East The Magazine of East Carolina University
winter 2011
ECU climbed from a teachers
college to a major university
and medical center by always
reaching for the next level.
Are we
there yet?
viewfinder
Pirates Have Hooks
Who needs a sword or an eye patch when
you can show Pirate pride with the finger
hook? The Boneyard student section in the
new horseshoe at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium
was full of hooks at Homecoming.
East The Magazine of East Carolina University
winter 2011
36
18
28
F EATURES
18 ARE WE THERE YET?
By Mary Schulken ’79 It’s been a long climb for East
Carolina, the scrappy little teachers college that fought
epic battles to become a major university and medical
center. Have we arrived? And if so, how do we know?
28 STOCKING THE PANTRY
By Steve Tuttle ’90 Just two years out of college,
Sam Wornom co-founded The Pantry chain of
convenience stores and grew it into nearly 500
locations. In the second act of a stellar business
career, he’s again proving he can spot business
opportunities that satisfy consumer appetite.
32 EASIN G THE OUCH
By Marion Blackburn Cecelia Valrie ’99 is identifying
new ways to help sick children feel less pain and lead
more normal lives.
36 the umpire of eligibili ty
By J. Eric Eckard Tim Metcalf, who’s responsible for
keeping ECU out of trouble with the NCAA, relies
on a 484-page book of rules. And the rules change
every year.
DE PARTMEN TS
FROM OUR READERS . 3
THE ECU REPORT .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   . . 4
WINTER ARTS CALENDAR .   .   .   .   .   .   . 16
FROM THE CLASSROO M .   .   .   .   .   .   .   . 32
PIRATE NATION .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   . 40
CLASS NOTES . 43
UPON THE PAST . 60
32
2
Are we there yet? While she was researching material for the cover story in this issue,
Mary Schulken ’79 talked with alumni and friends who exhibited
varying degrees of the famous ECU chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.
Some she talked to had it bad, relating vivid memories of times
when they perceived ECU’s dignity was slighted in the public square
or on the football field. Others seemed to have much less of this
aggrieved underdog attitude. Younger alumni didn’t know what she
was talking about.
That’s when it occurred to us that you can often predict how an
alumnus feels about East Carolina by what it says on their diploma.
If yours says East Carolina College, you probably have a bad case of
the chip because you were here when the school really did suffer at the
hands of state budget writers, a time when it was ridiculed on editorial
pages for aspiring to become a university.
If your diploma says East Carolina University, you probably have
either a mild case of the chip or none at all, depending on whether you
graduated before or after the medical school opened in the early 1980s.
That was one of the more interesting things we discovered while
digging into the origin of East Carolina’s redheaded stepchild
mentality and how Leo Jenkins used it to rally the troops during epic
battles with the powers that be in Raleigh.
At first we didn’t understand why younger alumni exhibited hardly any
trace of ECU’s classic underdog mindset. They gave us blank looks
when asked how it felt to graduate from an up-and-coming institution
that could achieve great things but for…. They were quick to set us
straight: We didn’t go to an up-and-coming anything. We graduated
from a major research university with highly regarded schools of
business, education, nursing, communication and fine arts. One with
a nationally acclaimed medical school, an engineering program and a
school of dental medicine about to open. One that’s becoming pretty
hard just to get into.
That’s when Schulken and I began to wonder: Maybe East Carolina has
arrived. One hundred years after Robert Wright first began “to dream
dreams and see visions” for the school’s future, maybe it’s time to
declare victory in the school’s long battle for acceptance and respect.
What a long, strange trip it’s been. Are we there yet? How do we know?
from the editor
Volume 9, Number 2
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 ’09
252-328-2068 / tuttles@ecu.edu
ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER
Brent Burch
PHOTOGRAPHER
Forrest Croce
COPY EDITOR
Jimmy Rostar ’94
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Marion Blackburn, J. Eric Eckard,
Bill F. Hensley, Kara Loftin, Anna Logemann,
Peggy Novotny, Steve Row, Mary Schulken ’79,
Karen Shugart, Meagan Williford
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Jay Clark, Doug Smith
CLASS NOTES EDITOR
Joanne Kollar
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.
©2011 by East Carolina University
Printed by Progress Printing
U.P. 11-046 63,500 copies of this public document
were printed at a cost of $36,455 or $.58 per copy.
East The Magazine of East Carolina University
winter 2011
My mother was a Beckwith girl
Thanks for the article on Kate Beckwith [the
elegant lady principal who taught the social
graces during East Carolina’s earliest days].
My mother, Sarah Gilliam Daniels, was
there in 1923–25 and I’m sure she brought
the values she learned from Mrs. Beckwith
back with her and carried them forward in
her teaching career in Halifax and Franklin
counties. She came to ECTC on
a state grant that required her
to teach in a poor county. She
taught in Halifax County a few
years before coming home in
Franklin County to teach there.
I followed a lot of women in
my family who graduated from
East Carolina and taught school. I have a
Bible that belonged to an aunt signed by
Dr. Wright in 1927. I have bricks under
the cupola for my mother, my daughter and
myself. My youngest daughter, Michelle
Susan Moser ’88 ’96, taught there for two
years. I have a question about something my
mother alluded to over the years: In those
days, did schools require women to stop
teaching if they got married?
—Bob Daniels ’59, Wake Forest
Editor’s note: We put that question to Jo Ann
Norris of the Public School Forum of N.C. in
Raleigh. Her answer is yes, many school districts
would not employ a married woman. “I have had
somewhere a copy of the duties of teachers and
the prohibition of marriage was in the list,” Ms.
Norris says, adding that the ban likely gave rise to
the phrase, “old maid school teacher.”
My mother-in-law was, too
I am the daughter-in-law of Essie Woolard
Clark ’14 who was quoted in the [story
about Mrs. Beckwith]. Mrs. Clark
was true to the words in your
article. She grew up in a large
family in Cross Roads Township
in Martin County. She went on
to be a schoolteacher in eastern
North Carolina in elementary
education. She was the mother of seven
children, all of whom graduated from North
Carolina’s public universities. All three of her
daughters graduated from East Carolina. She
was grandmother to 21 grandchildren, all of
whom are college graduates. Several of her
grandchildren graduated from ECU, including
one who was one of the first graduates of the
medical school. All of her great-grandchildren
who are of age have graduated from four-year
institutions as well. Mrs. Clark created
a legacy of education that began at East
Carolina and continues to this day. Mrs. Clark
passed away in 1990 and was always proud
of her affiliation with East Carolina.
—Betty D. Clark ’56, Williamston
Another Miss North Carolina
It has been brought to my attention that my
name was left off the list of ECU alumni
who are former Miss North Carolinas. I
was Miss North Carolina-USA for 1989
and placed in the top 15 at the 1990 Miss
USA pageant. In addition, I was awarded the
“Betty Lane Evans” swimsuit award at the
Miss North Carolina finals in 1985. Thanks
for your attention to this and I look forward
to visiting ECU for some football!
—Jacqueline Padgette ’90, Raleigh
Editor’s note: This discussion started two years ago
with a Timeline item noting the 50th anniversary
of the crowning of Betty Lane Evans ’58 as Miss
North Carolina. The story said five other alumnae
were later chosen either Miss North Carolina
or Miss North Carolina USA, a rival pageant.
Since then we have had letters from three alumnae
pointing out omissions to the list. With the addition
of Ms. Padgette, the list now stands at 10: Joan
Melton ’58 in 1956; Evans in 1958, Anita
Johnson in 1969, Patsy Gail Wood in 1971, Mary Rudroff, also in 1971 (a year when ECU
students simultaneously held the competing crowns), Lynn Williford ’79 in 1981, Ms. Padgette ’90
in 1989, Monica Polumbo in 2001 (chosen
Miss Congeniality at the Miss USA pageant), Dana Reason in 2003, and Kristen Dalton
’09 in 2008 (chosen Miss USA in 2009).
from our readers
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3
Sarah Gilliam
Essie
Woolard
4
What does college really cost?
The UNC system is beginning to look at
how much college costs the same way a
parent does: the bottom line. And in that
light, tuition becomes just one expense
item among many, and not even the largest.
Besides tuition, there’s a dorm room and a
meal plan, books and supplies, travel and
insurance as well as personal expenses for cell
phones and laptops.
In a report issued this summer, the
UNC Board of Governors says that, all
things considered, it cost $16,405 for an
undergraduate in-state student living on
campus to attend East Carolina in 2009–10.
That’s third highest among the 16 campuses,
behind UNC Chapel Hill ($17,424) and
N.C. State University ($16,028). The least
expensive campus was Fayetteville State
University ($12,363); the average of all 16
was $15,216.
Where do families get the money to pay
for college? Nearly two out of every three
East Carolina students receive some type of
financial aid, according to the report. Those
loans pile up quickly; the 1,683 in-state
students who graduated in the 2009–10
school year had accumulated an average
$19,987 in student loan debt.
There are many grants and scholarships
available to qualifying students that generally
don’t have to be repaid. Taking that into
account, the net cost of a year at ECU for
families earning less than $30,000 a year
fell to $5,299 in 2008–09, the report says.
The net cost for families earning less than
$48,000 was $7,232 per year.
Across the UNC system, tuition on average
rose 5.1 percent in 2007, 1.2 percent in
2008, 2.8 percent in 2009 and 23.1 percent
this year. Still, the cost of attending ECU
and every other UNC school is among the
lowest among their peer institutions.
The report was informational only but it
notes that one area of future concern for the
Board of Governors is the wide disparity
in what UNC campuses charge for things
beside tuition. East Carolina had the highest
“non tuition fee” total among UNC schools,
at $11,998 per year. By contrast, a similar
group of charges at Fayetteville State was
$8,552. Differences in student athletic fees,
activity fees and the charge for the student
recreation center account for much of the
differences among campuses, officials say.
Generally speaking, these nontuition fees are
highest at the larger campuses with NCAA
Division I sports programs, lower at schools
with smaller sports programs.
the ecU Report
Adapting to the way students learn these days—which is in small groups rather than individually—the first floor of Joyner Library was
remodeled to create a comfortable, inviting space where they can work together on class assignments. The Collaborative Learning Center
has seating for 525, with high-tech computer stations, lounge chairs and booths. Among other new offerings, Ask-a-Librarian Services
allow students to ask for help in person, through e-mail, instant messaging, text or phone. State-of-the-art technology allows students to
make a digital video recording of a class presentation or group project, play it back and save it on a computer. The Pirate Tutoring Center
and University Writing Center also moved to the first floor of the library to increase face-to-face contact with students.
ECU best in three benchmarks
East Carolina ranks high in new studies
conducted by the UNC Board of Governors
measuring how well the 16 campuses are
doing at achieving three important public
policy goals. The campuses were measured
on graduating more and better-trained
schoolteachers, on producing greater
numbers of nurses, and on expanding access
to college through online education. Here’s a
summary of the reports:
Nurses: By a wide margin, East Carolina
continues to produce more nurses than any
other UNC campus, and its graduates have
one of the highest passing rates on the state
licensure exam. East Carolina conferred
1,131 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral
nursing degrees in 2009. UNC Chapel Hill,
with 666 nursing graduates of all types, was
second among the 11 UNC campuses with
nursing programs. UNC Greensboro, with
651 nursing graduates, was third. Of the
257 ECU nursing graduates who took the
state RN exam for the first time in 2009,
248 passed, a 96 percent passing rate that’s
second only to Carolina’s 97 percent rate.
East Carolina has about doubled its nursing
graduates in the past decade, rising from 529
in 1997 to 1,131 in 2009.
Online education: The number of degree-seeking
students taking online courses
through one of the 16 UNC system
campuses soared from under 7,000 to
more than 56,000 in the past 10 years. The
16,603 who were taking courses at ECU
account for about 29 percent of the total.
For the fall 2011 semester, 27,813 online
students were enrolled at ECU, which was
among the first to push online education.
Its successful model later was expanded
into a systemwide approach exemplified by
the UNC Online portal. As a sign of how
pervasive distance education has become, an
online student now can choose from among
3,368 courses to complete one of 234
degrees, certificates or licensure programs
offered completely or mostly online.
Teachers: East Carolina not only produces
more schoolteachers of all types than any
other UNC campus, it’s also doing a good
job graduating teachers with specialized
skills that are in greatest demand such as
math and science. ECU graduated 796
teachers of all types in 2008–09, the last
year for which complete data is available.
Appalachian State University was second
with 580 graduates. Looking at key needs,
ECU was No. 1 in producing middle grades
math teachers, No. 1 in middle grades
science teachers, No. 1 in secondary grades
science teachers, No. 1 in middle grades
education teachers and No. 2 (to UNC
Greensboro) in special education teachers.
He makes chemistry fun
Students actually like science since Ythol
Arul ’09 began teaching last year at Richlands
High School in Jacksonville. “The enrollment
for chemistry courses has increased by more
than 50 percent since he started teaching
there,” says C.J. Korenek, human resources
director for Onslow County Schools.
