs—Garrison
Keillor of Prairie Home Companion last season
is an example—and has sponsored dinner and
discussions with visiting performers.
The new fall season continues the tradition
of offering a range of entertainment
events, with performances by the Oxford
Philomusica from the University of Oxford,
the Moscow State Radio Symphony
Orchestra, the Otero Dance Company,
the Chuck Davis African American Dance
Ensemble, the St. Lawrence String Quartet
plus one of the medal winners in the annual
Van Cliburn Piano Competition. Also on
the playbill are the a cappella singing group
Chanticleer and the Reduced Shakespeare
Company’s production of The Complete Works
of William Shakespeare (Abridged).
Elwell and Crane now are turning their
attention to the 50th anniversary season
in 2012–13. “We’d love to get more
household-name attractions, someone like
Yo-Yo Ma,” Crane says.
—Steve Row
Bad economy good for tourism?
The recession probably won’t hurt and
may even help the tourism economy in
eastern North Carolina, according to
an ECU professor who says the coastal
region is increasingly being seen as a more
affordable—and closer by—alternative to
destinations like Disney World.
Speaking at a New Bern conference on
sustainable tourism organized by ECU and
several community partners, Jim Kleckley,
director of ECU’s Bureau of Business
Research, said the region appeals to travelers
who want to venture away from home, but
not as far as in better days.
“What is good for us is that gas is down,
and because of the economy, we expect to
be a big draw for people in other parts of
North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and
Tennessee. We have historical sites that they
can see with a day’s drive, and our beaches are
different than the ones in Myrtle Beach.”
Kleckley said national trends indicate that
consumers are cutting back on big-ticket items
first—cars, appliances—but “they are still
going to shopping centers; they are still going
out to eat. Maybe not as often, but they are.
The discretionary spending is still there.”
Kleckley thinks this is the year that eastern
North Carolina sees a different kind of
tourist: one who has never considered
vacationing here. “We’re seeing a shift right
now, though we can’t exactly define it,” he
said. “But this is the time when a tourist who
Jay Clark
the ecu report
6
athletics for external operations, said a decision
about the stadium fund-raising campaign will
be made this summer, after officials gauge
Pirate Club gifts in the first half of 2009 and
the number of season tickets sold for the fall
season. “We’re continuing with planning and
design, and depending on the economy, we’ll
make a decision in the summer about whether
to begin,” Bass says.
Fund raising and season tickets serve as a
barometer as to whether the expansion plan
adopted a year ago should go on as scheduled,
with groundbreaking this December. Already,
the plan has been scaled back to take out the
24 luxury boxes that were planned above an
enclosed east end zone. Without the suites,
east end zone seating capacity rises from
4,500 to 7,000, which would push total
capacity of the stadium to 54,700.
Plans for a second expansion of Dowdy-
Ficklen, including a new press box and other
work on the south side of the stadium, have
been postponed indefinitely, Bass says.
The other major capital campaign afoot
in the athletics department, the Olympic
sports facilities expansion plan, will begin as
scheduled in June when construction starts
on a new softball stadium. Financed through
gifts and an annual student debt service fee,
the improvements also include new facilities
for the track, soccer and tennis teams.
—Bethany Bradsher
Retired teacher donates $1.5M
The late Geraldine “Gerry” Mayo Beveridge
’39, who taught home economics for Carteret
County Schools for 40 years, left $1.5
million to East Carolina for scholarships for
graduates of four high schools in that area.
Beveridge, who died last year, bequeathed
$1.5 million to East Carolina establish the
scholarship in the name of her husband,
Captain David L. Beveridge. The scholarships
will be awarded to students from Ocracoke,
New Bern, Pamlico and East Carteret high
schools. “We are very honored and humbled
at ECU to receive this generous award from
Mrs. Beveridge,” said Greg Abeyounis, ECU
assistant vice chancellor for development. “As
Finding history where
Raleigh lost his head
If you’re a big fan of Sir Walter Raleigh or
his map-making buddy, Thomas Harriot,
then the Tower of London was the place to
be when 24 of the world’s leading scholars
of the two explorers, including several from
East Carolina, gathered there in January.
Coordinated by ECU and St. John’s College
at the University of Cambridge, the
Raleigh Research Circle, as the 24 scholars
are known, came to the Tower of London
because that’s where Raleigh spent the last
15 years of his life and where he wrote the
first volume of Historie of the World in 1614.
“We were very fortunate that all of the
Raleigh scholars we contacted—whether
in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany or
France—were eager to participate in this
new endeavor,” says ECU professor Larry
Tise, co-organizer of the conference. “This
was probably the largest gathering of Raleigh
aficionados…since the day he was beheaded
in the Old Palace Yard at Westminster in
London on Oct. 29, 1618.”
Raleigh’s works were last published as
a whole in 1829. After two days of
conferences, a consensus emerged that a
new analysis of the explorer’s writings and
works is needed and could be timed for the
400th anniversary of Historie of the World in
2014. ECU professor Frank Romer, chair
of the Department of Foreign Languages,
Literatures and Linguistics, will serve as
general editor of the project.
Harriot, for whom the ECU College of
Arts and Sciences is named, was Raleigh’s
accountant, ship designer and cartographer.
When two of Harriot’s trainees returned
with Raleigh from his first voyage to the New
World in 1584 with two captured natives,
Manteo and Wanchese, Harriot attempted to
learn the Algonkian language from them, even
devising a phonetic alphabet for the language.
The next year, the 25-year-old Harriot
served as cartographer for Raleigh’s second
expedition to Virginia and helped establish
a small colony on Roanoke Island in the
Pamlico Sound. In 1588 Harriot recounted
his experiences and observations in A Briefe
and True Report of the New Found Land of
Virginia—the first book in English about the
New World.
It’s getting tough to get into ECU
It’s getting harder and harder to get into
East Carolina. Higher admission standards
adopted by the Board of Trustees last fall
are kicking in at the same time as a surge in
the number of freshman applications. The
roughly 18,500 who applied for the fall
compares to 15,664 applicants last year, an
18 percent jump.
��It means that admission to ECU has become
more competitive,” said director of enrollment
management Judi Bailey. “While we have
grown in applications, we have not grown
in capacity for classrooms or new faculty or
additional residence hall space. We are having
to admit from the top of the applications.”
The projected grade point averages and SAT
scores of applicants also are increasing. Last
year, the average SAT of students admitted
was 1,046. This fall, the average SAT score is
projected to be 1,075. The average predicted
GPA of admitted freshmen last fall was 2.71;
this year, the number is expected to be 2.75.
These increases indicate that more students
will survive freshman year and remain to
graduate, Bailey said, which bodes well for
the university’s goal of reducing the number
of students who drop out.
The university had to lease rooms from local
apartment complexes last fall to house 300
students from the largest incoming freshman
class in school history, roughly 4,500
students. Officials say it is likely that they will
have to do that again this fall. ECU also has
moved its acceptance date back to May 1.
Until this year, ECU has admitted students
all the way up to the first day of class.
—Greenville Daily Reflector
Stadium expansion on hold
The plan to enlarge Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium
and add private suites has not fallen victim
to the struggling economy, but the Pirate
Club, which is backing the plan financially,
definitely has adopted a wait and see attitude.
Jimmy Bass, senior associate director of
7
Jane Spooner
Cliff Hollis
The Golden Corral restaurant chain and its CEO , James Maynard ’65, donated a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen where a new
generation of chefs will study. The center in the Rivers Building will be used by hospitality management and nutrition students and
for cooking classes open to the public. Chef instructor Jacueline de Chabert-Rios said the new center is a giant improvement from
the 1970s-style kitchen the department did have. The Golden Corral Culinary Center features eight cooking stations with convection
ovens and gas ranges similar to what students will encounter when they graduate and begin working for resorts and hotels, she said.
ECU has the largest hospitality management program in the state and offers three tracks for students: food and beverage, lodging and
convention/event planning.
8 9
the ecu report
a retired teacher from eastern North Carolina
she knew how important education was
to this region and believed her alma mater
was the best place for deserving students
to receive a college education.” Beveridge
also made bequests to Carteret Community
College.
ECU loses a governor
East Carolina has dropped from three to
two alumni serving on the UNC Board of
Governors. J. Craig Souza ’71 of Raleigh,
executive director of the N.C. Health Care
Facilities Association, completed a third four-year
term on the board and was not eligible
for reappointment. There were no ECU
alumni among the new Board of Governors
members elected this spring by the General
Assembly, although current member Phil
Dixon ’71 was reelected by the Senate for
a second term. The other remaining ECU
member of the Board of Governors is
Charles Hayes ’71 ’74, executive director of
the Research Triangle Regional Partnership,
whose current term ends in 2011.
ECU Board of Trustees Chairman Bob
Grecyzn ’73, whose term ends in July, was
nominated in the Senate for one of the
eight seats that chamber fills on the Board
of Governors but he withdrew at the last
moment. There were no ECU alumni
nominated in the House for the eight seats
that chamber fills on the board.
Board of Governors member Dudley
E. Flood of Raleigh, former executive
director of the N.C. Association of School
Administrators and a graduate of N.C. A&T,
holds a master’s degree from East Carolina.
College affiliation is not supposed to be a
consideration for election to the 32-member
Board of Governors; some of the smaller
campuses do not have any alumni currently
serving. Graduates of UNC Chapel Hill
and N.C. State University represent a large
majority of the board.
Dixon and others say they are concerned
more broadly with the fact that only five of
the 32 board members live east of I-95.
Wachovia gift helps teachers
East Carolina’s Second Century Campaign
has raised $130.5 million toward its $200
million goal. Among recent gifts, the
Wachovia Foundation donated $75,000 to
provide additional funding for Wachovia
Partnership East, a program that joins
university and community college resources to
educate teachers in eastern North Carolina.
This contribution supplements Wachovia’s
$1.25 million gift in 2004, one of the largest
corporate gifts ever to the university.
“The Wachovia Partnership East is a natural
extension of our commitment to improving
education,” said Tim Ballance, Greenville
market president and senior vice president,
Wachovia Bank. “We believe providing
a quality education to all children is one
of the most significant issues facing our
country. This program takes a unique long-term
approach to address this challenge by
partnering with area colleges to build a talent
pool of teachers for our communities. We
are pleased to support Wachovia Partnership
East and are excited about the positive
impact this program is having in our region.”
Wachovia Partnership East eases the logistics
of earning a degree for students throughout
eastern North Carolina by enabling them to
take classes close to their homes. Through
19 community colleges, one private two-year
college, one U.S. Air Force Base, and
37 public schools, Wachovia Partnership
East provides an education to people who
might not have access to a degree program
otherwise. Candidates complete the first two
years of a four-year degree at one of the
partnering community colleges and complete
the second half of the program by taking
ECU courses through one of the consortia
hub sites.
“Wachovia Partnership East was designed
to impact the teacher shortage in the rural
communities of North Carolina,” said Dr.
Chris Locklear, on-campus coordinator,
Wachovia Partnership East, and assistant
director, Enrollment Management. “By
recruiting individuals who are rooted in these
communities and providing them with access
to high-quality degree-completion programs,
we are creating a local pool of teachers.”
Since the program’s inception in 2002,
more than 193 students have earned degrees
through Wachovia Partnership East. An
additional 29 students will graduate in
summer 2009.
“Last semester we had three graduates who
worked together as paraprofessionals for
Clinton City Schools,” said Locklear. “All
three were nontraditional students and all
three proved that having full-time jobs,
being place bound, having financial needs,
and fulfilling family responsibilities do not
have to be barriers. Through the support of
their families, the school system, and each
other, they achieved their goal of becoming a
classroom teacher.”