Arul, who teaches chemistry honors, earth
science and earth science honors, was
recognized as Onslow County School’s
2010 Beginning Teacher of the Year. “He’s
very hands on and is such a positive force,
and it’s his excitement—you see it every day
in his classroom,” said beginning teacher
coordinator Darlene Burgess. “Students sense
his excitement and they pick up on that.”
Born in Cambodia among the Montagnard
people, Arul emigrated when he was 6.
Before coming to Raleigh in 1992 he had
no formal education and could not speak a
word of English. Sponsored by a Lutheran
church in Raleigh, Arul and his family moved
to Cary in 1999. He graduated from Cary
High School, came to ECU and completed
a BS in science education with a chemistry
concentration. He received the Latham Award
of Excellence in Teaching in 2009 and was
the 2009 Student Teacher of the Year.
“I am by no means a great science teacher,
but my hope is that others may think of me
as a great communicator and a very relational
person,” says Arul, who also is an assistant
coach for the school’s volleyball and track and
field teams. “I believe that it is my passion
for chemistry and my ability to relate and
connect well with my students that has helped
me to have a successful first year. However,
I know that I have much to learn about this
profession. But that is the beauty of being
a teacher; every day is a learning experience.
Both for students as well as for teachers.”
­—
the Jacksonville Daily News
contributed to this report
Ythol Arul
5
Provided
6
the ecu report
Gift creates
McGee Professorship
Wingate University President Jerry
McGee ’65 has pledged $333,000 to East
Carolina to establish the Jerry McGee
Distinguished Professorship in the College
of Health and Human Performance. The
gift qualifies for state matching funds from
the Distinguished
Professors Endowment
Trust created by the
General Assembly.
Dean Glen Gilbert said
the gift “will create a
legacy that celebrates
his inspiring history
with the college and is
especially promising in
the current economic
climate where
competition to recruit
exceptional faculty
continues to increase.”
In the 18 years McGee
has been president,
Wingate achieved
university status
while about doubling
in size to 2,400 students. The school,
located near Charlotte, is recognized as
one of the best small liberal arts colleges
in the South. It offers 32 undergraduate
majors, six master’s degrees and doctorates
in education and pharmacy. McGee
previously served at Gardner-Webb
University, Meredith College and Furman
University.
Throughout his 37-year career in higher
education, McGee also worked weekends as
an official at college football games, mostly
in the ACC. A field judge, he worked more
than 400 regular-season games and dozens
of bowl games. After officiating at his third
national championship, McGee retired
his yellow flag after the 2009 game. “As
I watched the clock wind down,” he said
then, “I thought about many people who
had helped me along the way, including
East Carolina coach Jack Boone who hired
me as an intramural football official when
I was a college sophomore.”
“Like so many of ECU students, he
embodies the American dream that
determination and an education can make
a bright future possible,” Gilbert said. “He
grew up with little or no financial resources
and sometimes had to
literally fight his way
to and from school.”
A native of Roberdel,
a mill village near
Rockingham, McGee
was a member of the
Phi Epsilon Kappa
fraternity and the
1963 varsity baseball
team. His mentors
were professor Clint
Strong and coach
Boone, who hired
McGee as the student
director of intramural
programs, the income
from which allowed
him to stay in school.
Although he enjoyed
sports, he also remembers spending
many nights studying with classmates
who remained lifelong friends,” he said,
mentioning Jimmie Grimsley ’66 ’67 of
Winterville, UNC Pembroke Chancellor
Charles Jenkins ’66 ’67 ’68 and Jack
Bobbitt ’66 ’70 of Blounts Creek.
McGee has two sons—Ryan, a graduate
of the University of Tennessee, who is a
senior writer for ESPN the Magazine; and
Sam, a graduate of Wake Forest University
and Yale Law School, who is a practicing
attorney. He was married to Hannah
Covington McGee for 33 years before
her death in 1999 and recently married
Marcella McInnis of High Point.
McGee said he made the commitment to
establish the professorship because the
education he received at East Carolina
changed the course of his life.
Many pictures were dusted off and
published to mark the 50th anniversary
of President John F. Kennedy’s campaign
appearance in Greenville on Sept. 17,
1960, and now two home movies have
been discovered showing Kennedy’s
motorcade and his speech at College
Stadium. One of the films, donated
by University Book Exchange owner
Don Edwards of Greenville, has been
digitized and is available for viewing at
Joyner Library. It is posted on East’s web
site, www.ecu.edu/east. The film includes
footage of Kennedy’s motorcade nearing
the stadium and his remarks from the
podium. A second film of Kennedy’s
appearance has been donated by Amy
Leggett Brake ’78 of Rocky Mount and
her sister, Susan Leggett Hancock ’76 of
Beaufort. Their film, which was shot by
their mother, captures the motorcade as
it arrives on campus before the stadium
event. University historian John Tucker
said it’s hoped that eventually both films
will be digitized and made available
for public viewing on the University
Archives web site.
7
Balancing badge and book
Television is loaded with cop shows in which
quirky lab workers find the evidence to solve
the crime. TV forensic scientists usually are
hip and cool, like NCIS’s eccentric medical
examiner “Ducky” Mallard and Goth-dressing
forensic specialist Abby.
For the real Duckys and Abbys of the world,
however, analyzing crime scene evidence is
much less glamorous. The work often is
frustrating and painstaking but it’s mostly
routine, as students minoring in forensic
science at ECU know all too well. Offered
by the Department of Criminal Justice, the
program focuses on criminal investigation
and crime scene investigation—the crucial
nuts and bolts of police work. The program
has 354 students in the bachelor of science
program and 43 in the master’s program.
One important thing the cop shows do
get right, according to instructor Dennis
Honeycutt, is showing the division of
labor in crime scene investigation between
agents at the scene carefully gathering and
packaging evidence for examination later in
the morgue and lab. “Courses in the minor
give students the chance to spend time at
mock crime scenes finding and processing
evidence such as blood and other body fluids,
weapons, and fi bers,” says Honeycutt, a
nationally recognized crime scene expert who
has worked on many high-profile cases over
a 30-year career. “The students then follow
that evidence into our forensic laboratory
where they learn to use the equipment and
techniques necessary to identify, classify and
prepare the evidence for further analysis.”
Cops are cops but forensic scientists are a
different breed, says department chair Bill
Bloss, because they usually are “educated
in the natural sciences such as biology or
chemistry.” Still, there’s a strong partnership
between police work and the academic
community, even in disciplines as diverse
as accounting—the source of forensic
accountants who investigates white-collar
business crimes, Bloss says. “There’s even a
forensic subfield in entomology concerned
with studying insect infestation in human
remains,” he adds.
As police work becomes more complex,
there’s a greater demand for college-educated
investigators equipped with
specialized skills. “In today’s job market,
law enforcement agencies are hiring in many
different disciplines,” says Honeycutt. “At
present jobs are fairly plentiful in the latent
evidence (fingerprint) field, DNA analysis,
drug chemistry and in computer forensics.
But whether on the collection side or the
analysis side, the most valuable forensic
workers are those who truly care about the
service they’re providing, no matter what the
discipline. Success comes from the tenacity
to go the extra mile and make sure evidence
is processed correctly and thoroughly.”
—Peggy Novotny
News briefs
Walk-in docs: Faculty and staff and their
families can now receive fast medical care at
Student Health Services on Main Campus.
The new practice site for ECU Physicians’
Rapid Access service, led by Dr. Susan Keen
’94 ’97 ’03, a clinical assistant professor
of family medicine at the Brody School
of Medicine. ECU employees can make
same-day appointments or just walk in. The
practice has two exam rooms, complete with
purple and gold tiles. Pharmacy, laboratory
and radiology services are also available.
ECU adds degrees: East Carolina has
received authority from the UNC Board
of Governors to begin offering three new
degrees—a bachelor of science in geographic
information science and technology and
master’s degrees in biomedical sciences
and in security studies. The master’s in
security studies “will provide students an
interdisciplinary approach to understanding
and addressing the diverse domestic and
international threats to U.S. security,” the
school says. ECU also has begun planning to
offer a Ph.D. in economics.
Project HEART honored: An AmeriCorps
program based in the College of Education
that places tutors in schools and afterschool
programs to help high-risk kids in the
region was featured in a national
publication of the American
Services Commission,
which operates
the AmeriCorps
program. Project
HEART, for High
Expectations for
At-Risk Teens,
was one of 39
AmeriCorps
programs
nationally chosen
for publication.
The program is a
regional partnership
between ECU,
AmeriCorps, the North
Daily Reflector Image Collection
Provided
8
Carolina Commission on Volunteerism and
Community Service, community colleges,
local schools and Boys & Girls Clubs.
Started in 2000, Project HEART helps teens
stay in school, graduate, go to college and
return to their community to help others.
In a press release, Gov. Beverly Perdue said
“Project HEART is a great AmeriCorps
program that is shining a light on North
Carolina at its best.”
Helping farmers: ECU’s Center for
Survey Research is helping North Carolina
farmers combat the notion that run-off
from farming operations is a major
cause of pollution. With backing from
the Environmental Education Fund and
the N.C. Rural Economic Development
Center, the center is conducting focus
groups around the state on the topic of
rural development and environmental
sustainability. “Many people think that
agricultural runoff is one of the key sources
of environmental pollution when in actuality,
municipalities are the main source,” said
center director Mandee Foushee Lancaster.
So far, the center has interviewed farmers in
Rutherford, Warren, Polk, Sampson, Moore
and Randolph counties and plans are being
made to collect data in Robeson, Pitt, Bertie,
Pamlico and Lincoln counties.
Sex offenses increase: The number of
forcible sexual offenses reported on Main
Campus in 2009 increased to nine from
three the previous year, about the only
statistic in an annual report by the ECU
Police Department that rose from the prior
year. Included in the statistic are all incidents
of a sexual nature reported anonymously to
any campus official. Most other on-campus
crimes declined from 2008 to 2009, with
arrests for weapons law violations dropping
from 11 to eight, arrests for drug law
violations falling from 59 to 49, arrests for
liquor law violations falling from 303 to
133, and robberies dropping from one to
zero. For at least the third year in a row, no
crimes were reported on the Health Sciences
Campus. Also for at least the third year, no
hate crimes were reported on either campus.
Another record enrollment
ECU set another record for enrollment fall
semester with 27,813 students, up 143
from this time last year. Most of this year’s
enrollment growth is in the Graduate School,
which rose to 6,014 students from 5,892
last year. This year’s freshman class grew
from 3,956 to 4,193.
Officials said dealing with the continued
enrollment growth was eased by the fact
that Scott Residence Hall on College Hill
reopened after an extensive renovation and
addition that raised its capacity to 613.
With all residence halls full, the number
of students living on Main Campus fall
semester exceeded 5,000.
“These are very positive numbers for
the university, especially considering the
uncertain state of the economy and the
higher costs this year,” said ECU spokesman
John Durham. “We look forward to a
productive, exciting year with another record-setting
student body.”
ECU showed improvement in the percentage
of freshmen returning for their sophomore
year, which indicates fewer are dropping
out. This widely watched retention rate is
the ecu report
Hoping to encourage more students to spend a semester studying abroad, East Carolina
staged an International Fair this fall that brought representatives of 21 foreign universities
to campus. Students asked questions about what it would be like study in China,
Netherlands, Australia or one of the other 18 countries represented. Only 41 ECU students
were studying abroad this fall, a number the university is working to increase. The shorter
and less expensive summer study abroad programs are more popular. This past summer,
277 students traveled abroad as part of 23 different programs.
the highest it has been in 10 years, at 81.33
percent, up from 78.8 percent the previous
year. “We have invested a lot of time and
energy in improving our retention figures
across the campus, and we are pleased and
encouraged by these numbers,” Durham
said. “We will continue our efforts and look
forward to even better retention rates as we
move ahead.”
The numbers for fall 2010 aren’t official
until released by the UNC General
Administration along with similar data from
other universities in the state system.
—Anna Logemann
ECU rolls out e-Proctoring
ECU has solved a problem that is preventing
the UNC system’s online education program
from growing into academic disciplines
that require students to sit for monitored
exams, something that’s hard to arrange
when students in a class may live anywhere
in the country. The solution is to identify
local educators or people like librarians who
could be trained once to become a proctor,
as exam monitors are known. Their names
would go into a database that any campus in
the UNC system could tap as a resource. At
exam time, the professor can give students
lists of approved proctors in their area. This
so-called “write once, deploy everywhere”
approach is much more efficient that the
current fragmented system.
The e-Proctoring system, which will be
based at ECU, went live fall semester and was
demonstrated for the Board of Governors
at its Oct. 7 meeting. A ECU staff member
will provide oversight for the system, which
will serve students enrolled through any of
the 16 UNC system campuses. For the time
being ECU will be the only campus using
all the e-Proctoring features; several other
campuses, including UNC Chapel Hill, are
on a slower roll-out.
ECU and N.C. State were pioneers in online
education in North Carolina and continue to
operate the largest programs in the state.
ECU now smart phone-friendly
East Carolina rolled out a new generation
of technology that allows students to use
their smart phones to access the same level
of interactive online services as has been
delivered to their laptops. By redesigning
the university’s main web portal to display
on the tiny screens of iPhones, Droids and
other smart phones, it’s now possible for
students to log on to Blackboard to see their
grades and homework, or go to OneStop
to check financial records, while walking
between classes.
ECU’s mobile site was developed by
staff in four and a half months, with the
majority of that time spent on researching
the capabilities and limitations of smart
phones, and then testing designs on real
and simulated mobile devices. The mobile
site has had approximately 70,000 users in
the first weeks since it launched at the start
of fall semester.
Of those, 34 percent are Android powered
devices, 25 percent are iPhones, 16 percent
are Blackberries, 13 percent are iPads and 11
percent are iPod Touches.
A “you are here” geolocation service displays
a map on smart phones that shows your
location on campus and give directions, a
feature that is useful to lost freshmen as well
as returning alumni.
“The mobile market is continuing to grow
and change by leaps and bounds,” said Joe
Norris, ECU’s chief information officer.
“Our students, faculty, staff and alumni are
part of this market—many of them stay
on the go and rely on their smart phones
and other mobile devices to get information
quickly and from any location.”
“Our extensive research led us to the
decision to base the mobile interface in a
web environment rather than an application,
so that the site would be viewable on many
different devices and operating systems,”
explained Jo Lynne Daughtry, senior IT
specialist. “Whether you’re using a Droid
with the Android operating system, an Apple
iPhone, or even a desktop computer, you can
easily navigate the mobile site.”
—Meagan Williford
9
10
the ecu report
Closing the diploma gap
East Carolina has attracted notice for
graduating African-American students at
rates similar to their white counterparts,
defying a national achievement gap. A
report from Education Trust, a Washington,
D.C.-based organization that works to close
achievement gaps, recognized ECU and two
other universities in the UNC System, UNC
Charlotte and UNC Greensboro, as leaders
in graduating African-American students.
Among African-American ECU students,
56.2 percent graduate, while 55.4 percent
of white students do. Nationally, African-
American students earn bachelor’s degrees
from four-year institutions at rates nearly
20 points below those of their white peers,
according to the report.
Education Trust analyzed federal data for
293 public and 163 private colleges. Rates
cited are three-year averages, based on
statistics for 2006 through 2008. For-profit
and historically black institutions were not
examined.
This is the second time Education Trust
has cited ECU’s success in graduating
African-American students. In 2004, the
organization noted that ECU’s graduation
rate among black students was almost double
the rate of similar universities.
—Greenville The Daily Reflector
Degrees on the chopping block
Looking for ways to cut the budget, the
Board of Trustees is considering dropping
some degree programs that attract few
majors or merging similar majors that
overlap. Although the board has performed
these reviews since 1993, they seem more
urgent this year as shrinking budgets grow
ever tighter.
Briefing trustees at their Sept. 16 meeting,
Provost Marilyn Sheerer said three programs
were cut after the last such review, in 2008.
At that time 22 others were flagged for
low productivity, 15 agreed to increase
enrollment, six were retained with future low
enrollment likely, and one was combined
with another program on campus.
The low productivity list, Sheerer told
trustees, doesn’t address matters of a
program’s quality or student achievement.
It simply means that the program didn’t
meet a certain threshold in enrollment or
graduation numbers. For bachelor’s degrees,
that means programs are to be reviewed if
they have awarded fewer than 20 degrees
in the last two years, unless upper-division
enrollment in the most recent year exceeds
25 or degrees awarded in the most
recent year exceeds 10. The thresholds
for master’s, professional and doctoral
programs are lower. Newer programs are
given time to grow enrollment and thus
aren’t flagged for review.
The General Assembly in 1993 directed
the UNC Board of Governors to biennially
identify programs that are, in the words of
the legislation, of “low productivity or low
priority or are unnecessarily redundant.”
College of Business Dean Rick Niswander
pointed out that some programs traditionally
on the low-productivity list, such as physics
and philosophy, don’t usually have many
majors, but hundreds if not thousands of
students pursuring different majors are
required to take those core courses. Such
programs, Niswander said, have “significant
service to the rest of the university,
Jay Clark
11
Jeanne Robertson
regardless of how many majors they have.”
Eliminating health sciences programs that
have been on the low-productivity list would
jeopardize the Brody School of Medicine’s
accreditation, said Phyllis Horns, vice
chancellor for health sciences.
Enrollment and graduation figures are
among several factors that will determine
a program’s future, Sheerer said. “When
we talk to the deans, we’re not just talking
about numbers,” Sheerer said. “We’re talking
about market. We’re talking about the success
of the graduates. We’re talking about why
they’re continuing to support this program.”
Clarice Cato Goodyear, liaison to ECU
from the UNC Board of Governors,
said the BOG wishes to sustain unique
programs that further institutional
missions, such as the ones offered by the
medical school and the aviation program at
Elizabeth City State University.
“We’re trying to identify signature
programs and encourage those programs
to be supported, which means, realistically,
something has to give,” she said.
It’s expected that the trustees will announce
their decision at their spring meeting.
Department chairs, in consultation with
deans, will determine how to respond if their
program lands on the list. If, as is usually the
case, they don’t believe the program should
be eliminated, they can suggest ways to
increase enrollment, offer to combine it with
another on-campus program or investigate
ways to collaborate with another UNC
system institution.
In the last three budget years, ECU has
lost more than $106 million in recurring
and nonrecurring funds, and budgets are
expected to remain tight in coming years.
The elimination of many programs, however,
would raise a thorny question: What to do
with displaced tenured faculty? Sheerer said
many UNC campuses are awaiting guidance
on that question from the UNC General
Administration.
—Karen Shugart, ECU News Services
Intern joins staff
Anna Logemann, a native of Winston-Salem
and a graduate student at East Carolina
University, is serving an internship with East magazine diring fall semester. She is writing
news and feature stories for the magazine
and helping out in other areas of University
Publications, including helping produce
short videos shown on the ECU web site.
Logemann is enrolled in the master’s of
communication program at ECU. Her area
of focus is health care communication. She
also is a teaching assistant this semester
in the School of Communication. She
completed her undergraduate work with
honors in May 2009, earning a bachelor’s in
broadcast journalism.
Grant to build dental centers
A grant of $1.76 million will help the
School of Dental Medicine build its first
two community service learning centers in
northeastern North Carolina. The three-year
grant from the federal Health Resources and
Services Administration is targeted for the
planned centers in Ahoskie and Elizabeth
City. The funds will help establish a dental
residency program, recruit faculty staff
and residents, develop and promote dental
practices to underserved patients and provide
office and dental equipment for both facilities.
Each center will be a fully functioning general
dentistry office with 14 operatories, X-ray
equipment, educational spaces and more.
Officials are working on the property deeds for
the centers and plan to open them by 2012.
“It is especially gratifying to see our success
getting the grant since no one at our school
has much experience preparing such grant
proposals,” said dental school Dean James
Hupp. “Plus, the team did this work while
preparing for our national accreditation
evaluation. Such efforts will help us leverage
state funds to replace some that we lost due
to the state’s budget difficulties.”
A full-time dental school faculty member
will staff each center, along with dental
hygienists and other staff members. Fourth-year
dental students and residents will
train at the centers. Dr. Gregory Chadwick,
associate dean for planning and extramural
affairs, has described the centers as similar
to “moving the fourth floor of the dental
school—the clinical training—off campus to
rural areas of our state where dental services
are needed.”
A third center is planned for Sylva in western
North Carolina’s Jackson County. A total of
10 centers will be built in underserved areas
across the state at sites to be determined.
The School of Dental Medicine has
begun its accreditation process and is
interviewing its first group of applicants.
The school plans to admit its first students
next fall, with plans to admit 50 students
each year. The N.C. General Assembly has
provided about $90 million in funding for
construction of the school.
—ECU News Services
New fraternity on campus
The first new fraternity on campus in many
years has received its national charter as the
Pi Nu chapter of Phi Gamma Delta. A year
after starting as a colony,
the new fraternity has 42
members—including two
top SGA officers—and
16 pledges. Meanwhile,
Sigma Tau Gamma,
which originally joined
the Inter-Fraternity
Council in the 1970s, is
undergoing a re-founding
and is operating as a
colony; it expects to
receive its national
charter this spring. Both
fraternities focus on academics. Phi Gamma
has four other chapters in North Carolina,
at N.C. State, UNC Wilmington, Davidson
College and UNC Chapel Hill. A third
group is in the process of founding a chapter
of Alpha Tau Omega on campus. ECU now
has 16 fraternities and 15 sororities.
the ecu report
Eas t C a r o l i n a t i m e l i n e
Connecting town and gown
As ECTTS starts its second
year, walking over from
town to view the handsome
new buildings becomes a
popular Sunday afternoon
outing for Greenville
residents. It’s quite a hike
because town ends where
Fifth Street stops at about
Cotanche Street. From there
the strollers follow a sandy
path across “Buzzard’s Roost” ravine—site of the town slaughterhouse—
and up the hill through dense underbrush to the school. The town begins
extending Fifth Street and in 1910 the school plants a hedge and lays a
wooden sidewalk on its side of the new street. Four years later the school
builds a home for President Robert Wright across Fifth Street (photo), now
the Career Services Building. With Fifth Street now connecting town and
campus, the growth of Greenville—which had been spreading west from
Five Points—reverses course toward the college.
Amelia Earhart visits
She gets a big laugh during a Jan. 15, 1936,
assembly in Wright Auditorium when she says
her biggest fear is trying to balance a salad on
her lap while flying. In an oral history recorded
later, Lucy Stuart Parrish Murphy ’37, one of
the students who greeted her, says Earhart
was wearing a dress she designed and made
herself. “She was vivacious, charming, poised
and beautiful. She wore her evening gown
with grace and assurance. I was awestruck that
she not only knew how to make a plane fly but
she could also make a sewing machine fly, and
very successfully!” Earhart disappears over the
Pacific 18 months later. “When she became
lost,” Murphy adds, “it was unconceivable
that she could really have any problem—just a
matter of misreading a map, perhaps a dense
fog. Even today, I often think she will just walk
in with a smile and ‘What’s up?’”
100
YEARS AGO 75
YEARS AGO
Campaign nears
$200 million goal
The generosity of thousands of alumni,
supporters and friends has pushed the
Second Century Campaign over the $181
million mark toward its goal of $200
million, reaching a campaign milestone more
than a year ahead of schedule. The university
expected to meet or surpass the $200 million
goal in 2011, which would be an especially
successful effort given the economy.
“We have the momentum and commitment
to raise $200 million and more to support
every aspect of the university, including
student scholarships, professorships,
lectureships, research and outreach, facilities,
and athletics,” said Vice Chancellor for
University Advancement Mickey Dowdy.
“We are grateful for every contribution,
especially during a time in which budgets are
strained all over. With increasing demands
for funding across the university, it is
imperative that 2011 is the year that ECU
meets and exceeds its $200 million goal.”
The Second Century Campaign was launched
publicly in March 2008, with the goal of
providing financial support for the bold
vision set out by ECU Tomorrow: A Vision for
Leadership and Service, the university’s strategic
plan adopted by the Board of Trustees in
Chancellor Steve Ballard accepts the 2010 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Award
during a Sept. 23 gala in Washington, D.C. Presenting what’s known as the Freedom Award
are Under Secretary of Defense Robert Hale (left) and Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Reserve Affairs Dennis McCarthy (right). East Carolina was recognized by the Defense
Department for its support of employees and staff members serving in the National Guard
and Reserves. Before the event Ballard met with Vice President Joe Biden and Defense
Secretary Robert Gates.
Sculls and crossbones
Left high and dry after
a June 1970 warehouse
fire that destroys most
of the equipment, the
crewteam regroups and
presses ahead. Training
on improvised facilities
on the Tar River and the
Pamlico Sound, crew then
races to a surprisingly
successful 1971 spring
season by defeating
some Northern schools
with long-established
programs. The sport becomes a rage on campus when Pirate oarsmen take sixth
place in the Dad Vials Regatta in Philadelphia and second place in the Grimaldi Cup
races in New York. They even beat Carolina. But student interest in a sport so unusual
in the South soon fades. Crew isn’t mentioned in the yearbook after 1976.
Images courtesy University Archives
Riding shotgun with Leo
As enrollment zooms past 5,000
in the fall of 1960, newly installed
President Leo Jenkins knows
he must delegate authority to
have time to pursue university
status. He elevates Robert Holt
from registrar to dean with broad
discretion to run the campus. To
keep up to date, Jenkins asks Holt
to ride with him on his frequent
speaking engagements around
the state. They debate politics
and educational policy as they
barrel down the back roads of eastern North Carolina, with both occasionally
talking into tape recorders to note decisions made. Jenkins’ rhetoric sways
public opinion but it’s glowing praise in the Southern Association of Colleges
and Schools’ 1963 reaccreditation—an effort led by Holt—that provides
irrefutable proof that East Carolina is ready for university status, which finally
comes in 1967. After a 34-year career with the school, Holt retires in 1984.