“We are grateful for the Wachovia Foundation
and Wachovia Bank’s support of Wachovia
Partnership East,” said Mickey Dowdy, ECU
vice chancellor for University Advancement.
“The program’s success making professional
development and educational opportunities
easily accessible is a great example of a
successful public-private partnership.”
Each contribution, whether large or small,
has a direct impact on East Carolina
University. Contributions to the Second
Century Campaign may be designated for
the program, college, school, scholarship
or endowment of your choice. For more
information about how you can support the
Second Century Campaign, please call 252-
328-9550 or visit www.ecu.edu/devt.
CyberKnife aids cancer treatment
A new cancer-treatment tool at the Brody
School of Medicine attacks tumors with
nearly exact precision, making treatments more
convenient and comfortable for patients. The
CyberKnife, which began operation at the Leo
W. Jenkins Cancer Center in February, targets
tumors using high doses of radiation from a
linear particle accelerator and a robotic arm
that delivers the radiation beam to any part
of the body from any angle. The CyberKnife
System is the world’s first and only robotic
radiosurgery system designed to noninvasively
treat tumors throughout the body.
The CyberKnife is a pain-free, nonsurgical
option that causes minimal damage to
healthy tissue near a tumor; it also can adapt
to movement of the patient or the tumor.
Because the machine can adjust to such
movements, patients are more comfortable
and less confined during the treatments,
which can last as little as 30 minutes of
actual radiation. Patients can relax and
breathe normally during treatments while the
CyberKnife uses image guidance software to
track and continually adjust treatment. The
CyberKnife can also treat benign tumors or
other conditions anywhere in the body.
“The CyberKnife is critical for several reasons,”
said Dr. Ron Allison, professor and chair of
radiation oncology at the Brody School of
Medicine and director of the cancer center.
“First, in a rural population many cancer
patients are so far from a radiation oncology
clinic that they won’t get treatment. They
can’t make the 10–45 visits required due to
distance, gas costs and being away from home.
For most of these patients, the CyberKnife is
able to treat in one to five visits.”
The precision with which the CyberKnife
targets tumors gives patients new hope for
cancer treatment and cure. Some patients
even feel less pain from their tumors after a
CyberKnife treatment, which indicates that
the radiation worked. Depending on his or
her treatment plan, a patient may return over
several days for more CyberKnife sessions.
ECU could potentially perform 500
treatments yearly using the CyberKnife. One
of four such systems in North Carolina,
ECU’s CyberKnife also can be used as an
educational tool for physicians, medical
students and radiation therapists.
The technology for the CyberKnife was
conceived in 1990 by Dr. John Adler of
Stanford University, and is sold by Accuray
of Sunnyvale, Calif.
—Spaine Stephens
Cliff Hollis
The average salary for an East Carolina
professor rose to $96,700 this academic
year from $94,900 last year, an increase
of less than 2 percent, according to
the annual survey conducted by the
American Association of University
Professors. That is the lowest average
pay for professors among the five
doctoral institutions in the UNC
system. The national average salary for
professors at doctoral institutions this
year is $118,400, an increase of 3.4
percent over last year, the association
said in its annual report.
Faculty members additionally receive,
on average, insurance and other job
benefits worth nearly $22,000.
The association said it collected the
salary and benefit information in the
fall of 2008, before the recession
forced many universities to consider
layoffs, furloughs and other cuts
impacting faculty members’ incomes.
The average salary of ECU associate
professors this year was $76,200; it was
$67,300 for assistant professors and
$57,000 for instructors.
Over the past six years, the AAUP’s
surveys have shown that the growth
in average faculty salaries has barely
exceeded inflation or failed to keep pace.
Professors’ pay rises 2 percent
P r o f e s s o r S a l a r i e s C r e e p U p w a r d
School 2003–04 2007–08 2008–09 Change
East Carolina $ 79,700 $ 94,900 $ 96,700 21.3%
N. C. State 90,900 110,800 114,300 25.7%
UNC Chapel Hill 106,300 138,500 142,700 34.2%
UNC Charlotte 84,000 105,000 109,800 30.7%
UNC Greensboro 81,400 103,200 109,300 34.3%
Source: American Association of University Professors
Ea s t C a r o lina tim e lin e
The gleam fades
Herbert E. Austin, the first
faculty member hired by
President Robert Wright
and his right-hand man for
20 years, dies in 1929 at age
63. A popular professor, he
was head of the Science
Department and coached
the girls’ basketball team
for many years. He famously
inspired students to follow
their dreams by reading
Tennyson’s “Merlin and the
Gleam,” always stressing the
poem’s last stanza, “Follow the Gleam.” It became an anthem read at
graduation exercises from the 1920s to the early 1940s. Upon Austin’s
death, the administration building is named for him; “Old Austin,” as
it became known, was demolished in 1968.
Brody rises
Four years after the
legislature appropriated $43
million for a new medical
school building at East
Carolina and two years
after the first med students
enrolled, construction begins
in March 1979 on a nine-story
building adjacent to Pitt
County Memorial Hospital.
It opens in mid-1982. Gifts
from the Brody family help
the fledgling med school
grow, support that eventually
reaches $22 million by 2000 when it’s renamed the Brody School of Medicine. At the
ribbon-cutting for the Brody Medical Sciences Building are, left to right, John Howell,
Sammy Brody, Leo Brody, Gov. Jim Hunt, President Leo Jenkins and William Laupus.
Images courtesy University Archives
Student transit begins
An activist student
government association leads
an effort to start a campus
bus system, and persuades
students in a referendum to
direct $1.50 of their activity
fees to pay for it. In March
1969, two rented buses start
cruising campus and nearby
shopping areas from 7:30 a.m.
to 4 p.m. One route swings
around the main campus to
Minges Coliseum and through
the boys’ dorms; the other
route runs through the main
campus and the girls’ dorms.
The buses are so popular that
a third one is soon added.
Campus catches football fever
Construction of East Carolina’s
first real football venue,
College Stadium, begins in
the summer of 1949 and the
2,000-seat facility hosts its
first home game that fall, a
24-0 victory over the Cherry
Point Marines. Leo Jenkins
is inaugurated at College
Stadium in May 1960 in what
was then the biggest crowd
in school history. Located just
north of where the Brewster
Building now stands, College
Stadium is used just 13
seasons, replaced by the much
larger Ficklen Stadium in 1962.
80
YE ARS AGO 30
YE ARS AGO 40
YE ARS AGO 60
YE ARS AGO
the ecu report
Budget ax about to fall
East Carolina is preparing for an additional
7 percent cut in state funding for the fiscal
year beginning July 1, a loss of roughly $25
million that would trim operating budgets
throughout the campus and eliminate 137
jobs, including 73 faculty members. The
university had managed to avoid layoffs
when, at the direction of UNC President
Erskine Bowles, it trimmed spending by
$20.6 million in the current fiscal year as the
recession took hold, but officials said that
job losses now are all but inevitable because
salaries are 80 percent of the budget.
In budget planning documents ECU
submitted to the Board of Governors,
achieving a 7 percent cut in spending would
require eliminating 119 positions on Main
Campus, including 63 faculty positions; and
28 positions on the Health Sciences Campus,
including 10 faculty positions. Among the
staff positions eyed for elimination are jobs
in housekeeping, landscaping, accounting,
administrative support and environmental
health and training. Also on the chopping
block are a few top administrative posts,
including a position in the dean of students’
office. The plan envisions the loss of 23
graduate assistants with a corresponding
decrease of 46 lab sections.
Reducing faculty will result in larger classes,
particularly for freshmen and sophomores.
The cuts also will impact staffing for student
recruitment, administrative and technology
support for the faculty, and academic advising.
The School of Nursing would have to cut the
number of students seeking undergraduate
and graduate degrees by 15 percent, according
to information ECU submitted to the Board
of Governors. The medical school clinic
would have to reduce its operating hours. The
book budget for the Laupus Library would be
cut nearly in half.
The plan also anticipates sharply reduced
funding, or possibly even the elimination,
of two centers on campus, the Institute for
Coastal Science and Policy and the Center
for Security Studies and Research. Degree
programs serving just a few students may
well be eliminated. ECU has had a hiring
freeze for months now; spending on travel
and other nonessentials has been eliminated.
Bowles is asking legislators not to cut the
university budget by more than 5 percent
and that all of it be taken from nonrecurring
funds. He also wants each campus to be
given wide latitude in implementing the
cuts. Bowles said that a 7 percent cut would
force the elimination of 1,600 jobs at the 16
UNC campuses.
The budget that Gov. Beverly Perdue
submitted to the General Assembly does
include an increase of $4 million for East
Carolina to offset the losses sustained by the
medical school practice plan in providing
indigent care. Last year, East Carolina
provided more than $9.5 million worth of
medical care to patients who could not pay.
State appropriations account for 35 percent
of East Carolina’s budget, or about $268
million last fiscal year. Student tuition and
fees account for 16 percent of revenue and
those will be going up again this fall. Tuition
for in-state students will rise 1.9 percent, or
$71, an increase that comes on the heels of a
2.8 percent increase last year. That’s less than
the average 3.9 percent increase authorized
for the 16 UNC campuses.
The student athletics fee will go up $15 to
$496, the health services fee will rise $10
to $230 but the student activity fee will
remain the same at $593. ECU also raised
the cost of graduate school in the College
of Business by $720 a year, to $4,795 a
semester, and the Brody School of Medicine
by $1,000 a year, to $8,213 a semester.
Tuition for out-of-state undergraduates
will rise 2.8 percent to $13,325 a semester.
Medical school tuition for new out-of-state
students will be $33,203 a semester.
Kacy Guill Old films decay, history is lost
More than 1,000 reels of black and
white film shot at campus events in the
1950s, ’60s and ’70s are slowly but
surely disintegrating in the Joyner Library
archives. Most are movies of mundane
activities but some are truly surprising,
such as the one showing Edward R.
Murrow as the 1963 commencement
speaker. And as each aging spool of
film becomes brittle, cracks and decays,
University Archivist and Records Manager
Kacy Guill knows a little bit of ECU
history is lost.
“We have just stacks and stacks of these
old reels of mostly 16 millimeter film
and all of them will decay beyond any
use unless we preserve them chemically
and then digitize them so they can be
opened to academic research,” Guill says.
The only film that has been preserved
that way, she adds, is the one of the 1970
Marshall football game shot from the
press booth. It was a gift from the studio
that produced the movie We Are Marshall about the tragic plane crash following the
game. The studio used brief segments
from the film in the movie and returned a
preserved, digitized copy.
In the stacks are an early 1960s
instructional film for drivers ed teachers,
movies of homecoming parades, and
countless football games and other sports
events. A good many show Leo Jenkins
bestowing awards, accepting donations and
glad-handing visiting dignitaries. Other
boxes contain reels of educational shows
produced by East Carolina in the early days
of using television for distance education.
With no money budgeted to pay for the
preservation work, Guill is applying for
state and federal grants. “This isn’t terribly
expensive. I would guess that it would take
$1,000 or less per film,” she says.
Step one of the preservation process is
simply to remove the film from the metal
spools and substitute plastic ones. Metal
spools rust over time and the iron oxide
degrades the film. Step two is bathing the
film in a special chemical that makes it
pliable and preserves the images. Finally,
the film is fed into a computer to digitize
each frame.