40
YEARS AGO 50
YEARS AGO
2007. While fully funding that ambitious
vision would take more than $1 billion
over the next decade, the Second Century
Campaign is a first step toward accomplishing
great things at ECU. Since that launch,
alumni and friends have contributed gifts
large and small, voicing their continued
commitment to the university.
That commitment is embodied in donors
like Marguerite Perry, who taught foreign
languages at ECU for 47 years. A long-time
supporter and volunteer for ECU, Perry
has established several scholarships, funds
and charitable gift annuities to benefit ECU
and its students. She remains involved with
the university through programs such as
the Women’s Roundtable, Retired Faculty
Association, and the advancement councils
of the Thomas Harriot College of Arts
and Sciences and Foreign Languages and
Literatures.
“I am proud to say that dedicated alumni
and friends like Marguerite Perry are the
norm at ECU, rather than the exception,”
said Dowdy. “Her contributions and planned
gifts have had, and will continue to have,
an incredible impact on ECU’s students,
faculty and staff for many years to come.
Her loyalty to ECU and the diversity of her
contribution sets a wonderful example for
the whole Pirate Nation.”
Gifts may be designated for the program,
college or school, or area of the donor’s
choice. For more information about the
Second Century Campaign and how you can
contribute, call Dowdy at 252-328-9550 or
visit www.ecu.edu/devt. —Kara Loftin
Marguerite Perry
14
Stadium video upgraded
Fans raving at the quality of the videos
shown on the new scoreboard in Dowdy-
Ficklen Stadium can’t see the reason for
the improvement. It’s hidden in a control
room tucked under the giant scoreboard.
There, live feeds stream into a new state-of-
the-art video production facility from
five new Panasonic HD cameras positioned
around the stadium. The cameras capture
game action, crowd shots, halftime activities
and presentations on the field during game
breaks. Before this year ECU Athletics
rented a production truck and hired local
television station personnel to produce
the stadium’s video show. Now, that work
is done by a staff led by Mike Myles,
who serves as technical director for home
football game coverage. When the football
season ends, the control room will be used
to produce coverage of baseball and softball
home games, as well as soccer, volleyball,
and basketball in the 2011–2012 season.
Men’s Basketball Schedule
Nov. 15 vs. Campbell
Nov. 18 vs. N.C. State
Nov. 19 Charlotte or George Mason
Nov. 21 Charleston Classic
Nov. 24 vs. Lenoir-Rhyne
Nov. 27 vs. UNC Greensboro
Dec. 1 vs. UNC Charlotte
Dec. 04 vs. Fayetteville State
Dec. 07 vs. Old Dominion
Dec. 19 at Coastal Carolina
Dec. 22 at George Washington
Dec. 29 at Clemson
Jan. 03 at N.C. Central
Conference games
Jan. 8 at Memphis
Jan. 12 vs. Alabama Birmingham
Jan. 15 vs. Tulane
Jan. 19 at Central Florida
Jan. 22 at Marshall
Jan. 26 vs. Southern Miss
Jan. 29 vs. Houston
Feb. 2 at Southern Methodist
Feb. 5 vs. Central Florida
Feb. 12 vs. Marshall
Feb. 16 at Tulsa
Feb. 19 at Southern Miss
Feb. 23 vs. Texas El Paso
Feb. 26 at Rice
March 2 vs. Memphis
March 5 at Alabama Birmingham
Conference Tournament
Women’s Basketball Schedule
Nov. 12 vs. American
Nov. 14 at Western Carolina
Nov. 19 vs. UNC Wilmington
Nov. 22 vs. Virginia Union
Nov. 26 vs. Maryland
Nov. 28 vs. Massachusetts
Dec. 2 at VCU
Dec. 5 at Charlotte
Dec. 8 vs. Hampton
Dec. 20 vs. UCLA (in Hawai’i)
Dec. 21 at Hawai’i
Dec. 29 vs. Prairie View A&M (in Iowa)
Dec. 30 vs. Florida A&M (in Iowa)
Conference games
Jan. 6 at UTEP
Jan. 9 vs. Memphis
Jan. 13 at Tulane
Jan. 16 vs. Rice
Jan. 23 at Southern Miss
Jan. 27 vs. UAB
Jan. 30 vs. UCF
Feb. 3 at Marshall
Feb. 6 at Memphis
Feb. 10 vs. Southern Miss
Feb. 13 at Houston
Feb. 17 vs. SMU
Feb. 20 at UCF
Feb. 24 vs. Tulsa
Feb. 27 vs. Marshall
March 3 at UAB
Conference Tournament
the ecu report
Art professor Robert “Bob” Ebendorf
received the state’s highest honor, the North
Carolina Award, along with five other leading
cultural figures. Gov. Beverly Perdue and
Cultural Resources Secretary Linda Carlisle
presented the awards at the N.C. Museum
of History. The award “celebrates creativity
and innovation, two values which sustain
our economy, our culture and our people,”
said Perdue. Ebendorf has been a leader in
the studio jewelry movement since the early
1960s and is world renowned as an artist and
teacher. In addition to gold, silver and bronze,
unusual materials such as fossils, animal
claws or even soda pop pull tops find their
way into his creations. Previous honorees in
Fine Arts included painter Francis Speight,
musician James Taylor, jazz great Billy Taylor,
actor Andy Griffith, painter Bob Timberlake,
and folk and bluegrass music legend “Doc”
Watson. His work is in the collections of the
Metropolitan Museum in New York City,
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the
Smithsonian Institution, the Mint Museum
in Charlotte and the Victoria and Albert
Museum in London. He came to ECU in
1997 and was named the Carol Grotnes Belk
Distinguished Professor of Art in 1999.
Distinguished professors in biology Mark
Brinson and Robert Christian are retiring
after long careers at East Carolina. Brinson,
who came in 1973, received the Thomas
Harriot College of Arts and Sciences
Distinguished Professor Award and the
Board of Trustees Lifetime Achievement
Award. Christian, who came in 1981, has
directed 17 master’s theses and two doctoral
dissertations.
Sociology professor
Jeffrey C. Johnson is
the Thomas Harriot
College of Arts and
Sciences Distinguished
Professor for 2010.
The award recognizes a
professor whose career
exemplifies a
commitment to and a love for knowledge
and academic life, as demonstrated by
outstanding teaching and advising, research
and creative productivity. During 30 years
here, he has mentored more than 16 master’s
students and 19 doctoral students.
Maria C. Clay was appointed chair
of the Department of Bioethics and
Interdisciplinary Studies (formerly the
Department of Medical Humanities) at the
Brody School of Medicine. She had served
on interim basis since 2008.
Phillip H. Pekala was named chair of the
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology at Brody, which he joined as a
faculty member in 1981. Pekala had served
as the interim chair since 2006.
New senior level staff members in the Office
of Student Affairs include Bobby Woodard
’98, the new executive director of Student
Involvement and Leadership in Mendenhall
Student Center. He was associate dean of
students and director of the Tate Student
Center at the University of Georgia.
Kathleen Hill is the inaugural director of
Assessment, Research and Retention, a new
position. She was a program manager for
the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at
Ohio State University. Bill McCartney is
the associate vice chancellor for Housing and
Dining. He was director of International
House at the University of Chicago.
Syed Ahmed is the
new chair of the
Department of
Construction
Management in the
College of Technology
and Computer Science.
He comes from Florida
International
University in Miami, where he was an
associate professor and graduate program
director.
Stephanie George and Chad Bosseti have
joined the faculty of the Department of
Engineering and will specialize in biomedical
engineering. Ricky Castles also joined the
faculty there to teach computer engineering.
U N I V E R S I T Y L I F E
Brinson Christian
15
Gregorian joins noted quartet
When the Daedalus Quartet performs
on campus this winter as part of
the Four Seasons Chamber Music
Festival, one of the players will look
quite familiar. One of the two violinists
is Ara Gregorian, artistic director
of the festival and a member of the
ECU string faculty since 1998. Being
asked to join a group praised by
the Philadelphia Inquirer as playing
so sweetly that “seams between
instrumental timbres seemed to
disappear” is a large feather in
Gregorian’s already well-decorated hat.
“I’ve always wanted to be in a string
quartet. The Daedalus Quartet already
is 10 years into a great career, and I can
step into place to help build where they
are going,” he says.
Based in New York City (Columbia
University) and Philadelphia (University
of Pennsylvania) for concerts and
master classes, the quartet also
performs between 50 and 80 concerts
here and abroad. It has built a repertoire
that “spans the earliest quartets to
pieces being commissioned now,”
Gregorian says.
Despite this new demand on his
time, Gregorian remains committed
to East Carolina, to teaching and to
supervising the Four Seasons Chamber
Music Festival, which began its 11th
season in September. “It will still get
my full attention,” he says. Because his
teaching involves mainly one-on-one
instruction with ECU string students,
that arrangement should be flexible
enough to accommodate periods to
travel with the quartet.
In a newspaper interview last March,
violist Jessica Thompson said quartet
members already were familiar with
Gregorian. “We’ve played with him
many times. We also read with a lot of
different violinists and rehearsed with
several different people. We just really
felt a musical connection.”
The quartet, with Gregorian in one of
the violinist’s chairs, also will play in the
regularly scheduled January concert
of the Four Seasons Chamber Music
Festival (Jan. 13–14). Gregorian says
he would like to bring the other three
players to Greenville more frequently.
For all of Gregorian’s varied interests
since leaving the Juilliard School, this is
the first time he has been a member of
a full-time string quartet. “I always tried
to wait for the right opportunity. This is
thrilling, this is great, and I am having a
wonderful time.”
The Four Seasons Chamber Music
Festival begins its winter series in
A.J. Fletcher Music Hall with concerts
in December and January and a
special event for donors in February.
Receptions follow all the events.
• On Dec. 2 at 7 p.m. and Dec. 3 at 8,
the festival features “The Road Less
Traveled,” with Shostakovich and von
Dohnanyi and Ravel’s La Valse for two
pianos.
• On Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. and Jan. 14 at
8, “Festive Beginnings,” with the
Daedalus Quartet, will perform string
quartets by Mozart and Schumann and
a Dvorak piano quintet.
• On Feb. 6 at 3 p.m. the festival
honors donors with “Dynamic Duos,”
featuring Gregorian on violin and
Robert McDonald on piano for sonatas
by Schumann, Beethoven and Franck.
The festival will offer two free events
this winter in its “Next Generation”
series of concerts.
• On Nov. 14 at 3 p.m., the Daedalus
Quarter will perform Schubert’s String
Quartet in D Minor, D. 810 “Death and
the Maiden.”
• On Feb. 13 at 3 p.m., violinist Elina
Vahala will perform Bach’s Double
Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor.
Raman Ramakrishnan, cello; Min-Young Kim, violin; Ara Gregorian; Jessica Thompson, viola
16
17
Who’s in town?
S. Rudolph Alexander Performing Arts
Series brings pianist Emile Pandolfi to
Wright Auditorium on Dec. 1. He’s known
for lush arrangements of show tunes
and classical music. Opole, the National
Philharmonic of Poland, will come to ECU
Feb. 10 for a concert consisting of Mozart’s
Overture to The Magic Flute, Chopin’s
Piano Concerto No. 1 and Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica.” The Dayton
Contemporary Dance Company, rooted
in the African-American experience, will
perform Feb. 23.
Student and faculty ensembles: The
Wind Ensemble, Concert Band and
Symphonic Band will present a concert
Nov. 16 at Wright Auditorium. The
School of Music’s percussion players
and ensembles will play Nov. 17 at
Fletcher Recital Hall, and the Guitar
Ensemble will perform at Fletcher
Dec. 1. The School of Music’s combined
holiday concert leads off a series of
seasonal concerts Dec. 4 at 3 p.m. in
Wright Auditorium. The choral music
program, under the interim leadership
of Alfred E. Sturgis, will present a pair
of seasonal music concerts before the
winter break. The Chamber Singers,
with Sturgis directing, will perform
Dec. 6 at 7:30 p.m., and the University
Chorale and St. Cecilia Singers, under
the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Ward, will
perform Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m. Both
performances will take place at St.
Paul’s Episcopal Church.
The ECU Symphony Orchestra will
present a concert Dec. 4 in Wright
Auditorium featuring guest violinist
Wolfgang David playing Brahms’
Violin Concerto in D-major. Also on the
program is Mozart’s Symphony No. 39
in E-flat. On Feb. 12, the orchestra will
perform the suite from Stravinsky’s
The Firebird, and faculty member
Christine Gustafson will be guest soloist
in Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 2 in D.
Both concerts will begin at 7:30 p.m.
The Music School’s jazz program will be
represented in a combined jazz band
concert Dec. 3 at Wright Auditorium.
The popular Jazz at Christinne’s
series, featuring students and faculty
members, is continuing its third
season. After September and October
programs, the performances, with
TomtheJazzman as host, return on
Jan. 21 and Feb. 18. Performances
begin at 8 p.m. in the restaurant at
the Hilton Greenville Hotel.
The Fisk on Fourth concert series,
sponsored by the Musical Arts
Education Foundation, will bring
Dr. Ann Labounsky, chairman of the
sacred music and organ program at
Duquesne University, back to Greenville
Feb. 5 to present a recital with Andrew
Scanlon, organist-choirmaster at St.