“We have a little of everything here,” says
Guill as she gestures toward row upon row
of boxes stored in the University Archives
stacks on the third floor of Joyner Library.
“This is a window into the past, and all of
it is slowly but surely decaying.”
13
Big River rol s int o town
A tighter budget is having an impact on
some of East Carolina’s summer performing
arts programs. The main example: the ECU/
Loessin Summer Theatre series will produce
only one play, Big River, a musical adapted
from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
With music and lyrics by the late Roger
Miller, Big River is a Tony Award-winning
retelling of the story of Huck Finn and the
runaway slave Jim as they raft along the
Mississippi River. Miller’s score combines
elements of country music, jazz and gospel
styling.
The production, scheduled June 16–27,
marks a return to the familiar setting of
McGinnis Theatre, now that renovation work
on the fly system, sound system and exterior
landscaping to the Art Deco building have
been completed. Summer Theatre staged
three plays in the Turnage Theater in
Washington last year while the renovations
to McGinnis proceded.
Big River will run for 12 performances, which
is more than the usual summer play, with 8
p.m. shows on all dates except June 21 and
June 22 (dark). Two shows will be staged
June 20 and June 27 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
—Steve Row
Let’s go to camp !
Summer is the time for camps of all kinds on
campus. While most are for teenagers, some
attract people of all ages, like the annual
summer guitar workshop. Go to the School
of Music’s web site, www.ecu.edu/music, for
more information about:
Drama Camp
ECU’s annual summer drama camp, which
runs this year from July 27–Aug. 1, is open
to young people ages 7–10, 11–13 and 14–18.
Participants receive training in beginning
acting and performance techniques. A “Final
Share” day on the last Saturday allows
participants to show off their work to family
and friends. The camp offers half-day and
full-day programs.
Guitar Workshop
Running from July 11–14, the annual summer
guitar workshop is open to students of all
levels who want to improve their skills on the
classical guitar. Nationally and internationally
known concert artists and teachers make up
the faculty, and many also perform in recital.
Band Camp
The June 14–19 band camp is an annual
program designed for musicians in
grades six through 12. Participants have
opportunities for instruction in full concert
band, small ensemble and solo performing.
The camp also provides special coaching in
jazz performance techniques.
Choral Conducting Institute
The institute, set for June 21–26, is a weeklong
program for those interested in developing
their skills as artists, musicians and choral
leaders. Participants attend seminars and
master classes on conducting and take part
in ensemble singing. The institute has a paid
resident choir; participants also are exposed
to great choral literature that can be used
in local programs. The institute coincides
with the ECU Summer Choral Camp, which
attracts seventh-grade through 12th-grade
singers. Instruction focuses on vocal skills,
music reading and aural perception of music.
The session concludes with a concert with the
Choral Conducting Institute.
Suzuki Institute
The Suzuki Method is taught at this institute,
which is scheduled in several segments
between July 3 and July 11. An “Every Child
Can” session is scheduled July 3; the teacher
development courses for Violin Unit 1 and
advanced chamber music institute will take
place July 4–11. The student institute is
scheduled July 5–10.
Knight s of th e Blac k Flag
If you find yourself in Raleigh this summer and have a free hour, be sure
to drop by the N. C. Museum of History and take in “Knights of the Black
Flag,” an impressive exhibit that contrasts the brutal realities of the
violent life that Pirates lived with romanticized images of swashbuckling
adventurers prevalent in popular culture. Interactive displays trace
pirating all the way back to ancient Egypt but the more impressive
items are from the classical age of pirating in the late 1700s when
Stede Bonnet, Anne Bonny, Mary Read and the most famous pirate of
all—Blackbeard—prowled the North Carolina coast.
The exhibit boasts the largest collection of artifacts ever displayed from
the shipwreck believed to be Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s
Revenge. Most of these items were recovered over the last five years by
East Carolina researchers and preserved at the Queen Anne’s Revenge
Conservation Lab on the West Research Campus. The preservation effort
is a joint project by ECU and the N. C. Department of Cultural Resources.
Hundreds of artifacts, including cannons, a ship’s bell and gold dust,
are on display from the Queen Anne’s Revenge, which ran aground in
Beaufort Inlet in 1718 and was discovered in 1996. Videos accompanying
the exhibit show underwater archaeologists at the shipwreck site
working to conserve one of the largest pirate ships ever to sail the
Spanish Main. Also on display are items discovered in the ruins of
Blackbeard’s purported house in Bath. Legends surround another
compelling artifact in the exhibit: the alleged skull of Blackbeard, which
is on loan from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.
The exhibit allows young visitors to step inside a pirate’s life, to handle
pirate weapons, to capture ships and try on pirate clothes. They can
watch for pirates from the crow’s nest, defend their ship from a pirate
attack, and experience firsthand what it was like to be a pirate.
The History Museum exhibit essentially is the traveling road show
version of one mounted by the N. C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort.
Behind both exhibits is Mike Carraway BFA ’78, who is the Maritime
Museum’s exhibit designer and an expert on all things Blackbeard.
The exhibit will be on view through the end of the year. The History
Museum, located on Jones Street in downtown Raleigh. is open Monday
through Saturday, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., and Sundays from noon–5:00
p.m. Admission is $5, $4 for seniors; children are free.
—Steve Tuttle
Adapted from the novel by Mark Twain Book by William Hauptmann
Lyrics by Roger Miller Music by Roger Miller
June 16–27, 2009 McGinnis Theatre
ECU Campus, Greenville, NC
09-370 Summer Theatre BR.indd 1 3/25/09 4:09:40 PM
Rhett Butler, courtesy The Daily Reflector
2 0 0 9 S U M M E R A R T S C A L E N D A R
14 15
The New Hands
of Medicine
Health care used to be
delivered by three people—
a doctor, a nurse and a
pharmacist. Now many other
specialists have joined the
team to deliver care focused
not just on saving lives but
making life better.
16
The last place
Miriam Lilja could
have imagined
herself was in the
emergency room
at Pitt County
Memorial Hospital.
Yes, she’s 90 but
Lilja is a slim and
athletic woman who
takes water aerobics
classes with others
half her age. She
practices Tai Chi
for balance and
strength. Still, there
she was under the
fluorescent lights
of an examination
room, waiting to
be stitched up after
falling at her Bethel
home.
For many older
adults, falls like
Lilja’s start a cycle
of decline that
robs them of their
independence piece
by piece as their
activities become
more and more limited. Statistics show
that when someone falls twice in six
months—a hip fracture, a head injury—
and they are left unchecked, it’s almost
certain they will fall again.
One in three Americans 65 and older suffer
a fall each year. Five percent fracture a hip,
and while nine out of 10 will survive, half
will never regain the mobility they had.
Many go from living independently to
assisted living. And they’re the lucky ones.
Falls are the leading cause of accidental
death in older adults. Every 18 seconds,
an older adult is treated in a hospital for a
fall, and every 35 minutes someone dies as
a result of such injuries, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hopefully, Lilja will escape that fate. She’s
enrolled in a new falls prevention clinic
at East Carolina University where faculty
and students in the College of Allied
Health Sciences are helping seniors remain
independent, recover more quickly, avoid
long hospital stays and possibly side step
the high cost of long-term care. Thanks to
innovative programs like this one, what was
once seen as an inevitable part of getting
older is now seen as a treatable condition. In
the past Lilja probably would have been told
to slow down and rest; now she’s looking
forward to more exercise classes because
research shows that
older adults who
stay active avoid
future falls.
The therapists
treating Liljia are
among the many new
hands of medicine
supplementing
traditional caregivers
like doctors and
nurses. These
graduates of the
College of Allied
Health Sciences
(CAHS) are in
high demand in
today’s health
care system that is
dominated by aging
baby boomers who
expect to maintain
their lifestyles.
Physical therapists,
occupational
therapists and
physician assistants
are the most
plentiful of these
new providers.
Others are less well
known because they work behind the scenes
in labs—the clinical lab scientists, the health
information and health services management
specialists, rehabilitation specialists, and
others who treat speech disorders.
Through them, medicine is bringing
solutions to once devastating impediments,
enabling people of all ages to confront
illness, injury, aging, disability and even
addiction. Allied health professionals work
in some unexpected fields—such as using
animals to help autistic children learn to
relate to their world. Whatever their specific
title, all CAHS graduates strive to do one
thing: improve a person’s quality of life.
If health care once meant saving a life,
today’s allied health professions aim to make
sure that life is a good one. Expanding the
mission of health care is central to allied
health professions, making programs like
ECU’s even more important.
“Because of the nature of health problems
today, especially with older people who
have chronic conditions, it takes a team of
professionals from different areas to provide
this level of care,” says Thomas Elwood,
executive director of the Association of
Schools of Allied Health Professionals in
Washington, D.C., of which CAHS is a
member. “As health care becomes more
complex it’s necessary for people to have
more advanced levels of education,” he adds.
ECU graduates more members of that
team than any school in North Carolina,
and the 42-year-old program continues
growing by leaps and bounds. More than
half of all occupational therapists, a third
of all physical therapists and a quarter of
all physician assistants practicing in North
Carolina trained at East Carolina. CAHS
is advancing programs such as the clinical
doctorate in physical therapy, the first degree
of its kind in the state. The college also
offers a doctorate in communication sciences
and disorders, as well as a doctorate in
rehabilitation counseling and administration.
These pioneering programs place ECU
among the leading players in training
professionals for a new health model.
“A college like ours is a collective,” says
Dean Stephen Thomas. “We bring together
smaller but significant health professions
under one roof.”
Allied health care professionals now
outnumber both nurses and doctors. Of
the roughly 319,000 health care jobs in
North Carolina today, 36 percent are allied
health professionals. The field is growing
rapidly and creating thousands of new jobs.
“There will be a critical shortage of allied
health professionals to meet the growing
aging population,” Thomas says. Addressing
this demand for such specialists requires
“colleges that are extremely diverse,” Thomas
B y C r y s t a l B a i t y a n d M a r i o n B l a c k bu r n
Cliff Hollis
E a s t The Magazine of easT Carolina UniversiTy
The New
Hands of
Medic ine
suMMer 2009
About the cover Suffering a stroke or traumatic brain injury
often leaves patients with hand movements
can be jerky or off target. To learn how to
overcome that, occupational therapy graduate
students conducted studies in the CAHS
motion analysis lab by placing markers on a
patient’s hand. As the patient squeezes the
ball, special cameras capture the movements
and feed them into a computer for analysis.
The study helped identify standardized tests
that clinics can use to accurately measure a
person’s ability to feel, touch or lift objects
following an injury.
18 19
ALLIED HEALTH PROFESSIONS, 36%
NURSE AIDES, ORDERLIES, ATTENDANTS, 28%
REGISTERED NURSES, 23%
LICENSED PRACTICAL NURSES, 5%
PHYSICIANS, 5%
OTHER, 3%
Note: “Other” includes chiropractors, dentists, optometrists, and pharmacists.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics (2006). www.bls.gov/oes/
ALLIED HEALTH ACCOUNTS
FOR MORE THAN ONE THIRD
OF ALL N.C. HEALTH CARE JOBS
(TOTAL HEALTH CARE JOBS = 318,630)
adds. “But if you put all the groups together,
they deal holistically with the individual.”
Service, engagement, research
CAHS students believe in community
service. Faculty and supervised graduate
students in communication sciences and
disorders, the largest CAHS department,
provide diagnostics and therapy to more
than 3,000 children and adults each year in
ECU’s speech language and hearing clinic.
They also provide balance assessments, and
evaluation and fittings for the SpeechEasy
anti-stuttering device, invented by faculty
Joseph Kalinowski, Michael Rastatter and
Andrew Stuart.
Physical therapy students provide services in
combination with ECU Physicians, the Brody
School of Medicine’s Child Healthy Weight
Project, and gait and balance assessment for
BSOM and Pitt County Memorial Hospital.
Project Working Recovery, developed and
operated by rehabilitation studies, helps
unemployed or underemployed recovering
substance abusers find meaningful work as a
means to sustain sobriety.
“Students are learning in-house first, under
close supervision, to make sure clients and
patients receive the best services,” Thomas
explains. “Every lab you go into here is a
simulation. Every room has to look like
what exists in a hospital or clinic. When
our students go to work, employers are not
expecting to train these students but hone
the skills they already have.”
Research is directed at solving real-life
problems from reading disorders to
improved function following a stroke to the
challenges of older drivers. “The college is
truly representative of ECU’s commitment
to community service. The faculty, staff
and students are engaged in service activities
throughout eastern North Carolina and
provide health care services that are vital to
the health and well being of our citizens,”
says Phyllis Horns, vice chancellor for health
sciences.
Outreach and engagement are put to practice
in the Tillery Wellness Project, where
students and occupational therapy faculty
are immersed in addressing health disparities
in the small northeastern North Carolina
town. In conjunction with BSOM’s family
ECU lead s th e state in producing
most in -demand ali ed health professions*
School OT PT PA
Du ke University Medical Center 	 130 40
East Carolina University 383 500 54
Elon University 	 106
Lenoir-Rhyne College 91
	
Methodist College 		 23
UNC Chapel Hill 184 536
Wake Forest University 		 76
Western Carolina University 	 137
Winston-Salem State University 88 137
Total graduates of N.C. schools 746 1546 193
Total practicing in N.C. 967 4,223 3,054
Percent of all N.C. grads who graduated from ECU 51.2% 32.3% 28.0%
Percent of all practitioners who graduated from ECU 39.6% 11.8% 1.8%
*Data for occupational therapists, physical therapists and physician assistants
Source: Sheps Center for Health Services Research, UNC Chapel Hill. Includes data through 10/31/07
medicine department, CAHS’s occupational
therapy and physical therapy departments
developed a falls risk screening clinic. It’s
there that older adults like Lilja who’ve been
treated for fall-related injuries are referred
for assessment. CAHS sponsors the annual
Jean Mills Health Symposium focused on
rural, underserved and minority populations.
Several CAHS faculty are conducting
National Institutes of Health-funded
research, while others are nationally known
experts in their fields. The rehabilitation
counseling graduate program is consistently
ranked in the top 20 by U.S. News & World
Report; the communication sciences and
disorders department is ranked in the top
10 in a national study of faculty scholarly
productivity.
The beginning
East Carolina launched what then was
known as the Life Sciences and Community
Health Institute in 1967, about the same
time it began exploring founding a medical
school to serve a region severely lacking
health care providers. In less than a year
the name changed to the School of Allied
Health Professions and Medical Education
Center. Dr. Edwin Monroe, a Greenville
physician, became the first dean. The school’s
first degrees were in medical technology and
social welfare. The first students graduated
in 1973, and today there are more than 350
program alumni.
ECU received approval in 1969 to develop
programs in physical therapy, occupational
therapy and medical record science. Monroe
recruited George Hamilton to begin the
physical therapy department with the
mission of serving the community through
physical therapy programs in hospitals and
clinics throughout the region. Hamilton,
who retired in 1995, remembers those early
days: “So many places had no services at all.”
The baccalaureate program began with five
students, grew to 12 in the first 10 years
and now graduates 30 a year, having moved
from a master’s to doctoral degree. Today,
there are about 150 physical therapists and
40 physical therapy assistants in Pitt County
alone, Hamilton points out.
In 1972, rehabilitation counseling and
speech language pathology transferred from
20 21
the School of Education to allied
health. The expanding division needed
more space, a need filled when it
moved to the Carol G. Belk Building
that summer. Dr. Ronald Thiele, a
pediatrician in Nashville, Tenn., was
recruited as dean in January 1972 and
served 19 years. Monroe became vice
chancellor for health affairs, which
included allied health sciences, nursing
and the new medical school.
Thiele was instrumental in creating
a biostatistics and epidemiology
program. Social welfare, later named
social work, became a separate school
in 1983. Environmental health would
move to the School of Industry and
Technology in 1999. “It was a fun
time and all done with awfully good
people,” Thiele recalls. “The people
are the important thing. You can do
anything with good people.”
Thiele’s successor, Harold Jones,
joined the school as the third dean
in 1992, and began work to raise
awareness of allied health sciences on
campus and in the community. During
his tenure, enrollment grew 70 percent,
the number of programs increased,
the first doctoral-level program in
communication sciences and disorders
in the state was approved, the first
state university physician assistant
department began and the state’s first
distance education-based programs in
allied health were offered. Today, about
one in six students entering ECU
declares allied health as their major.
Soon, the Belk Building couldn’t hold
all the new programs, an overcrowding
solved by the 2000 statewide higher
education bond referendum. In 2006
ECU opened a new four-story health
sciences building that brought all
allied health departments under one
roof for the first time in 20 years.
The additional classrooms, labs and
research space have again helped spur
record enrollment under Thomas, who
Dr. Stephen Thomas’ pitch to students
considering a health care career is direct and
simple. His straightforward approach is just
one of the many qualities admired by those
who work with him and who have known him
for years.
“You don’t have to go into medicine or nursing
to have a great career in health care,” says
Thomas, dean of the College of Allied Health
Sciences. Thomas often explains to prospective
students what allied health is by listing its
varied job titles—physical therapist to speech
language pathologist to health information
administrator. Some have patient contact, some
don’t, but all are in demand. “There are a lot of
things you can do. There isn’t a profession that
doesn’t have a shortage.”
Thomas has steered the college through record
enrollment, the addition of master’s and doctoral
programs, budget cuts, university leadership
changes, the construction and move to a new
building on the Health Sciences Campus and
re-designation from school to college.
“Steve Thomas is an incredibly capable
administrator who has the knowledge, experience
and personal style needed for this challenging
leadership role. His college is a large, complex
and diverse academic unit with programs that
address critical health care workforce shortages,”
says Dr. Phyllis Horns, vice chancellor for
health sciences and former longtime dean of
the College of Nursing. “He has managed
the growing demands for more graduates with
skill and a sustained commitment to quality
education and clinical competency. He is
certainly one of the most respected deans on
this campus and among his peers in allied health
science schools across the country.”
Thomas came to ECU in 1980 as the third
faculty member in the rehabilitation studies
department with then department chair and
professor emeritus Dr. Shel Downes and current
department chair Dr. Paul Alston. Thomas
was recruited to start and direct the vocational
evaluation master’s degree program.
Vocational evaluators assist individuals
who are disabled or disadvantaged
to identify appropriate education,
training, jobs and career paths in order
to improve overall quality of health.
“We were extremely lucky to attract
him when he was finishing his
doctorate,” Alston says. “It’s really
been a great match for the university
and for Steve.”
Dr. Edwin Monroe, a physician and
the first dean of allied health sciences,
says Thomas is a good listener who
“has been around here long enough
to have a sense of what’s important to
this region, and he is a leader.” They
first met serving on a local vocational
center board.
“I was impressed then not only with
his youth and height but his quick
grasp of problems and working toward
solutions,” Monroe adds.
Before ECU, Thomas held academic,
research and administrative positions
with the University of Arizona in
Tucson, the University of Wisconsin-
Stout in Menomonie and the
University of Texas Medical Branch
in Galveston.
A Texas native, Thomas earned his
doctoral and master’s degree in
rehabilitation from the University of
Arizona and his bachelor’s degree in
psychology and sociology from Texas
Christian University in Fort Worth.
Thomas was well-known in vocational
evaluation and assessment before he
became dean. He helped establish
a national certification process for
vocational evaluators and work
adjustment professionals, and served on
the commission created to oversee it.
His monograph for vocational
evaluators on how to write reports is
still cited today. “When we provide
services, we must document those
services, and he wrote about how to do
that. It’s so old he talks about dictation.
The technology may be outdated, but
the basic premise and content is still
current,” says Dr. Steven R. Sligar,
who joined ECU as assistant professor
and director of graduate programs in
vocational evaluation after Thomas
was appointed interim dean in 2001.
They first met in the 1970s when both
worked in Texas.
Dr. Tom Bacon, program director for
NC Area Health Education Centers,
has worked with Thomas both in his
role as dean and on several statewide
initiatives with the NC Council on
Allied Health. Thomas is vice chair of
the council.
“He has collaborated with other
universities and agencies to bring
greater awareness statewide to the
vital role that the allied health fields
have in improving the health of
North Carolinians,” Bacon said.
“He brings an important state and
national perspective in articulating
the allied health workforce needs we
have as a state.”
Thomas has served as president of state
and national rehabilitation associations
and chair of his national professional
certification commission. He serves on
the board of the Eastern Area Health
Education Center, the ECU Medical
& Health Sciences Foundation, and
the N.C. Agromedicine Institute. He
is a member of the N.C. Institute
of Medicine, and secretary of the
Southern Association of Allied Health
Deans in Academic Health Centers.
Part of Thomas’ administrative
philosophy is to give his faculty and
staff the resources and support they
need to do their job. Then he steps
back and lets them do it. “I think it
makes a real difference, and recognizes
and respects what they do,” Thomas
says. “I have absolutely the greatest
faculty and staff.”
—Crystal Baity
“One of the most respected deans on campus”
Former and present
deans Edwin Monroe
and Stephen Thomas
22 23
was appointed interim dean when Jones left
in 2001 and permanent dean in 2003.
Today’s students
CAHS now has eight departments, 794
students and 110 faculty and staff and is
one of the fastest growing, most complex
and diverse on campus. Enrollment is up 71
percent since 2001. About 60 percent of
students entering the college last fall were at
the master’s and doctoral levels. Allied health
received more than 1,300 applications last
fall for undergraduate and graduate school,
and admitted 322 students. Twenty-four
percent of all those applicants were CAHS
undergraduates.
For Greg Antal of Taylorsville, the
combination of a public university, a new
facility and the opportunity to do research
in a state-of-the-art lab sealed his decision to
attend ECU’s highly demanding three-year
doctoral program in physical therapy. He
attends classes four to six hours weekdays all
year round. He leaves campus for 32 weeks
in clinical rotations interspersed within
the curriculum, says Dr. Walter L. Jenkins,
associate professor and associate chair of
physical therapy. “A large percentage of what
we do is laboratory-based teaching,” Jenkins
adds. “Eventually students will get paid to
put their hands on people, to examine them
and treat them.”
The new Health Sciences Building gives
Physical Therapy, which had been in a
mobile unit, two large teaching labs and three
research labs. “We are no longer encumbered
by our facilities. Our facilities now enhance
our ability to teach and we are able to do the
research necessary to keep us on top of our
profession,” Jenkins said.
Every student is involved in research, as it
has been since the program began. Being able
to engage students is a point of pride among
faculty. “The faculty has a genuine concern
for us to achieve, and to be well-rounded
physical therapists,” says Antal, 24. “The
faculty is very approachable. They have an
open door policy. I know they want us to
succeed and they care about our success.”