Paul’s Episcopal Church and organ
professor at ECU. Their joint recital at
St. Paul’s will begin at 7:30 p.m.
Theatre programs: The School of
Theatre and Dance’s annual dance
extravaganza, part of the ECU/Loessin
Playhouse season, is scheduled Jan. 27–
Feb. 1. Dance 2011 will feature original
choreography by faculty members and
guest artists and will include ballet, tap,
jazz and modern dance styles.
Exhibitions: The School of Art and
Design winds down its annual faculty
exhibition Nov. 22 at the Wellington
B. Gray Gallery and then sponsors its
annual show of student and faculty
work Dec. 2–4. From Jan. 13 to Feb.
19, the gallery will present the Seventh
Photographic Image Biennial Exhibition.
Juror Keith Carter will give a talk to
open the exhibition Jan. 13 at 5 p.m.
2W0in11ter Arts Calendar by steve ro w
18
19
It’s been a long climb for East
Carolina, the scrappy little teachers
college that always looked up and
reached high. In the 1960s, it
fought the state’s higher education
establishment to become a university,
instigating wrenching changes that yielded
the current UNC system. In the 1970s
ECU fought a bitter political battle for
funding from the General Assembly to
open a medical school.
But in recent years the climb has seemed
easier. When East Carolina proposed
expensive capital projects—new classroom
buildings, the East Carolina Heart Institute,
the Family Medicine Center—the General
Assembly was surprisingly generous and old
critics were muted. When ECU proposed
opening a dental school, newspapers that once
editorially questioned the school’s academic
capabilities published supportive opinions.
The General Assembly funded the school and
has stuck with it through a deep recession.
Why was it so hard back then and so
relatively easy lately for East Carolina to
gain public recognition and generous state
funding? Observers say it’s because ECU
proved it could deliver what it promised.
Give us the money to build a medical school,
ECU said, and we will train family doctors
who stay and improve health care in the
East. Today the Brody School of Medicine
is nationally recognized as a leader for
accomplishing that mission. Give us more
classrooms and labs, ECU said, and we’ll
confront the state’s critical need for teachers,
nurses and health care workers. ECU has
doubled the number of its graduates entering
those crucial professions.
So when East Carolina pointed to a glaring
need for more dentists in counties east of
I-95 and proposed building the second school
of dentistry in North Carolina to address
it, its record, its reputation and a sense of
momentum weighed in its favor. “ECU
already has a fine track record of looking
out for the health care interests of rural
residents,” said an editorial in the Raleigh
News & Observer.
After a trip of a century, perhaps it’s time for
East Carolina—and its alumni—to ask:
Are we there yet? And if so, how do we know?
Are We There Yet?
Key steps on a long march
1907
Born: East Carolina Teachers Training
School is founded as a two-year
teacher’s school that by law cannot
offer instruction equal to that offered
at Carolina. The school opens in 1909
with 123 students, 104 women and 19
men; the first class graduates in 1911.
1910
Charter amended: The legislature
allows ECTTS to offer a four-year,
college-level program. The first
students to complete the four-year
program graduate in 1913.
1921
Going to college: ECTTS is renamed
East Carolina Teachers College.
Enrollment is about 500. A year later,
ECTC awards its first bachelor degrees
to Gertrude Chamberlain and Virginia
Pigford.
1929
Mastering the subject: ECTC is
authorized to begin a master’s degree
program.
1932
More firsts: There are enough men
enrolled to start basketball and
baseball teams, which are called the
Teachers. Henry Oglesby becomes
the first man to graduate from ECTC.
Enrollment passes 1,000.
1933
Advancing by degrees: ECTC awards
its first master’s degree to Annie
Boone Haskett.
1948
Choose a major: Growth in academic
programs allows ECTC to award both
bachelor of arts and bachelor of
science degrees.
1951
Losing a letter: Allowed to offer
degrees in disciplines other than
teaching, ECTC becomes East Carolina
College.
Charles Jenkins ’66 ’67 ’68 heard the talk
about East Carolina College from some
teachers in his rural eastern North Carolina
high school. “Based on a few comments
teachers made, ECU was in a developing
stage, a stage of developing its academic
reputation,” says Jenkins, a retired university
administrator.
But it was the graduates he knew personally,
not the talk he heard, who shaped his view
of the institution. “My positive image of
ECU was based on a number of teachers and
coaches in the public schools who had gone to
ECU and the positive image they had,” he says.
Jenkins had bumped up against a defining
factor in East Carolina’s life: the school’s
origins. As a teachers college sprung from
a rural region, it lacked the standing and
history other institutions enjoyed. “It
suffered from the fact it was ECTC (East
Carolina Teachers College),” says Jack
Claiborne, retired associate editor for the
Charlotte Observer and longtime observer of
the state’s higher education. “The promise
of the teacher colleges by the end of World
War II was beginning to sound hollow.”
Fast forward to 1996, and the picture
looks different. When Michael Aho ’02
was shopping for colleges, the strength and
national reputation of East Carolina’s special
education program drew the attention of
the honor student from Virginia Beach. He
wanted strong academics and a robust campus
life, including football and marching band.
By M ary S chulken ’ 7 9
20
Charles Jenkins
©2007 Raul Rubiera
21
“Before I got there and when I was there, my
sense was it was a place on the rise, a place
doing what it needed to do to get where it
was going,” Aho says. Now an analyst for the
federal government covering United Nations
peacekeeping efforts worldwide, he credits
the depth in teaching and practical learning
experiences he gained at ECU for landing
him in a field where he is thriving.
Aho, too, had bumped up against a new
defining factor in East Carolina’s story: Its
academic maturity and competence. His and
Jenkins’ experiences, some 40 years apart,
bookend the journey the university has made
and its change in standing.
“It works hard at teaching and research and
public service and when you do those things
well, you develop a reputation that’s gold,”
says Bill Friday, who presided over the UNC
system for 30 years.
How do you measure success?
On the football field, East Carolina prides
itself on playing hard teams and winning
games with an underdog attitude. A
competitive football program has provided
a visible rallying point for the institution’s
growth. Yet sustainable academic maturity—
growth in scholarship, funding and outreach
—along with a record of public service,
are what boosted its standing and changed
perceptions. The numbers tell the tale.
In 1982 ECU had 14,510 students; it
offered 93 degree programs and conferred
2,646 diplomas. By 2009 everything had
doubled. Enrollment was 27,654; the
university offered 202 degree programs and
conferred 5,589 diplomas. It’s been the
fastest-growing UNC campus for several
years, still third overall in enrollment to N.C.
State and, just barely, to UNC Chapel Hill.
“It’s one of the really great stories of
growth, but not just growth for growth’s
sake; there’s quality in programs and
initiatives and service,” says Friday, who
remains the unofficial dean of higher
education in North Carolina.
Alisa Chapman ’96 ’06 ’09 considers
Friday a mentor. As associate vice
president for academic affairs for the
UNC system, she directs policy for K–16
education. She has turned to him with
questions and to talk through ideas. In
more than a decade working in North
Carolina’s system of higher education,
she has learned to recognize practical
milestones that signal a campus’s growth.
They include expanding enrollment, an
array and diversity of programs, high
standards and applied research.
“In that sense I believe ECU has arrived,”
Chapman says. “There are a number of areas
it has confidence and a culture of confidence
in its expertise.” Examples are growing
Michael Aho
Alisa Chapman
Provided, ©2009
Provided
22
school leaders, distance and online education
and rural health care.
Jenkins spent 39 years at UNC Pembroke,
16 as provost and chief academic officer
and a year as interim chancellor. He helped
guide that institution’s growth into a
leading provider of teachers and school
administrators in southeastern North
Carolina. So he knows from experience what
it takes to build a university’s standing. “The
largest contributor to one’s reputation and
integrity is years of service and length of
tenure,” Jenkins says. “It takes some time.”
Yet it also requires specific credentials.
For six years Jenkins visited institutions
in other regions as a commissioner for
the Southern Association of Colleges and
Schools. SACS looks at certain criteria to
judge the academic health of a university, he
says. Among them: The quality of the faculty
based on their scholarly preparation and
participation in research. Documentation the
institution and students are doing quality
work. Financial and physical resources that
support academic excellence. He sees large
strides in those areas at ECU in the five
decades since he was a student.
Look at ECU’s numbers, he says. Since
1982 bachelor’s degree programs more
than doubled, from 51 to 110. Master’s
degree programs show a similar spurt, from
36 to 76. Doctoral degree programs in
research and scholarship more than tripled,
from five to 16.
Then-and-now snapshots of the faculty
show it’s not only much bigger but also
more diverse. Since 1995, the faculty grew
by 639 members, the numbers of women
increased 8 percent and the number of
minorities rose 10 percent.
Similarly, snapshots of the student body
and freshmen classes in 1995 and 2009
show campus diversity and test scores rising.
Minorities in the student body increased
from 12.3 percent to 20 percent. In 2009,
more students were coming from urban
counties such as Wake, Mecklenburg and
Cumberland. Students were coming from
33 states. The average SAT of entering
freshmen rose from 913 to 1046.
Diversity is particularly important
because it’s a key component of academic
maturity. It signals a university has broad
appeal and offers students a rich learning
experience, says ECU Provost Marilyn
Sheerer. “Our students will be working in
a very diverse world. We need to be able
to prepare them in an institutional setting
for what they will face,” she says.
1960
Leo takes charge: Long-time dean
Leo Jenkins becomes president;
enrollment passes 5,000. School of
Business and School of Nursing open.
First dorms rise on College Hill.
1962
More schools: The School of Art and
the School of Music open, joined a
year later by the School of Education.
1965
Integrating: Transfer student Hubert
Walker becomes first the African-
American to receive a master’s
degree; a year later Laura Elliot
becomes first African-American to
become an undergraduate. A two-year
construction program begins that
adds 10 buildings to Main Campus.
The legislature gives ECC $1.5 million
to study the creation of a two-year
medical program, provided the school
raise $4 million on its own.
1967
Good as the rest of them: After
a bruising fight that gives birth
to the current UNC system, East
Carolina College is designated a
comprehensive four-year university,
as are the state’s two other teachers
colleges, Appalachian and Western,
and the largest historically black
school, N.C. Central.
1971
A drop of medicine: The legislature
allows ECU to start a one-year medical
training program.
1972
All in the family: ECU officially joins
the new UNC system.
1974
Pivotal political victory: Urban
legislators finally are persuaded
to allow ECU to establish North
Carolina’s second four-year state
medical school.
SNAPSHOT: The student body today is
more diverse, has higher test scores and
comes from a broader region of the nation.
1995: 17,923 students
• 12.3% minorities
• Average freshman SAT: 913
• Top 5 N.C. counties represented in student
body (in order): Pitt, Wake, Craven, Wayne,
Cumberland.
• 24 states represented in freshman class
2009: 27,654 students
• 20% minorities
• Average freshman SAT: 1046
• Top 5 N.C. counties represented in student
body (in order): Pitt, Wake, Mecklenburg,
Cumberland, Wayne.
• 33 states represented in freshman class
Source: ECU fact books
23
Mary Chatman ’90 ’96
’10, senior vice president
and chief nursing officer at
Memorial University Medical
Center in Savannah, Ga.,
graduated salutatorian of
her small high Hyde County
high school, then earned her
first-ever D in a chemistry
course at ECU. She needed a
college experience, she says,
that was varied and rigorous.
She found it.
“What I realized was that
I had become at expert
in high school at reading,
memorizing and ‘regurging’,”
she says. “I learned instead at
ECU to take the knowledge
and apply it. It’s a university
that takes academics
seriously.”
SNAPSHOT: The growth in undergraduate
enrollment is impressive and tends to
overshadow huge strides made in graduate
and professional programs.
1982: 12,239 undergraduates
• 2,058 master’s students
• 12 doctoral research students
• 201 doctor’s degree/professional students
2009: 21,458 undergraduates
• 5,439 master’s students
• 363 doctoral research students
• 394 doctor’s degree/professional students
Source: UNC general administration
SNAPSHOT: In the span of a generation,
ECU doubled the number of degrees it
offers.
1982: 93 degree programs
• 51 bachelor’s programs
• 36 master’s programs
• 5 doctor’s degree/research programs
• 1 doctor’s degree/professional program
2009: 202 degree programs
• 110 bachelor’s programs
• 73 master’s programs
• 16 doctor’s degree/research programs
• 3 doctor’s degree/professional programs
Source: UNC general administration
SNAPSHOT: Like the change in the student
body, the faculty is bigger and more
diverse. Faculty today tend to be younger
than before.
1982: 1,143 faculty members
• 36.2 percent women, 63.8 percent men
• 8.3 percent ethnic minorities
• 61.2 percent had 10 years or less of service
with university
• 50 percent tenured
26.7 percent on tenure track
2009: 1,782 faculty members
• 44 percent women, 56 percent men
• 18 percent ethnic minorities
• 68 percent of faculty had 10 years or less
of service with university
• 42.1 percent tenured
20.9 percent on tenure track
Source: ECU fact books
Mary Chatman
Provided
1975
It’s official: The ECU School of
Medicine is established by an act of
the legislature. First medical students
enroll two years later.