Antal is studying fall prevention and fall
risk assessment in the elderly population
and multisensory integration with Dr. Leslie
Allison, assistant professor of physical
therapy. “It’s a huge research area because
so much of our health care money goes to
fall-related injuries,” Antal says. “If someone
breaks a hip, often that’s the beginning of a
gradual decline. That’s why we’re looking at
preventing these falls from happening. We
want to give them appropriate prevention and
balance training so they don’t incur a fall.”
When Antal graduates next May, he plans
to work in an outpatient clinic somewhere
in North Carolina in orthopedic and
neurological rehabilitation. “There is more
a demand than we can supply. I don’t know
what the job market is going to do, but we’re
still going to be in need,” he says.
Another profession with dramatic workforce
shortages is clinical laboratory science,
the smallest department in CAHS. “Most
people don’t know that 70 percent of
diagnosis and treatment decisions are made
by medical lab tests,” says Dr. Richard
Bamberg, department chair. “You don’t
just put a sample in a machine and push a
button. You have to have someone to tell if
it’s accurate, valid and reliable results.”
The shortages are so extreme that medical
technologists are beginning to see offers
of sign-on bonuses, relocation and tuition
assistance, incentives typically seen in
nursing, Bamberg says. “Nationally all the
clinical laboratory science programs together
are producing half of the number of
vacancies,” he adds.
Novice Hoskins is a rising senior and
registered nurse who first became interested
in clinical laboratory science working as a
phlebotomist. She will graduate in 2010,
with an eye to medical school one day.
Evaluating a blood cell count for infection
or identifying a microorganism is some of
the behind-the-scenes work that a medical
technologist does. “People don’t know how
that works. When I tell people I’m going
into clinical lab science, they say, you already
know how to do it (because she’s a nurse).
It’s frustrating. The profession I’m going
into now, you actually perform the test, not
just collect the specimen. I’m performing
the tests that I use as a nurse to take care of
my patients.”
The department now offers a five-year
degree curriculum with biology. Students
study biology three years, then transition
to clinical laboratory science for their final
two years and earn a double degree. “This
is particularly good for pre-med majors,”
Bamberg says.
Many CAHS alumni have enjoyed stellar
careers. Goldsboro native Jason Ezzelle
graduated with a degree in clinical laboratory
science in 1997. He took an entry-level
position at PPD, a Wilmington-based
contract research organization, monitoring
clinical research sites and collecting data
as part of research study protocols. He
introduced the idea of monitoring labs,
which quickly took off as a new service
line for the company. Before long, he was
traveling 75 percent of his time, often to
developing nations inspecting labs. “It’s
been an incredibly rewarding career,” says
Ezzelle, now PPD’s senior project manager
in the global laboratory services group.
“We do regional workshop training for labs
worldwide. It touches thousands of clinical
laboratory scientists.”
Katina Eley was one of 20 students in ECU’s
first class of physician assistant studies.
After graduating in 1999, she went back
home to Ahoskie to practice in obstetrics
and gynecology. “I chose to go back to
Ahoskie because I wanted to give back to my
community,” Eley says. “It brings me joy to
know that I have helped someone, whether it
is practicing preventive medicine or helping
to cure a problem presented to me.”
Challenges and responses
As the population ages, allied health profes­sionals
will continue playing a significant
role in health care delivery, especially in rural
areas. “There are not enough doctors to take
care of everybody, and not everybody needs a
doctor,” Thiele says.
Growth in the college will level off only
“because we are filling the building,” Thomas
jokes. CAHS also is challenged to find
enough clinical training sites for students, a
prerequisite to graduation for most degrees.
The college already works with more than
700 clinical centers, mainly in North
Carolina but also in other states.
Distance education is growing to offer
coursework to as many students off campus
as possible. CAHS is also considering an
allied health dental program as part of ECU’s
new School of Dentistry. Communication
sciences and disorders is beginning a
new project with the Wounded Warrior
battalion at Camp Lejeune to assess and
manage soldiers with balance disorders.
The department also has begun an aphasia
support group for people who have trouble
communicating because of stroke or brain
injury. In health services and information
management, a new graduate certificate is
being offered and a master’s degree is being
planned in health informatics, a burgeoning
field in the electronic management of health
care data.
Occupational therapy graduate students Cara
Wiseman and Scott Cormier are conducting
trials in the motion analysis lab on the effect
of mental practice. In one exercise, subjects
are asked to think about building a pyramid
with cups before they actually build it. Then
they are asked to build it multiple times. “It’s
similar to shooting a free throw,” Wiseman
explains. “You think about it before you do
it. Then you do it.”
Investigators are looking at the implications
that this concept of mental practice has for
different age groups and for people who have
suffered strokes or brain injuries, and those
with no injuries. “We are already seeing
improvement with the older age group,” said
Cormier, who hopes to work with injured
veterans after graduation.
No doubt research will play an important
role in the future of innovative programs
in the allied health sciences—and the
improved quality of life for generations to
come. “Being an aging baby boomer myself,”
Thomas says. “I have a vested interest in the
thorough preparation of our graduates that
all of us will someday rely on to provide
excellent care and extend our quality of life.”
East
24 25
Solving problems, settling in
After leading
East Carolina
through
five years of
frenetic growth
and change,
Steve Ballard
considered
leaving Greenville
but then decided
ECU still ‘is the
best fit for me.’
The feeling
seems mutual.
Wright Auditorium was
packed for the 2004
fall faculty convocation
because everyone wanted
to hear what East Carolina’s new chancellor
would say about the recent upheavals on
campus. His predecessor, William Muse, had
resigned under a cloud following two critical
internal audits, and the provost had been
reassigned over concerns about his hiring
practices. When Steve Ballard came to the
podium he addressed the controversy much
the same way he fielded grounders on his
college baseball team: never back up.
“It is our responsibility to earn the public
trust and to keep that trust,” Ballard said.
“There is nothing more valuable to our
long-term growth than to be known as an
institution that can be trusted and that openly
acknowledges and corrects its mistakes.”
Five years later, the Muse controversies
have faded and East Carolina obviously has
regained the public trust, as evidenced by
the huge investments the state is making
here for new classroom buildings, the
School of Dentistry, the Heart Institute,
the Family Medicine Center and other
expensive projects. The public perception
of ECU these days more often is defined
by its acknowledged successes in easing the
shortage of classroom teachers and health
care providers, attacking obesity and other
health disparities, promoting economic
development in the East and widening
college access through distance education.
Even the football team is winning again.
How did East Carolina get from there
to here in five short years? According to
observers we consulted, it’s because Ballard,
60, followed through on a promise he made
to the faculty that day: “We must get the
right people on the bus and then make sure
those people are working together—with
each other, certainly with the faculty and
with our community and constituents.”
In one of his first meetings with the Board
of Trustees, Ballard identified 10 leadership
positions he intended to fill with his own
team. Today, a number of top administrators
and most the deans are people Ballard hired,
occasionally after easing someone out of
the job who didn���t meet his standards. His
personnel decisions have been proactive and
decisive, such as when—just a few months
on the job—he aborted a national search
for a new athletic director and brought in
Terry Holland. Most of the people Ballard
put “on the bus” came from outside ECU
but he turned to two campus veterans—both
women—to sit up front and help steer.
27
He moved Marilyn Sheerer from dean of
education to provost and Phyllis Horns ’69
from dean of nursing to vice chancellor for
health sciences. Also taking a seat up front
was another woman, Deirdre Mageean,
whom he brought in as vice chancellor for
research and graduate studies. Most recently,
he hired Paul Cunningham as the first
African-American dean of a North Carolina
medical school.
The planning and funding for the campus
construction boom fueled by $190 million
in state higher education bonds already was
in place when he arrived, but Ballard oversaw
the projects and brought them home on
time and budget. East Carolina became the
fastest-growing campus in the UNC system
and will start the fall semester with more
than 28,000 students, an increase of about
6,000 students in five years.
A typical comment one hears about Ballard
is that he is a top-notch administrator
and a nimble fixer of the myriad problems
that inevitably crop up in an enterprise of
over 5,000 employees. Observers give him
credit for hiring good people, giving them
a mission and then turning them loose to
accomplish specific goals. He constantly
stresses teamwork, as you might expect a
former athlete would do.
The only criticism one hears is that he isn’t
as visible in the Greenville community and
in state leadership circles as many would
like. The trustees made a friendly suggestion
that he join a local civic club. But those who
wish Ballard enjoyed a higher profile say
they feel that way only because they see him
as the most effective representative of the
university. “He’s our thousand-watt bulb,”
one prominent Pirate said. “We want him to
shine.” This could partly be cultural: Ballard’s
Midwestern reserve adjusting to life in a
beach music and barbecue town.
Ballard caused some consternation in
late January when he applied for the
open chancellor position at Kansas State
University. Some officials said they only
learned about it by reading the paper. As
quickly as his name popped up in connection
with the K State job, however, it dropped out
when Ballard withdrew from consideration
after traveling there for the interview. He
announced that he continued to believe
ECU “is the right fit for me.” He says in the
interview for this story that he intends to
stay another five years. He would be 65 then.
“I think we are very fortunate to have
attracted Steve Ballard to East Carolina,” said
trustees Chairman Bob Greczyn. “I hope
and expect that we will be able to keep him
for the rest of his career.”
Ballard previously was provost at the
University of Missouri at Kansas City.
He spent his childhood in Galesburg, Ill.,
attended the University of Arizona and
graduated there with distinction in 1970
with a bachelor’s degree in history. As
shortstop and captain of the Arizona baseball
team, he earned three varsity letters and
played in the College World Series his senior
year. Ballard’s longest tenure in academia
was at the University of Oklahoma, where
he spent 13 years on the faculty, served two
terms on the Norman City Council and did a
stint as mayor pro tem.
The following is a condensed version of an
interview conducted in his office.
T h e Bala r d B o u nc e
Comparing where things stood when Steve Ballard arrived as chancellor with today.
2004–05 2008–09
Budget, in millions $ 447 $ 625
Endowment, in millions $ 66 $ 95
Athletic budget, in millions $ 17.6 $ 24.8
Research grants and contracts, in millions $ 33.1 $ 44.6
Total enrollment 22,767 27,677
Distance education students 3,197 6,142
Minority enrollment 18.5% 19.6%
Average SAT score of incoming freshmen 1,044 1,025
Faculty 1,463 2,279
Undergraduate degrees offered 105 104
Graduate degrees offered 91 97
Total employment 4,397 5,253
Source: University figures as of beginning of fall semester for years cited except for endowment,
which is as of the end of the respective fiscal years.
Bala r d ’ s b u dg e t p r i o r iti e s
Increase, since 2004, in amounts earmarked for:
New faculty positions and support required by enrollment growth $ 40.7 million
Improved administrative infrastructure, notably IT and financial services $ 4.0 million
Create contingency fund $ 3.0 million
Greater support for Brody School of Medicine $ 2.8 million
Emphasis on graduate research, economic development activities $ 1.9 million
Strengthen University Advancement and Marketing $ 1.5 million
Improve student business services, financial aid, admissions, advising $ 900,000
Enhance campus safety, more police, better lighting $ 800,000
Living Wage initiative to raise salaries for lowest-paid staff to $25,000 $ 700,000
B y S t e v e Tu t t l e P h o t o g r a p h y b y F o r r e s t C r o c e
Jay Clark
26
28
Q: By about any yardstick you use,
East Carolina has grown and changed
tremendously in the five years you’ve
been here—nearly 6,000 more students,
several new buildings on campus, the new
School of Dentistry. What do you think best
characterizes these changes?
A: I think the growth really reflects that
we have said that we’re going to do some
things very well and we’re going to put our
resources where our commitments are, and
we’re going to make a difference. The other
half of that is that our growth reflects a real
authenticity about who we are and what we
have to do, especially authenticity related
to how we serve the 29 counties of eastern
North Carolina. I feel really great about that.
When I got here there were too many
people who were willing to discount East
Carolina University and I honestly believe
that nobody is discounting us now. We may
never be seen as the kind of institution that
Chapel Hill is. Frankly that’s never been our
goal and never should be our goal. But for
what we say we’re going to do, the reputation
that we’ve gained for authenticity is real
important to our future.
Q: Other than a little more gray hair, how
have you changed in the past five years?
A: I feel like I understand the contributions
of this institution better than when I took the
job by a long shot. I certainly understand the
ways that a public university can really make a
difference, and that’s important. I think I am
a little more balanced in my life and how I
think about how I can make a difference.
Q. In the time you’ve been here, East Carolina
has enjoyed the best funding from the
General Assembly it has received in decades.
Even as the recession began last year the
legislature recommitted $107 million for the
Family Medicine Center and the School of
Dentistry. What has happened to increase the
legislature’s willingness to fund East Carolina
projects, and how much of the credit for that
should go to your team?
A. I think this authenticity question really is
the starting point. We told people we would
do some things and not others, and that we
would do them well and make a contribution
to North Carolina and we would increase
that contribution. We were able to convince
people that this was the case. So when we said
we wanted a dental school, people listened to
us. That’s always hard for a university.
When I first came here people said, ‘How
soon are you going to start a law school,
are we going to have an engineering school
like N.C State?’ And all those things are
legitimate questions but they are not ECU,
they’re not the major contribution we can
make, at least in my view. Some people
disagree with me on that. And I think it had
a lot to do with how we are perceived in the
bigger political circles.
The money we have received, we are
very proud of because it reflects a new
appreciation of East Carolina. We have had
tremendous support from [UNC President]
Erskine Bowles, [Senate President Pro Tem]
Marc Basnight and [House Speaker] Joe
Hackney. We would not have a dental school
today if it were not for Erskine Bowles. Our
Board of Trustees really stepped up at some
key places. I want to single out two. David
Brody was tireless in his support of the
Family Medicine Center, which resulted in
almost $40 million last year. David Redwine
’72 was absolutely critical at many stages.
There was not one time that I called David
[Redwine] and said, ‘We need some help, can
you go with me to see the speaker or see the
appropriations chair,’ that he wasn’t there.
People don’t see the amount of tireless effort
by our internal team to do all the things
necessary to take advantage of the support
we had. In many cases they had to put
together hundreds and hundreds of pages
of documentation in order to get the $100
million we now have for the Dental School.
It was always on time, always responsive to
the General Administration’s requests. Every
vote of the Board of Governors was always
unanimous. Those things don’t happen
by accident. We were able to address the
questions and convince people that we knew
what we were doing. I think the internal
team of a couple dozen people made a huge
difference.
Q: Now we’re in a recession and you’re
struggling to cut spending by 7 percent
this year and you’re preparing a plan for
another 7 percent cut next fiscal year. As an
administrator, how difficult is it to suddenly
have to take your foot off the gas and hit
the brake?
A: In some ways we’re not taking our
foot off the gas. We’re continuing to fund
our strategic priorities. They will remain
29
the guidepost by which we do resource
allocation. I don’t think we’ve fully stopped
accelerating. Having said that, yes, we have
to step back a little bit and take account
of budget scenarios. We’ve already lost $15
million this year; it could easily get to $20
million. Worst-case scenarios have maybe
as much as $50 to $60 million lost over a
three-year period. We will have to do some
things differently, but I view it as a focusing
effort and a prioritizing effort and not a
stoppage in what we said we would do or
[deviating from] our mission.
Q. What categories or functions have you
cut so far?
A: We’re at a period right now when we’re
making one-time reductions, which means
you have to stop spending when you get to
94–93 percent of what the legislature has
promised. We haven’t cut programs this year
but we have stopped spending on almost
everything that is discretionary. When things
turn around we can immediately go back to
those activities. The real crunch comes in the
next biennium if the legislature says your
base budget goes from $260 million in state
dollars to maybe $225 or less money than
that, then we have to stop doing some things.
We have been preparing for that all year; we
have a campus-wide task force and I think
it’s quite likely that in three years we will
be doing fewer things at ECU but we won’t
sacrifice the priorities we have established.
Q. Someone once said you should never
waste a good crisis. Is this crisis an
opportunity for you to prune some ongoing
academic initiatives?
A. Yes, there certainly could be, and Provost
Marilyn Sheerer and Vice Chancellor Phyllis
Horns have been looking at those for
months now. Some programs that may no
longer be attractive to students because the
jobs have changed or the need has changed
will have to be consolidated or eliminated.
What happens in universities is, majors
and concentrations and programs get put
in place and new ones eventually overtake
them, but the old ones stay there and the
next thing you know you have two faculty
members teaching two students. Now, if you
are a great piano program, that’s appropriate;
that’s how you produce Van Cliburn medal
winners. But that may not be the case in
[most other disciplines]. Those are exactly
the kind of questions we have to ask.
Let me hasten to add that it’s not just
academic programs [under review]. We led
the state in responding to President Bowles’
efficiency initiative. We cut out administrative
duplication, we consolidated things, we
centralized things. [Assistant Vice Chancellor]
Steve Duncan’s analysis is we saved over $13
million over the last three years, almost all
of it on the administrative side. If we can do
business better in any area, we will.
Q: You were in the news in January when
you applied for but then withdrew from the
open chancellor position at Kansas State
University. Why did you apply and why did
you withdraw?
A: I’m tempted to use the Alex Rodriguez
excuse that I was young, naïve and stupid. [I
applied for the job] for two reasons: I have
great respect for that university and knew
a lot about it; and, secondly, it had some
locational advantage for both my family and
my wife’s family [who are Midwesterners].
Every now and then I think it’s good to
take a look out there and see what’s going
on. That institution is the nation’s oldest
land grant, which is consistent with my own
values of outreach, engagement and making
sure the resources of a public university serve
a state and a region.
There appeared to be a great fit. But what
I found when I went there, I really believe
that ECU is a much better fit for me than
Kansas State. And I actually think ECU has
even more opportunities to make a difference
for our society even though we’re not a land
grant [because] we have the same values here.
I think that for the kind of things I can
make a difference in, this is a better place for
Nancy and me. I think it was a legitimate
exercise, but when we got back in town we
realized this is where we want to be.
Q: East Carolina will admit fewer freshmen
this fall than it did last year as the university
implements higher admission standards. For
many people in eastern North Carolina, East
Carolina has always represented an open
door. Is that door closing a bit?
A: No, I don’t think the door is closing.
I think we think about who to let in the
door a little bit differently. The freshman
class we will have for the fall of ’09 will
be the second biggest freshman class ever,
second biggest to last year’s. But we learned
something very valuable last year. We learned
that when you have 4,500 freshmen, and
a record number of transfers and a record
number of distance education students, then
you’d better be careful that you can serve
them all. And we had some areas frankly
where we were not serving those students
well enough. They weren’t in the academic
areas as much as in the student service area,
certainly in financial aid.
We never want to lose that special spirit
at ECU where students tell us day after
day that when they come here they find
something that’s very special. We don’t want
to grow so fast that we lose that special
feeling. Our door will stay open. Next year
we will be over 28,000, which will be the
biggest number of total students we’ve ever
had. I don’t think we can possibly grow as
fast as we have over the last three or four
years or we will start to lose that ability to
make a difference for students. I think we
will see more and more students who may
not come to us as freshmen but may come
to us through the community colleges as
sophomores and juniors.
Q: At the same time that East Carolina has
been raising its admission standards, it
also has gained recognition for academic
initiatives and research. The amount
of research dollars flowing into ECU is
up significantly. Is it your goal for East
Carolina to be recognized by the Carnegie
Foundation as a research-intensive
university, the same category as Carolina
and State?
A: Those kinds of goals have never been my
goals, and Vice Chancellor Mageean may
shoot me when she reads this, because it’s her
job to grow our profile and grow our status
30
and grow our external dollars. And she could
well achieve Carnegie research-intensive
status [for ECU], but I don’t think that’s the
most important thing for us to do.
If we get there because we’re doing other
things right, that’s fine and we’ll all recognize
that as just another recognition of what
we’re doing. But I think it’s so much more
important that we address the dental crisis
in the rural areas in this state, and that’s
not something the Carnegie Institution
could ever factor into how they characterize
institutions. Being successful in that kind
of service in addressing one of the biggest
needs in this state is 100 times more
important than what Carnegie may or may
not say about what category we’re in.
I would much rather be seen as having the best
research capabilities in health disparities in the
nation than I would to get to a certain level of
the Carnegie. If we get to that level because
we’re great in health disparities research, or
heart disease research or metabolic research,
I’m all for it but I don’t think it’s the first goal
we set. I think the first goal is what research
areas make the most difference for the things
that we say are important to ECU.
Q: What type of working relationship have
you developed with your trustees, with
the UNC General Administration and other
chancellors in the system?
A: I think I have a great relationship with
[Board of Trustees] Chairman Bob Greczyn
and Vice Chairman David Brody. I’ve really
enjoyed over my five years great relationships
with our board and that’s hard to do because
there are so many tensions in a major public
university and so many different ways of
thinking about our future that there’s no
one answer, and you’re always looking for a
balance. [Last fall] we had some significant
disagreements about how much of the rising
cost of education our students should pay.
And not every board member agreed with
me on that but I think every board member
agreed we had to find a compromise on that.
I’m very happy with our compromise. Not
everybody thought it was the right com­promise
but we worked very hard to get there.
Q: If you’re still here five years from now
how do you think East Carolina will be
different than it is today?
A: Let me start by saying I hope to be here
in five years. I think it’s the right place for
me. My hope is that in five years or in the
not too distant future that we’re essentially
the same university in terms of our soul,
of how we view ourselves as a service and
regional transformation institution.
What I really hope is that we are recognized
for a better model, a new model of public
universities where all universities aren’t
chasing the same kind of status, like
Carnegie status or the top 10 in U.S. News
& World Report, to get away from those kinds
of generic models of what a university is
and realize that every university has to have
a distinctive contribution to the state we’re
in, given who we are and what we do best.
In five years I hope we are recognized as the
best service university in the nation and I
think we already are very close.
Q: How do you deal with stress from your
job; what do you do to relax?
A: The best thing I do is recognize that you
can’t be in this office every day. You have to
get away from it sometimes. I usually get
away with my family and my dogs and try to
make sure that I don’t do this 24-7-364. I
think that’s dysfunctional. This year we will
have a big Ballard family reunion out in the
West and that will be fun. Spring break we’ll
get over to the coast and walk on the beach a
few days. I’ve learned the hard way that you
have to physically take yourself out because
if I’m in this office or the residence, you
don’t get away, your head is still in it every
minute of every day.
Q: How many hours a week do you work?
A: I’ve never counted it because I thought I
would be scared. You know, most days are
8 to 10 to 11 hour workdays and many
weekends, especially this time of year, are
filled with events and meetings and executive
committee meetings of foundations, meeting
people, having dinners with important
politicians. I do try to take Sundays off,
but I’m not always successful in that. That’s
why getting away is so important, to remove
yourself from the location in order to get
your head clear sometimes. East
ciormoe nhowmoe oto d
Ironwood realty, Inc
the exclusIve representatIve for Ironwood development, Inc
200 Golf Club Wynd, Greenville, NC 27834 • 252.752.4653 / 800.343.4766
View Our Website at www.ironwood-realty.com
Ironwood’s Newest Garden Home Community.