1983
Dr. Pirate: ECU confers its first Ph.D.,
in anatomy, to Thomas Curry Jr.
1987
Saving lives: First heart transplant
performed at ECU.
1989
Growing like topsy: The student body
passes 15,000 with big growth in
students seeking advanced degrees.
Leo Jenkins dies.
1996
Rising expectations: Average SAT
score of entering freshmen breaks
into four digits, increasing from 900
to 1015 in four years. Joyner Library
collection passes one million books.
1998
Growing by degrees: The number
of degree program hits 200, up
from 94 in 1982. The university adds
64 new degree programs in 1998
alone—35 bachelor’s degrees and 25
are master’s. The number of doctoral
programs in research nearly doubles,
from eight to 14.
1998
Enriching students: EC Scholars
Program begins, providing top
freshman recruits with four-year
scholarships and enrichment learning
focused on nurturing intellectual
curiosity and leadership.
It’s official: The Carnegie Foundation
bumps ECU up a notch, rating it a
Doctoral Research Intensive University.
1999
Poignant pigskin upset: With eastern
North Carolina flooded by Hurricane
Floyd, the nation watches the Pirates
come from behind to defeat the ninth-ranked
Miami Hurricanes, 27-23, in
an upset played in borrowed Carter-
Finley Stadium in Raleigh.
24
Show me the money
Rob Nelson was in charge of the numbers
for the UNC system as its vice president
for finance until retiring in 2010. He did
not graduate from ECU, but observed
it as a child growing up in Pitt County.
“The physical transformation I saw and
experienced … is ECU has certainly
grown up facility-wise, and is, in my view,
competitive with UNC Greensboro, UNC
Charlotte and N.C. State, excluding the
Centennial Campus, and to some degree,
UNC Chapel Hill,” Nelson says.
State appropriations, Nelson says, shows
ECU has financial momentum. Its ability to
get capital funding from the state legislature
is a critical indicator of clout, he says.
ECU’s momentum perhaps began when it
ranked third among the 16 UNC campuses,
behind larger N.C. State and UNC Chapel
Hill, in construction dollars per full-time
equivalent student it got from the $2.5
billion university bond referendum passed
by voters in 2000.
ECU’s momentum built in 2004, Nelson
says, when the legislature approved $380
million in spending for health-related
university facilities. UNC Chapel Hill’s
new cancer center and the cardiovascular
center at ECU accounted for two-thirds
of that money.
In other areas of funding, Nelson sees
ECU lagging. Although it’s the third-largest
campus, it consistently ranks fifth
or sixth among the 16 UNC schools in
state appropriation per full-time equivalent
student, he says. By that same measure, it
ranks consistently sixth or seventh among its
national peers. ECU ranks fourth, behind
Chapel Hill, N.C. State and N.C. A&T, in
sponsored research dollars, he says.
Throughout its growth, East Carolina has
been the underdog, Nelson says. But it
turned that position into a winning strategy.
“Rather than feeling inferior and sorry for
itself, ECU has fought hard and pushed
folks to recognize the school’s potential
and demanded the resources to grow and
succeed,” he says.
There’s no doubt East Carolina once had
to fight hard for every dollar. In an oral
history for Mary Jo Bratton’s book on the
school’s history, ECU President Leo Jenkins
described how money followed reputation
in a pyramid of education power and money
in North Carolina. Legislators believed
“Woman’s College (now UNC Greensboro)
and (UNC) Chapel Hill should, and State
should be the apex. They should be at the
top. They should have the most money. They
should have the best instruction and the
most difficult courses. In the middle would
be East Carolina, Appalachian and maybe
West(ern) Carolina. At the bottom of the
apex should be the black colleges and the
Indian college, Pembroke.”
The underdog wins
Pine forests and the occasional tobacco
field line U.S. 264 until you hit Greenville’s
city limits, and the landscape suddenly
changes into the sleek architecture of a
modern medical center. Several new medical
buildings partially shield an older one
farther off the highway. That’s the nearly
40-year-old, five-story concrete building
housing the Brody School of Medicine at
East Carolina University. It’s never been
pretty, but it is loved.
Ask almost anybody what factor changed
ECU’s image the most, and they will tell
you it was securing a medical school against
powerful opposition, then building it into a
pipeline for primary care doctors. “ECU has
done what it says it would do by bringing
improved health care to eastern North
Carolina,” says Charles Mercer, a Raleigh
attorney who sits on the UNC Board of
Governors. Mercer, who grew up in eastern
North Carolina, was a student at UNC
Chapel Hill during much of the medical
school debate.
“I think the success of the medical
school and the other increased academic
offerings has had a transforming effect
on that university not just in North
Carolina but throughout the U.S. and
beyond,” he says.
Medical campus ca. ’91– ’92
Provided
AP
The numbers, again, offer proof.
Both Appalachian State University
and ECU started as teaching
colleges. Nelson compared the
full-time equivalent enrollments of
those campuses in 1972 and 2010
as well as their appropriations.
Here’s what he found: ASU is 2.3
times bigger now than in 1972. Its
budget is 18 times larger. ECU is 2.5
times bigger now, but its budget is
27 times larger. “That’s indicative of
the growth which could be attributed
to the med school and related allied
health programs,” Nelson says.
The political fight for the med school
cast the former teacher’s college in its
signature, unifying underdog role. On
the opposite side were some of North
Carolina’s most powerful figures and
forces: Bill Friday, politicians from the
urban Piedmont crescent and editors of
the state’s largest newspapers.
Playing the role of the small school
striving for a deprived region proved a
perfect tool to manipulate debate and
direct the emotions of supporters.
How it happened
In a 2007 interview in East, former U.S.
Senator Robert Morgan ’47 recalled the
critical votes in the General Assembly that
elevated East Carolina to university status.
During that summer of 1967, Morgan was
both chair of the East Carolina Board of
Trustees and an influential state senator.
“Originally, I introduced a bill in the Senate
just to cover East Carolina, and it passed
the Senate. But when it got over to the
House, they killed it. To say it in the nicest
way possible, a lot of them thought we
just weren’t qualified to be a university.
“One night later I got a call from [former
governor] Terry Sanford, and he said the
problem was that East Carolina’s base of
support wasn’t broad enough. He said I
ought to include Appalachian and maybe
Western in the legislation because it
would give some recognition to all the
old teacher training schools, and because
doing that would get more votes. So we
did. That bill was introduced in the Senate
and it passed. But when we sent that bill
over to the House it ran into trouble again.
“The opponents
put an amendment
on the bill to
make N.C. A&T
a university, too,
because they
believe it would
kill the bill if it
included one of
the historically
black schools.
They thought
eastern North
Carolina just
wouldn’t take
that. But when
the bill came
back to the
Senate, we said
it would be a
fine thing for
A&T to be a
university. And
after the Senate
concurred
in the House
amendment, I
gave the only
speech I ever
gave from the
podium of the
Senate. I said
East Carolina
knew what
it was like to
suffer from
some bias,
and so we
welcomed
A&T because
they had
suffered,
too.”
25
Charlotte Observer, April 25, 1967
Provided
1999
Room to learn, grow: Final phase of
10-year, $30 million expansion and
renovation of Joyner Library doubles
the size of the heart of campus
academic life.
2003
I’ll take ECU, thanks: Randolph
Chitwood, the nationally renowned
heart surgeon who pioneered clinical
use of da Vinci robotic surgery at ECU,
turns down an offer from Harvard
University to run its heart institute.
2005
A higher threshold: 36.7 percent
of entering freshmen rank in the
top one-fifth of their high school
class, compared with 29 percent in
1991, reflecting the impact of rising
admission standards.
2007
Opening doors: Access Scholars
program kicks off, providing freshmen
who demonstrate academic merit and
financial need with $5,000 annual
stipend; fundraising doubles number
of scholarships in the second year.
2007
All smiles: N.C. General Assembly
establishes a dental school at ECU,
the state’s second.
2009
Distance learning: Online enrollment
leads the UNC system, hitting 6,079,
nearly doubling in four years since
2005, when 3,696 students took
classes online. Today, online students
compose 22 percent of ECU’s total
enrollment.
2010
Academic stars: Honors College
is established and welcomes its
inaugural class of 105 high-performing
students invited to enroll based on
academics and character.
Sources: UNC General Administration,
ECU Fact Book, ECU Archives
Then-President Leo Jenkins seized upon
it both to whip up the faithful and shame
opponents into getting on board. That
often-antagonistic posture put Jenkins, in
charge of one of North Carolina’s individual
campuses, squarely opposite Friday, head of
the newly unified UNC system. It was the
same adversarial relationship they had during
the university status battle.
“Universities have different ways of making
points as they progress. His was challenging
things in the public arena,” Friday says. “I
saw that beneath that…was a solid wall of
caring about eastern North Carolina.”
Friday now says outright that ECU has
grown into one of North Carolina’s
brightest gems. “It is an aggressive, full
partner in the state’s higher education. It has
carried its share of that burden and I think
done so with great strength.”
ECU’s impact in eastern North Carolina has
moved it into an elite group of institutions,
he says. “You have in universities the
teaching and research. But the best
institutions add a third element, the element
of public service,” Friday says. “I don’t know
any place that does it with a more devoted
and creative spirit than East Carolina.”
Ditch the chip, keep the passion
Given what East Carolina has accomplished,
can it still play the underdog with a straight
face? Has the time for angst and antagonism
on behalf of a striving institution passed?
Observers like Nelson see a new day. “I think
the mere establishment of the new (dental)
school speaks volumes of the respect ECU
has earned over the last 40 years, in higher
education and in the legislature.”
The state’s large newspapers supported the
school on the basis that East Carolina’s
successful record with primary care doctors
put it, not Chapel Hill, in the best position
to train rural dentists. “ECU’s medical
school has used the same method to recruit
and train rural family doctors,” said the
Charlotte Observer in an editorial published
Nov. 6, 2006. “And what better way to
increase the number of rural dentists than to
train them in a rural area?”
Even with a sea change in reputation, the
strong emotions unleashed by the battles
for university status and the medical school
have lingered. They lend a harder edge to
the feelings of many with direct ties to that
chapter of the school’s history—an edge that
26
has begun to feel out of place against the
backdrop of today’s university.
“It’s who you ask, and my generation has
experienced it,” says Carl Davis ’73 of
Raleigh, assistant general manager for
WUNC-TV.
“Nobody wants to hear it,” says Aho.
“They’ve never wanted to hear it,
particularly in the state. Getting on board as
a university and the fallout from the medical
school and the legislative component are
things that happened so long ago they are
no longer relevant.”
Aho sees a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude as
an anachronism. “Most of it is self-initiated
group-think: Let’s share this view with each
other so we can share this view with each
other,” he says. “All of it, at least, for my
contemporaries, is unnecessary. The chip on
the shoulder is misplaced.”
Having a determined underdog spirit is
healthy, says Charles Jenkins. But having
a chip on your shoulder is not. “We are
way beyond having a chip on our shoulder
when you have accomplished what ECU has
accomplished,” he says. “If that’s still there,
and it’s not clear to me it is, we need to
recognize that’s just baggage.”
Chatman is among less than 1 percent of
chief nursing officers for medical centers
nationwide who are African-American
women. Having a chip on your shoulder
doesn’t matter so much as how you respond
to that chip, she says. “If you let your ‘chip’
become you, then it’s a liability,” she says. “If
you use it to push and constantly become
better, that’s an asset.”
Observers say it’s time for East Carolina
to ditch the chip—but keep the passion.
The energy that once focused on earning
respect can now be focused on urgent
work at hand—improving health care in
the rural East, strengthening schools and
supporting a more diverse economy—and
on furthering the record of public service
that has won the admiration of former
opponents such as Friday.
“I don’t know anybody who’s self-conscious
about the state of East Carolina University,”
says Friday. “Self-conscious is not a phrase
to use if you are from ECU. That university
is moving. It can demonstrate it’s impacted
the region.”
“I think there is a clear view that whatever
you think of the university, the people
who come out of there are capable of
doing the things they do,” says Aho.
So are we there yet?
“We certainly are not there,” says Charles
Jenkins. “We won’t ever get there. There’s
always changing needs. We need to continue
on this same projected path, continue to be
strong in service to the region we are bound
to and in academic progress.”
“Continue the passion for the university
and its mission to serve eastern North
Carolina and the state of North Carolina,”
says Mercer. “Continue to grow your
academic reputation…continue to attract
talented faculty…continue to emphasize
retention of students…and increase
graduation rates…continue to be devoted
to that mission…Servire.” East
About the author: Mary Schulken ’79
has compiled a stellar career in journalism
as a reporter and editor at the Greenville
Daily Reflector, as an op-ed page editor of
the Charlotte Observer and now as a blogger
for Education Week. She remains connected
with ECU as president of the Comm
Crew, the alumni group for the School of
Communication, and as a member of the
Board of Visitors.