If you’ve always dreamed of coming home to Greenville and East Carolina University, now is the perfect time to take a look at the Ironwood
Community, Eastern NC’s Premier Golf and Residential Community. Ironwood provides the perfect setting for any phase of life featuring
fabulous homes on pristine lots built by the areas finest builders. Plus, Ironwood is situated in the perfect location, less than 5 minutes
from the hospital and medical district, 10 minutes from the University district, immediate access to US 264, and within close proximity to
Greenville’s shopping and dining areas.
Five Custom Designed Plans to Choose From • Ranging in size from 1750 sf to 2650+ sf • Professionally Designed and Decorated
Striking Exteriors Featuring: All Brick Exteriors • Stacked Stone Features • Cedar Posts • Large Covered Porches
Elegant Interiors Featuring: Gourmet Kitchens • Premium Appliances • Custom Cabinetry • Granite Countertops
Grande Master Suites • Premium Flooring • Extensive Trim and Finishing Features
Newly Completed Homes Now Available • Homesites Available From the $40’s • Build When the Time is Right for YOU!
Please Call or View Our Website For More Information!
View Virtual Tours of the Newly Completed Homes in Prestwick at www.Ironwood-Realty.com
Featured Amenities— . Lee Trevino Signature 18-Hole Golf Course
. Social Activities
. Swimming Pool
. Lighted Composition Tennis Courts
. Clubhouse
. Flexible Membership Categories
Ironwood Golf
& Country Club
Homes Now Available! • Proud Member of Pirates Supporting Pirates!
Prestwick At Ironwood
32
After 30 years on
the faculty and a
lifetime helping
others, Pat Dunn
starts a new job
leading City Hall.
34
Dunn about everything
For more than 50 years Pat Dunn has
volunteered with and led a number of community
organizations in Greenville and Pitt County, a level
of commitment that has garnered considerable
honors and recognition. Here’s a list:
C o m u nit y lif e
n Habitat for Humanity Pitt County chapter,
volunteer, board member and former president
n State chapter of STRIVE (dedicated to helping
individuals find employment), director and chair
n Pitt County Coalition to Prevent
Teenage Pregnancy, director
n Pitt County Community Penalties
for the Third Judicial District, advisory board
n Pitt County Council on Aging, board of
directors, secretary, vice chair and chair
n League of Women Voters of Greenville,
first vice president, president and
local government observer
n ReLeaf (promotes trees in Greenville),
director and advisory board
n Eastern NC Council on Substance Abuse
n Immanuel Baptist Church,
Sunday school teacher since 1977
n Host for international students at ECU
H o n o r s
n Habitat for Humanity’s
Charles V. Horne Jr. Award
n Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award,
given by the Black Ministers Conference
n Community Service Award from
Pitt County Concerned Citizens for Justice
n Best-Irons Humanitarian Award
from the City of Greenville
n Outstanding Service—
College of Health and Human Performance
n Women of Distinction Award
(ECU Office of Academic Outreach)
n ECU Health and Human Performance
Leader Award
n Citizen of the Year, Civitan Club
n Pitt County Council on Aging, Service Award
It’s Friday afternoon and Greenville Mayor
Pat Dunn ’58 is offering a guest buttered
pecans, baked Southern style. Above her
hangs an Australian boomerang and a
handmade canoe paddle from the Amazon.
In her foyer resides a Soviet-era sailor’s hat
and belt, complete with vintage hammer-and-
sickle buckle.
It’s a fascinating collection that manages to
look right at home in her traditional living
room, much the same way Dunn brought a
global perspective to her health education
classes at East Carolina.
Today, after more than 30 years on the
health education faculty, Dunn has opened
a new chapter in her life as the city’s highest
elected official. In her first term she is
grappling with divisive issues and some
of the rockiest times in a generation. “We
have to recognize that Greenville is like
everywhere else, and we’re all being affected
by the downturn in the economy,” she says.
“These are tough times to make a living,
tough times to be in public office.”
As mayor she brings a dignified air to city
business, keeping order during even the
most tense city council meetings, when a
firm landing of her gavel is enough to quiet
a room. Yet she’s also known for a sense of
humor, and her friendly smile warms up
ceremonies and ribbon-cuttings. She’s also an
animal lover, with a dog named T.J.—as in
Thomas Jefferson.
Her experience reaching across cultures
allows her to see issues from many sides, a
critical skill in her role. “You don’t work in
isolation as mayor,” she says. “You try to
build support, coalitions and consensus on
issues.” A major project she is working on
is the planned intermodal transportation
center downtown, connecting several forms
of public transportation in the heart of
Greenville and near the ECU campus.
Her biggest public challenge so far may be
helping guide the city to shore during the
national economic slump, though she believes
Greenville is in good shape to weather the
recession. “It is an exciting city to be in, even
in tough economic times,” she says. “People
here are really interested in making things
happen. The School of Dentistry is on go,
and the Family Medicine Center is, too. We’re
seeing construction in Greenville and Pitt
County. Greenville will continue to grow.”
Seeing ECU change
Dunn grew up in rural Wake County and
arrived at East Carolina in 1954 when the
campus and its athletic facilities ended at
10th Street and enrollment was less than
3,000. She entered graduate school at the
University of Tennessee, receiving a master’s
in physical education there in 1959. After
receiving another master’s in guidance and
counseling from UNC Chapel Hill in 1965,
she completed her education with a Ph.D. in
health education from Ohio State University
in 1972. She had joined the East Carolina
faculty a year earlier.
By the time she retired in 2005, the campus
had sprouted the Health Sciences Campus
and enrollment had surged past 28,000,
with athletic teams competing in a national
conference. Her original program in health
and physical education had evolved into
today’s College of Health and Human
Performance (CHHP), a research, education
and service center. The college now houses
the departments of Health Education and
Promotion, Exercise and Sport Science and
Recreation and Leisure Studies, with degree
programs at all levels, including a Ph.D. in
bioenergetics.
The city, too, has changed and if the typical
Greenville resident once lived on or near a
tobacco farm, that’s not true today—the
city is the state’s 12th-largest municipality.
Myriad nationalities, faiths and backgrounds
come and go among the city’s population
of roughly 76,000 and Dunn has spent a
lifetime reaching out to them.
She previously coordinated international
studies at CHHP, and today still works
with students from abroad, quietly adding
to her distinguished record as an active
volunteer with many organizations. She was
serving on the board of the Pitt County
chapter of Habitat For Humanity when
she entered politics in 2001 in a successful
bid for a city council seat. She served three
terms on the council before running for
mayor in 2007. She succeeded Don Parrott
’65, who did not seek another term. She
ran for mayor on a crowded ballot with
five other candidates, and still polled 49
percent of the vote.
She found her way into politics the
same way she found teaching: She enjoys
people and believes in service. Her parents
were community-oriented folks who
used compassion and reason in decision
making; she learned from a young age to
think about political issues with an eye
for humanity.
“My parents cared about others, for the
underdog,” she remembers. “My father was
always reading about and talking about
politics. Rarely did we have discussions that
weren’t about politics, and at 18, there was
no question that I would register to vote. I’ve
been voting ever since.”
While health issues are very personal, they are
often based in a larger political and religious
culture that also influences food choices,
male-female relationship patterns, birth,
marriage and death customs. Because of
these connections, she developed and taught
the course, “Political, Social and Cultural
Aspects of Health and Disease.” During the
semester, students visited distinctive cultural
settings such as a synagogue or mosque to
enlarge their understanding.
‘Love thy neighbor’
Mayor Dunn takes personal inspiration from
the New Testament commandment to love
your neighbor. Reaching out to others, she
says, “is something my parents did, and it’s
a part of my faith. It’s our responsibility.”
As evidence of her conviction, she has nearly
30 years’ experience as a volunteer or board
member for a long list of organizations.
She is active in the missions council of her
church and has taught Sunday school for
more than 30 years.
With Habitat for Humanity she has been
especially active, volunteering with projects
around the world—Korea, Romania,
Hungary and Uganda, among others. Here
in the United States she has worked in
Vermont, Alaska and at an Indian reservation
in South Dakota. She also takes part in
Friendship Force, welcoming international
guests into her home and visiting them
in theirs. Her family visits have taken her
to Russia, Slovakia, South Africa and
El Salvador. Academically, she has been
very active internationally as well, making
presentations about AIDS at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong and Helsinki.
Through the years, she’s had plenty of
unusual experiences, but she manages to
stay unruffled—even when finding herself
unexpectedly in a Buddhist temple in South
Korea, or on an unplanned detour while
driving in Australia. Arriving in bustling
(and unfamiliar) Sao Paulo, Brazil—not
quite sure where her hotel was—she once
asked a helpful nun to hail a cab for her.
When she’s not taking international students
grocery shopping, attending official events or
presiding over city business, Dunn continues
to enjoy the outdoors and is a fan of hiking
and canoeing. She swims indoors regularly.
Her long-time friend and research
collaborator, Ione Ryan, describes Dunn
as loyal, attentive and compassionate. She’s
not surprised to see her friend in such a key
leadership role; from the start, she’s held a
strong commitment to public service.
“When she first came to Greenville on
faculty, she promised she would take part
in the community,” says Ryan, a professor
emerita in the Counseling Center. “She
wasn’t going to stay aloof; she was going to
contribute and participate. She has certainly
lived up to that promise.”
East
By Marion Blackbu rn photography by forrest croce
35
from the classroom
36 37
As with so many other academic endeavors
at East Carolina University, the question
about the engineering program is not so
much “Why are you offering this?” as it
is “Why didn’t you do this 25 years ago?”
Engineering, which admitted its first students
in 2004, is graduating only its second class
in May. But for Department of Engineering
Chair Paul Kauffmann, getting to this point
has taken his whole life.
East Carolina’s engineering program, which
had 22 graduates this year, is tiny compared
to, say, N.C. State University, which is the
state’s largest and had 420. But ECU’s
program is unique because its vision is
different. Kauffmann, who came here in
2003 to help get the program started, and
his colleagues did not set out to reinvent the
wheel; they were interested in turning out
engineers who could quickly make a positive
impact because of the breadth of their
expertise and skills in the modern workplace.
Instead of offering the traditional
concentrations of civil, electrical, mechanical
or chemical engineering, the ECU program,
which is housed within the College of
Technology and Computer Science,
focuses on slightly more exotic fields such
as biomedical and bioprocess engineering,
systems engineering and engineering
management. ECU considers its department
a general engineering program, one of about
three dozen in the U.S.
ECU’s engineering program offers
concentrations in biomedical engineering
and bioprocess engineering, specialties that
fit in with a region still heavily dependent
on agriculture but one that is also served
by a top-level medical school and hospital.
Engineering processes and systems can help
develop better ways to process food and
pharmaceutical products, as well as advance
medical research and treatment with the
latest technology and equipment.
ECU’s program also takes a different approach
to academics. Rather than learn only the
history of engineering or basic engineering
theory in the first semester, for example,
students take an engineering graphics course.
During their second semester, freshman
engineering students split into teams build
auto-guided robotic vehicles that can negotiate
a maze, sense a flame and extinguish it.
Dr. Jason Yao, an assistant professor, calls
this course the “Pirate Challenge,” and
said it represents “a unique introduction
to engineering” taught by the ECU faculty
members and not graduate students. Students
design and build a three-wheeled vehicle
with sensors, guided not by a remote-control
device but programmed through circuitry.
The ECU approach to teaching engineering
is practical and applications-based, which
means more of a hands-on way of learning.
Theory is taught, but helping students
What an ECU
engineer
looks like
Paul Kauffmann designed a program that focuses on helping students see real-world applications
in what they’re learning. Compared to other engineering schools, ECU students take about
twice as many lab courses “because we believe in an applications-based curriculum.”
B y S t e v e R ow
38
from the classroom
see real-world applications of different
types of engineering is what matters. The
ECU approach, unlike that in many other
schools, teaches students about materials,
circuits, thermodynamics and engineering
graphics early in the curriculum, Kauffmann
says, and “we have about twice as many
lab experiences [than more traditional
engineering programs], because we believe in
an applications-based curriculum.”
From seminary to a slide rule
Kauffmann brings a wealth of real-world
engineering experience to ECU, although
he did not enter college planning to be an
engineer. As a youngster growing up in
Richmond, he played with Tinker Toys,
Lincoln Logs and Erector sets, but he
started out as a philosophy major at St.
Charles College in Baltimore, heading toward
seminary. Then he transferred to Virginia
Tech and switched to engineering.
“It was time for a 180-degree switch. I had
enough New Testament, Greek and Latin,
so I thought about engineering,” he said. He
chose electrical engineering, in part, because
his mother had predicted that “computers
might become a big thing.” He also had
worked one summer as a millwright’s helper,
a manufacturing-related job “that had way
too much dust.”
After graduating from Virginia Tech in
1971 with a degree in electrical engineering,
he began a career in Philip Morris USA’s
Virginia and Kentucky operations. He earned
a master’s degree in mechanical engineering
from Tech in 1976. He rose to plant
manager of the York Engineering Center
near Williamsburg, where he worked from
1984 to ’89; and director of machine design
engineering in Richmond from 1989 to ’92.
Kauffmann then left the corporate world
to become associate professor and acting
chairman of the Division of Business,
Engineering and Technology at Thomas
Nelson Community College in Hampton,
Va., where he stayed for five years. After
earning his doctorate in industrial
engineering from Penn State in 1997,
he went to Old Dominion and became
chairman of the Department of Engineering
Technology in 2001.
His research has received grants from the
NASA Langley Research Center, Green
Virginia Ethanol Project and, more recently,
the National Science Foundation, a $1.4
million grant to develop more application-based
teaching of biomechanics and robotics
in rural schools’ math and science classes.
Setting goals, aiming high
Kauffmann says he has several goals for
ECU’s engineering program but the primary
one is making sure his students survive
freshman year. “We’d like to get freshmen
to their junior year,” he says, adding that the
program has about a 50 percent retention
rate, similar to most other university
engineering programs.
“We want to get students to live and work
together in Jones Hall, in what we call an
‘engineering learning community,’ to help
build and establish a sense of camaraderie. A
freshman ‘survival’ course, Engineering 1000,
is going to help develop complementary
study skills.”
What Kauffmann and his colleagues under­estimated
in getting the program started is
the fact that many incoming students aren’t
as prepared for the rigors and discipline
of an engineering program as perhaps they
should be. Kauffmann says shortcomings in
math and science are evident, although Yao
points out that in the four short years since
ECU’s program started, engineering students’
“competence, interest level and attitude all
are getting stronger.”
Kauffmann foresees a time when the ECU
engineering program will number about
700 students, and he thinks advanced
degrees are likely, such as a master’s degree
in bioengineering or biomedical engineering.
Meanwhile, the program continues
evolving and receiving outside advice about
curriculum from a 30-member professional
advisory board. The board is composed
of local leaders as well as representatives
from NASA Langley, Newport News
Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., and
engineering firms near Washington, D.C.
Dr. Loren Limberis, an assistant professor,
says the department’s core curriculum “has
been adjusted to better fit what we perceive
the student needs to learn at the right time.”
This re-evaluation led to moving the robot
design and construction project from the
first semester to the second semester, which
Limberis says lets students “feel ownership
of a multi-week project through design and
application.”
The department plans to combine systems
engineering and engineering management
into one concentration soon and hopes to
gain approval for a mechanical engineering
concentration, perhaps as early as the fall
of 2009. Additional concentrations might
be added in other more traditional fields,
if enrollment grows as projected. The
department, now in Slay Building, might
need new quarters in the future, too, as
enrollment increases.
Kauffmann believes the program is poised to
generate increased recognition and visibility,
and he says the future is bright. “We have a
better, more capable faculty than I thought
we would have at this point,” he says. “Our
facilities are great. We just spent $1 million
on lab equipment.”
“We have a particular mission to serve
those in the eastern part of North Carolina,
and we want our students who become
engineers to stay in the East, help build a
better economy and make the region more
economically competitive,” he says.
“In the past, we (in engineering education)
have been driving the car by looking at the
rear-view mirror. Instead, we want to look
forward. For a world with highly technical
demands, we want to determine what are
the job fields out there that will need our
engineering students in the E ast, and in
North Carolina as a whole.”
Who knew that the straight-laced Victorians
spent their idle hours reading riddles and
word puzzles? Or that Jane Austen hid some
in her books, particularly her last one, Emma.
English associate professor Gregg Hecimovich
has unraveled these Victorian word puzzles
with two new books based on his research
conducted at the British Library of periodicals
and parlor game books of the time. He learned
that Queen Victoria herself created a double
acrostic, “Windsor Engima,” for a parlor book;
her puzzle’s answer was a reference to the
glories of the British Empire.
Riddles and word puzzles “were a product
of the oral tradition as it entered mass
produced culture in the 19th century,”
Hecimovich said. “There was a vast increase
in literacy and cheaper production costs
through the advances in papermaking and
the distribution made possible by the expansion of
the railroad.”
In Puzzling the Reader: Riddles in Nineteenth-
Century British Literature, Hecimovich tells us
that the Victorians created rebuses, acrostics
and other word puzzles for entertainment in the
evenings. A rebus is a puzzle composed of words
or syllables that appear in the form of pictures,
creating a kind of literary charade.
Hecimovich points out the important role of
riddles in the interlocking courtship games of
the times. In Austen’s Emma, he reminds us
that slow-witted Harriet Smith is gathering riddles
for a booklet. Included in the submissions gathered by
Emma Woodhouse, who loves the word plays, are bits and
pieces from her father of a rather bawdy riddle of the times.
“Modern readers likely often miss many of the word plays
in works such as Austen, William Blake or Charles Dickens;
however, the 19th century reader would have been looking
for these,” Hecimovich says. “For instance, the answer
to the bawdy puzzle offered up in Austen is ‘a virgin
prostitute.’ We don’t think of Austen telling those kind of
jokes, but she does.”
“The humor and fun of books of that era are in the games,”
he says. “Both of these books point those elements out,
and both come from my teaching and the pleasure that
I get from these 19th century works—Austen’s feminism,
Dickens’ class issues.”
Hecimovich, who joined the faculty in 2002, received the 2006
UNC Board of Governors Distinguished Professor for Teaching
Award and the ECU Scholar-Teacher Award in Humanities,
as well as the Max Ray Joyner Award for excellence in online
education and the Bertie Fearing Award recognizing excellent
teaching among English Department faculty.
Puzzling the Reader:
Riddles in Nineteenth-Century British Literature
By Gregg Hecimovich
Peter Lang Publishing
136 pages, $27
Austen’s Emma
By Gregg Hecimovich
Continuum International Publishing
119 pages, $16.95
B o o k s b y Fa c u lt y
39
41
Track Finds its Stride
It’s one of the largest sports teams on
campus, with more than 90 athletes
lining up against some of the top
teams in the nation. But track
lacks decent fields, so it can’t
host home events. Still,
records are falling.
42 43
In terms of the number of students
participating, the second largest sport at
ECU after football is track and field, an
unusual sport in which some competitors
suit up for three distinct seasons and as
many as six championships during the year.
Historically not among the most successful
or most popular sports on campus, the
image—and expectations—for track and
field are changing. The addition of several
new coaches last season already is producing
more victories and the construction of a new
track and field facility on campus should
raise the team’s visibility and help attract
better athletes.
Track and field athletes don’t have much of an
off-season. “It would be like taking football
and saying, we’re going to have a fall football
season, and then we’re going to take a little
bit of a break and we’re going to have another
football season in the winter, and then we’re
going to take a little bit of a break and then
we’re going to have another football season in
the spring,” says head coach Curt Kraft.
And while track and field athletes are
members of a team, they contribute to
the team’s success with individual skills
like triple jumping, sprinting and hammer
throwing. Kraft says his challenge is to
continue sharpening each athlete’s individual
talents while instilling a strong sense of
teamwork. “You can’t accomplish what you
want to accomplish unless you get across to
them that we are a team,” said Kraft, who is
entering his second season as head coach for
both the men’s and women’s teams. “Even
though we are an individual sport, it’s very
important that the long jumper goes up to
the half miler and says, ‘Hey, good job.’”
“When the distance runners come around
and make their laps in practice, you’re hearing
the sprinters go, ‘Come on guys, push it, push
it,’” says assistant coach Udon Cheek. “That’s
never been there before, never.”
East Carolina has produced some notable
track and field athletes, including LaShawn
Merritt, the 400-meter gold medalist in
the 2008 Summer Olympics. There’s also
Hector Cotto, a hurdler who competed in
those same Olympics for his native Puerto
Rico. Both were accomplished athletes, and
Merritt’s success was unprecedented in ECU
annals, but he spent less than half a year at
ECU before signing a professional contract.
Going the distance
The more typical face of ECU track and
field belongs to senior Jarrett Newby, an
800-meter specialist who also competes in
the mile. He begins each season in August
with cross-country team camp in the North
Carolina mountains. After a week of running
at high elevations, the group is ready for
preseason and a slate of meets that runs
from early September to early November.
Cross-country ends in November, followed
by about two weeks of “active recovery.” In
early December the indoor season begins,
with meets scheduled all the way through
early March. Less than two weeks after the
indoor track season ends, the outdoor season
starts and continues through at least May—
and into June for those fortunate enough to
qualify for the national meet.
Newby only ran middle distance in high
school in Endwell, N.Y., so the transition
to competitive cross-country was jolting. “I
crashed into that world,” he said. “I didn’t
know what I was doing. It’s a five-mile race.
That was a death march to me. You can fake
an 800 if you’re somewhat in shape and you
have guts. You can’t fake five miles.” Newby
also represents Conference USA on the
NCAA’s national Student-Athlete Advisory
Council, and he was one of the inaugural
recipients of the C-USA Spirit of Service
award in December
Field event athletes like high jumper
Valeria Moore don’t compete in the cross-country
portion of the season, but the fall
conditioning regimen is so intense that
Moore can’t find a true off-season in her
schedule, either. A junior, Moore was a walk-on
member of the team, and last year she
tied for second in her event at the C-USA
Championship.
“It’s never a dull moment,” Moore said of
her training and meet schedule.
Cheek, one of the team’s four paid assistant
coaches, can speak with considerable
perspective about the changes in the ECU
track and field program. When Cheek
came to Greenville in 1987 as a sprinter
the program was skewed heavily toward
speedy, quick events. After several years as a
volunteer coach with the women’s program,
Cheek was hired to work with the sprinters
and relay teams.
Preaching team spirit
The new backdrop for the program probably
won’t be measured by spectacular wins,
Cheek said, at least not yet. But when Craft
took over the program in 2007, he turn