27
28
29
Stocking the Pantry
Just two years out of college, Sam Wornom co-founded
The Pantry chain of convenience stores and grew it into
nearly 500 locations. In the second act of a stellar
business career, he’s again proving he can spot
business opportunities that satisfy
consumer appetite.
30
Sam Wornom III ’65 keeps a heavy winter
coat handy in his office at Imperial Freezer
Services, a sprawling building that sits off
U.S. 1 in Sanford, about 30 miles south of
Raleigh. He throws it on to give visitors a tour
of the 125,000-square-foot facility, which
essentially is a giant icebox. “We store food
items for several companies until they need it,”
he explains. Food products move in and out
of the plant through 16 truck bays and two
railroad bays. “About 60 percent of what goes
through here is bound for overseas, mostly
poultry products,” he adds. That product
is stored in a section of the warehouse that
remains in perpetual deep freeze, kept at a
constant 10 below zero. “You don’t want to
go back there,” he deadpans.
Wornom co-founded Imperial in 1995. It’s
one of several enterprises he’s started since
1987 when he sold The Pantry chain of
convenience stores at the tender age of 45.
“I’m really not active in the management
here,” Wornom says about Imperial. “I’ve
done this business like most companies I
get involved with now. I can spot a business
opportunity and negotiate a deal but then I
turn over the actual running of the business
to people who are good at that, people who
are smarter than me.”
Wornom, a Lambda Chi brother, was just
two years out of East Carolina then he
opened the first Pantry store, but he knew
the mercantile trade. As part of a business
class project, he helped open a new concept
for Garner-Wynne-Manning, a Greenville
wholesale supplier of notions, over-the-counter
drugs and sundries. Garner-Wynne
opened a Big Value Discount Store in
downtown Greenville, and Wornom started
working there part-time. After graduation
he took a full-time job managing a Big Value
store in Tarboro and then moved to Sanford
when Garner-Wynne opened a store there.
But Wornom wanted to go into business
for himself, and he needed a partner. At a
Sanford Jaycees meeting he met the perfect
one in Truby Proctor, whose family owned
Lee-Moore Oil Co. in Sanford. Wornom
knew how to stock and operate a store that
stayed open late and sold a few common
household products; Proctor knew the oil
and gasoline delivery business and their
partnership began. “In most small towns
back then, you couldn’t buy a quart of milk
or get gas after five o’clock. We thought we
could make money serving that need.”
Then he pauses in reflection. “Actually, I
don’t believe I have ever had an original idea.
I didn’t even have the idea of starting the
Pantry. Truby and I together came up with
the concept.”
Gas and groceries
Those two elements—gas and a grab bag
of groceries—create what we know today
as the convenience store. It was a formula
Wornom and Proctor repeated again and
again in other stores they opened in central
North Carolina, always on the main drag
of small towns that had at least 750 homes
within a couple of miles. With each new
store they refined the concept until they had
the process down cold, using profits from
existing stores to pay for opening new ones.
Wornom and Proctor were able to add
additional stores through the help of two
dairies who were losing shelf space in the big
chain supermarkets. The handful of Pantry
stores swelled to dozens, then hundreds,
across the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee
and Indiana.
Wornom branched out into other businesses.
He became associated with another Sanford-based
business, Trion Inc., a manufacturer of
commercial, industrial and residential indoor
air products. He bought into the Mack
Stores chain, which also was headquartered
in Sanford, when its owners retired. Now
occupied with other interests, Wornom
needed someone to take over management
of the young but growing Pantry chain. He
turned to an ECU alumnus, Gene Horne
Jr. ’64, who had taught school in Maryland
after college and tried his hand at running a
store. Horne joined the Pantry in 1973 and
led it through a period of explosive growth.
He remained a top executive of the company
after the company was sold to Montrose
Capital, an investment firm renowned for
its famous shareholders, including Dave
Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, and
Wayne Rogers, the former Trapper John
on the TV series M*A*S*H. The company
later went public and rebranded many of
the stores under the Kangaroo name. The
Pantry remains one of only two Fortune 500
companies headquartered in the Raleigh area.
Throughout their careers, both Wornom
and Horne kept close ties with East
Carolina. Wornom joined the Board of
Visitors and was a founding member of
the Chancellors’ Society. A member of the
Order of the Cupola, he was honored with
an Outstanding Alumni award in 1980.
He was appointed to the Board of Trustees
in 1983 and served there for eight years,
serving as chairman from 1990–91. Horne,
a Kappa Alpha brother, received the Alumni
Association Distinguished Service Award in
1988 and chaired the College of Business
Golden Anniversary Campaign.
New horizons, old friends
Roddy Jones ’58 of Raleigh was skeptical
at first when Wornom called in 1997 to
propose investing in a new bank. Even
though he didn’t know much about banking,
Jones listened because he valued Wornom’s
advice. “I have known Sam for so long I’m
embarrassed to say because it makes us
look old,” Jones laughs. “He is the type of
guy who is analytical about every decision
he makes in business, which I think has
done well for him over the years. So when
he called me about becoming a founding
director of Capital Bank I knew it would
be a smart move. I’ve been in construction
and real estate development my whole life. I
By Steve Tutle
31
knew very little about banking. But I knew
Sam and if he said that was a good deal,
that’s all I needed to know.” Charles Atkins
’75, president of a real estate development
company in Sanford, had the same reaction
when Wornom called him about investing in
the bank. Capital Bank began in Raleigh and
quickly grew into 33 branch offices across
North Carolina with $1.6 billion in assets.
He invests in other ventures through
Nouveau Investments, the financial vehicle
he created to manage his business interests.
While his business interests have ranged
far and wide, he’s remained close to home
in other areas of his life. He’s active in Lee
County community, where for decades he’s
been the force behind the local Boys & Girls
Club as well as a National Trustee for the
organization. He’s a deacon at Jonesboro
Heights Baptist Church. and he helps the
local United Way drive and several other
civic organizations.
One reason he’s fond of his alma mater is
because that’s where he and his wife, Sandy,
met as students. She left college early to get
married. After raising two daughters she
came back to ECU and became a student
again, staying in Greenville during the week
with a daughter, son-in-law and their first
grandchild, going home on weekends. Sandy
completed her degree in 1999 in business
education.
Nowadays, Sam and Sandy are in town so
much that they have a condo here. He’s
currently serving on the ECU Foundation
and is involved in many other aspects of
university life. They rarely miss a football
game because those are prime opportunities
to spend time with family. In Wornom’s case,
family includes children and grandchildren,
his old Lambda Chi brothers, Sandy’s
old Chi Omega sisters and several other
alumni whose business careers and his have
intersected over the years.
James Maynard ’65 of Raleigh, founder of
the Golden Corral restaurant chain, is one of
those old friends. “Sam Wornom is one of
the most dedicated Pirates I have known,” he
says. “The university has been very fortunate
to have Sam’s wisdom and advice for more
than 25 years. We need more like Sam.”
Wornom, Jones, Maynard and two other
alumni, the late Pat Draughon ’60 and Alvin
Hutzler ’65, teamed up in 1983 to establish
the Pirate Club’s Endowment Fund to
provide scholarships for student-athletes.
Now 68, Wornom remains fit and trim
through a strict diet and regular exercise. He
looks back and wonders how it all happened
so fast. He was just a kid out of Hampton,
Va., who came to East Carolina with a group
of students from his hometown and ended
up enrolling here because a friend did. He
picked business as a major because he had to
write down something. “I was 17 so I picked
business for no real reason other than I felt
like it would be interesting,” Wornom says in
retrospect. “It seemed to be a good choice.
I am very thankful for the blessings and
opportunities the Lord has given me.”
East
from the classroom
Cecelia Valrie (right) is
mentoring doctoral student
Jessica Tomasula.
33
Her classroom has no walls, but Cecelia
Valrie ’99 teaches every day. Whether
working with doctors at the medical school
on programs for chronically ill children or
helping her students grasp the complexities
of kids’ pain, she’s doing all she can to
educate others about making life better for
sick children and their families.
By profession she’s a developmental health
psychologist, but her expansive knowledge
and restless curiosity have taken her far
beyond her field’s traditional boundaries.
Her goal is enabling children with lifelong,
painful illnesses like sickle cell anemia to
have more normal lives. She’s researching the
special psychology that affects them, and
sharing that information with their doctors,
families and teachers.
As the recipient of a $600,000 grant from
the National Institutes of Health, she’s
creating a novel research program using
cutting-edge technology like smart phones,
iPods and even wristwatch computers.
Using these gee-whiz tools, she’ll collect
information from kids about what makes
them feel better. She’ll combine that with
what she knows about developmental
psychology—the science of how we mature
emotionally and intellectually—to craft
approaches that allow children to grow and
thrive despite long-term pain or medical
conditions.
“Sick children experience acute pain,
and have to undergo intensive medical
procedures,” Valrie, 32, says. “They miss
school, and have physical and psychological
complications because of their illnesses. If
they’re going to lead good lives, they need
people who understand these stressors and
who can assist them in the process.”
After graduating from ECU summa cum
laude with a dual degree in psychology
and math, she received master’s (’04) and
doctorate (’06) degrees from UNC Chapel
Hill in developmental psychology. She joined
ECU’s psychology department in 2006.
In addition to her research and work with
kids and professionals, Valrie teaches
psychology at all levels and supervises
doctoral students as part of the university’s
new Ph.D. in health psychology. This
program, one of very few in the nation,
examines the emerging field of how we
think about health—and how that affects
our physical condition. It also explores the
diagnosis and treatment of mental illness,
as well as factors that affect both mental
and physical well-being. The doctorate has
tracks in clinical health psychology and
pediatric school psychology. It enrolled its
first students in 2007 and today has about
30 enrolled.
Kathleen Row, chair of the department of
psychology, applauds her colleague’s work
in this emerging field. “She was here as an
undergraduate, and we’re thrilled to have
her back as a faculty member,” Row says.
“She’s an excellent teacher and outstanding
researcher—just an all-around academic
citizen, who’s willing to pitch in with what
needs to be done.”
Easing the ‘ouch’
Cecelia Valrie is identifying new ways to help sick children
feel less pain and lead more normal lives.
By M arion B la c kburn
34
Sickle cell research
Sickle cell disease is Valrie’s research focus
and although not a physician, she has learned
a great deal about the disease and its effects
on children. It’s an unplumbed area of study;
previously, people with sickle cell disease
didn’t always reach adulthood, especially with
serious forms of the disease.
These days, medical advances mean people
with sickle cell disease often have a life
expectancy to the 60s and beyond. So
it’s important for them to have healthy
development along the way, even as they
deal with the hardships of their disease.
Sickle cell disease in this country mostly
affects African-Americans. The trait
creates sickle-shaped red blood cells that
cannot pass through vessels properly and
become clogged, leading to pain and tissue
death. Pain can begin as early as 6 months
old, with childhood strokes a possible
complication.
While it’s hard on children, it’s also tough
for parents. “Parents are under quite a
bit of stress when they have a chronically
ill child,” Valrie says. By showing parents
how to work with their children on
specific goals despite the discomforts of
illness, they can usher their kids forward
developmentally. Strong families, she says,
raise strong, happy children.
“We want to make sure families don’t feel
they’re all alone,” she says. ���We want to
give them, and their children, a sense of
hope, that that they can plan for adulthood
while they also understand the struggles of
their disease.”
She’s interested in evaluating all types of pain
management methods and sleep disorders
in children, since pain disrupts a child’s
nighttime rest, compounding the effects of
the illness. These facets of health are critical
for psychologists, parents, teachers and
doctors: sooner or later, health problems take
a toll on a child’s ability to learn and grow.
Equipped with a better understanding, adults
can stand by children as they grapple with
their health problems.
Her interest in childhood development takes
her into other research areas, including blood
diseases (hematology), obesity and chronic
pain. Charles W. Daeschner II, division chief
for pediatric hematology-oncology at the
Brody School of Medicine, is a mentor on
her NIH grant.
“I’ve known Dr. Valrie since she was a
student at Chapel Hill,” he says. “I was very
pleased when we could recruit her as faculty.
She has a strong interest in children with
chronic illnesses, and has brought a new
depth to our comprehensive sickle cell clinic.
We’re hoping to find some things that will
show us how to better work with our kids.
Because living with a chronic disease is very
emotionally stressful.”
Teacher and mentor
In addition to working with doctors, nurses
and other psychologists, Valrie also teaches
life-span development—how people develop
over the course of their lifetime—to
psychology majors, nurses and teachers,
along with the history of psychology.
She works closely with doctoral students
in research and scholarship. Kristen Alston,
23, a clinical health psychology doctorate
student, shares Valrie’s interest in sickle cell
disease. Growing up with a close family
member who had a chronic disease gave her a
personal interest in these illnesses.
“Sickle cell disease is the most commonly
inherited blood disorder, but people with it
have the least access to comprehensive care,”
Alston says. “I think that’s unacceptable.”
She wants to change that. “It used to be
that no one looked at how this disease
would affect a person mentally and
psychologically,” she says. “Now we’re
looking at that a lot more.”
While it’s a new field, she believes her
mentor is having a vital role in research. In
addition, Valrie is her biggest cheerleader. “I
can truly call her a mentor,” she says. “As a
first-year student, you can get in over your
head. But I can count on her to help me
realize what’s feasible, and how to take things
step by step—and stay on track.”
Valrie parcels her time among many
roles—conducting research and supervising
graduate students, delivering lectures and
educational presentations, collaborating with
providers at the medical school to develop
programs, and working with the kids she
enjoys so much.
What’s really exciting these days is the
technology available for research and the
promise it holds to allow professionals to
better understand what works for kids—and
what doesn’t. She’s making good-use gadgets
like smart phones to record children’s pain
levels. “This technology will completely
change the way we do research.”
When she’s not at work, she enjoys movies,
especially the independent kind. “I like to
escape into a good story,” she says, noting
that comedies are always a good choice. “I
love to laugh.”
Sickle cells Normal red blood cells
NASA
Andrew Mason
Would you still go to church if you
knew you could live to be 500
while still enjoying good health?
With some futurists saying that
medical advances will permit
such Methuselah-like life spans
in the next 20 to 30 years, that
question is more than just idle
speculation. Genetic engineering,
tissue and organ replacement, the
merging of computer technology
with human biology, advanced
scanning technologies, robotics and
nanotechnology all play a role in
this unfolding drama.
While achieving what the authors
call “practical immortality” sounds
like wonderful news at first, two
East Carolina professors argue that
society hasn’t thought about what
it really means. In Religion and
the Implications of Radical Life
Extension, co-edited by religious
studies professor Calvin Mercer ’97
and philosophy professor Derek
Maher, the case is made that we
should begin that conversation now.
“One need only reflect briefly
on the economic, political and
social implications of people living
for such long periods to realize
the significance of ‘practical
immortality,’” Mercer said. “I
think this and related human
enhancement issues, in time, could
trump terrorism, the economy,
and global climate change as the
leading political and social issue of
our world.”
The media carry stories
about relevant medical
breakthroughs and
occasionally suggests their
more radical implications.
“However, the significance
of these developments
has not yet dawned
in the public’s mind,”
Mercer said. “Radical life
extension and related
research constitute
one of the most urgent
public debates that
needs to occur in our society.”
Mercer thinks that funding for
radical life extension research will
be less problematic than many
other domains of medical research.
“Once the wealthy class sniffs the
possibilities of living forever, the
money pipelines will open widely,”
he said.
Religion and the Implications of
Radical Life Extension
Palgrave Macmillan
208 pages, $79.95
Neighbors
talking across
the backyard
fence is the
paradigm
America ought
to pursue
to combat
its illegal
immigration
problem, not
the implied
threat of a
2,000-mile-long
barrier,
or so sociology
professor Lee Maril argues
in his aptly named new book.
Using interviews as well as local,
state and federal government
documents from 1999 to the
present, Maril suggests a
concrete and steel barrier isn’t
the best solution to a human
relations problem. The author
suggests that policies requiring
a focus on the human issues
involved, political negotiation and
compromise are a better path.
The book is based on interviews
with border residents, educational
leaders, Border Patrol agents,
county officials and others whose
views are seldom heard. He also
talks at length with major defense
contractors, military leaders,
national politicians, environmental
activists and even the Minutemen.
The Fence
Texas Tech University Press
354 pages, not yet priced
You know the Internet has changed
the way we live. But just think about
how it’s changed the way we do
business. That’s what marketing
professor Tracy L. Tuten ’88 ’90 ’00
does in Enterprise 2.0: How
Technology, eCommerce, and Web
2.0 Are Transforming Business
Virtually. The two-volume book set
grew out of her previous book on
social media marketing. Enterprise
2.0 is the industry term for the
business tools and processes that
are made possible by Web 2.0
technology, the second generation
of the World Wide Web that
involves social networking as well
as more dynamic and shareable
content. Research predicts that
enterprise spending on Web 2.0
technology will reach more than
$4.5 billion by 2013. Tuten said
despite this rapid growth and
strong interest, little is available to
inform business leaders about the
resources and potential applications
of new Internet technologies. Her
book rectifies that.
Enterprise 2.0: How Technology,
eCommerce, and Web 2.0 Are
Transforming Business Virtually
Praeger Publishers
522 pages, $124.95
BOOKS
BY FACULTY
Tracy L. Tuten
35
The Umpire of
Eligibility
Tim Metcalf, who’s responsible for keeping ECU
out of trouble with the NCAA, relies on a 484-page
book of rules. And the rules change every year.
38
Tim Metcalf remembers the call well. He was working at Georgia Southern
University at the time, and an assistant coach there had just dropped off a
women’s soccer recruit at the airport, officially ending the school’s 48-hour time
limit to woo the prospective athlete. But a snowstorm had closed the 16-year-old’s
destination airport, and there were no more flights out of Savannah that
day. The coach phoned to ask Metcalf: Should I turn around and pick her up
and violate NCAA rules or leave her there and hope for the best?
“I told him to pick her up and take her to a hotel,” says Metcalf, who now
is East Carolina’s director of compliance. “There’s the legal thing to do, and
there’s the moral thing to do. I’m not going to leave a 16-year-old girl at an
airport a thousand miles from home.”
By J . E ric E ckard
For doing what he knew was the right thing,
Metcalf and the coach received letters of
admonishment from the NCAA, and the
recruit wasn’t allowed to enroll at Georgia
Southern.
It was clear what to do then. These days,
hardly any of Metcalf ’s decisions are so easy
because the rules governing college recruiting
have become so complex. This year’s NCAA
book of rules covering everything from
eligibility to financial aid is 484 pages long
and more than three inches thick. And it
changes every year.
“One of the toughest things about the job is
you get questioned on things, and you get 99
out of 100 correct. The one you get wrong is
the one they remember,” Metcalf says, adding
a bit wistfully, “Nobody pulls for the umpire.”
It’s a stomach-churning kind of job. “We
have to be right every time. There’s no kinda-sorta.
And if we’re not, and we overlook
something, that student-athlete might not be
eligible. That’s a lot of pressure.”
UNC Chapel Hill was expecting to be
sanctioned for NCAA violations involving
contact between players and sports agents.
It could happen here. With recent success
throughout Conference USA in football
and talk of an automatic BCS bid for
the conference champion, pressure on
compliance offers at all member schools
is compounded. More sports agents are
scouting the C-USA ranks hoping to find
the next Chris Johnson, the former ECU
running back now setting NFL rushing
records with the Tennessee Titans.
“With 80 former C-USA student-athletes
on opening day NFL rosters last year, our
institutions take agent and extra benefit
issues very seriously, and I would expect
that to continue in the future,” says Rob
Phillippi, C-USA associate commissioner for
compliance and academics.
Metcalf says most of his dealings with
sports agents have been issue-free, especially
because the state of North Carolina requires
agents to register with schools. Although
it’s not required, he takes the extra step of
asking all agents looking at ECU players to
go through him. “It’s a byproduct of success,
and it can be a good thing or a bad thing,”
he says. “You do what you can to police it,
but we don’t always know who our student-athletes
talk to every day.”
Why? Blame YouTube, instant messaging,
smart phones and social media sites that
have made contact between college coaches
and recruits as easy as clicking a mouse.
“Times have changed a lot because of
technology,” says Metcalf, who worked in
the compliance department for eight years
at Georgia Southern before coming to
ECU in 2006. “There are more rules and
more interpretations to keep up with that
technology. And not only are there different
rules and interpretations for different sports,
but sometimes for the same sport. Very few
times will a coach ask me a question where I
can say yes or no. It’s always evolving.”
No college sports program is perfect, and
ECU—like most Division 1 schools—has
self-reported inadvertent violations to the
NCAA. But the NCAA hasn’t imposed
any penalties on ECU stiffer than those
39
the school knew it would get for reporting
minor violations. A few years ago the ECU’s
men’s basketball team was in danger of losing
future scholarships for not meeting the
NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate, a formula
that measures graduation rates, academic
performance and other factors. Although the
team scored below the NCAA standard in its
most recent multiyear evaluation, it has made
enough progress to avoid penalties.
It helps, except when it hurts
Technology is both a boon and a bane for
athletes and college compliance officials. In
some ways it can make Metcalf ’s job easier.
He’s currently evaluating a software program
that would allow him to monitor coaches’
phone calls to recruits. Now, coaches turn
in paper phone logs of those calls once
a month. Technology also makes it much
easier these days for high school athletes who
aren’t among the top recruits to get coaches’
attention—and scholarship offers. You take
the digital home movies Mom shot of your
high school games, sit down at a laptop and
edit those into a highlight reel and then
upload it to YouTube.
It was different back in the olden days of,
say, five years ago. Back then, according
to Josh Smith, a senior tackle on ECU’s
football team, many prospects looking for
scholarship offers were still mailing VCR
tapes to coaches. “Technology wasn’t where
it is today,” says Smith, a 2005 graduate
from Garner High School. “I had to make
my own videos and send out the tapes. It was
so hard in high school to get your name out.
It was a hectic experience.”
Smith committed to ECU after his junior
year in high school when he was named to the
all-conference team and crowned the state’s
defensive player of the year. By the time he
graduated, the coach who recruited him had
departed and Skip Holtz had arrived. Holtz
wanted to red-shirt Smith his freshman year.
Smith didn’t want to spend a year warming
the bench so he decided to enroll in a prep
school in Rhode Island. After a year there he
transferred to Western Carolina University.
After a year there he transferred to ECU and
sat out the 2007 season, as required by the
NCAA. He finally got to play in 2008 as a
red-shirt sophomore.
Smith traces his long and winding road from
Garner to Greenville to his original aversion
to the recruiting process. “I committed here
so quick that I never got any other offers.
Most [of my high school teammates] waited,
but I hated [the recruiting process]. Should
I have waited? Yes. Do I regret it? Not at all.
But a year would have made a big difference.”
During Smith’s odyssey high-profile scandals
erupted at the University of Miami and the
University of Colorado, which led to new
limits on perks recruiters can offer. The
NCAA even banned text messages from
coaches to prospective players.
“There’s lots of information out there
for recruits—instantaneous information,”
Metcalf says. “People communicate through
texts, e-mail, instant messages and social
networks. Trying to stay on top of that is a
never-ending process.”
‘Something new every day’
On a given work day Metcalf might check
the eligibility of an incoming student-athlete,
send out eligibility waivers for
transferring students, process eligibility lists
for various sports, call NCAA or conference
officials for information or field calls from
coaches, students, staff or parents asking
for interpretation of the rules. And he does
that for all 17 sports teams at ECU, not
just football. He attends seminars regularly
to bone up on new rules and updates on
existing regulations. He’s supported by an
administrative assistant, a graduate assistant
plus help on financial aid and academic
issues from Rosie Thompson-Smaw, the
senior women’s associate athletic director.
Organizationally, the compliance office sits
outside the athletics department to avoid
conflicts of interest. “There’s something new
every day—no two days are alike.”
Philippi, the C-USA official, says recruiting
rules change every year. “For example, 50
suggested changes relating to recruiting were
submitted in 2009,” he points out.
In the past six years, rule changes have
included banning the use of private planes
and limos on recruiting trips; schools
no longer can plaster a recruit’s name on
the backs of jerseys or the scoreboards at
games; seventh- and eighth-graders now are
considered basketball prospects covered by
recruiting restriction.
Recruiting was much simpler a few decades ago
when NCAA rules mostly dealt with policing
booster club slush funds. Roy Bush ’73 of
Harrisburg, who played a year of football
at ECU under a full scholarship in 1965
before heading off to the Vietnam War, says
contacts and visits weren’t an issue in his day.
“Everything went through my [high school]
coach,” says Bush. “He wanted to funnel it
to make sure nothing went wrong. With all
the [technology] now, things don’t have to be
funneled through high school coaches.”
With the rise of sports opportunities
outside high school such as Amateur Athletic
Union (AAU) and other traveling teams,
today’s high school coaches aren’t always
privy to the recruiting process. Britney
Roper, a redshirt junior volleyball player
at ECU, says when she was being recruited
from Pender High School most of what she
learned about the process came from college
coaches. “They told me that they can’t do
this or they can’t do that. They said, ‘I can’t
call you all the time, but if you have any
questions, call me.’ For some athletes, it can
be somewhat of a hassle because you want to
find out as much information as you can.
“But I understand why they do it,” Roper
adds. “The rules are in place for high school
kids to still be kids. Recruiting almost
requires you to mature faster.”
Metcalf is very much aware of that and
does what he can to help. “I don’t have any
biological kids, but I have 500 children, and
I feel responsible for them. Figuratively, I’ll
give them a hug when they need it and a
kick in the butt when they need it. But it can
be a challenge.” East
40
pirate nation
Beth Grant and Alison Brown
Yes, Pirates can play roundball
With all the recent talk about East Carolina’s losing
records in basketball, it’s easy to forget that the school
once dominated in the sport and had players drafted into
the pros. But there were, players like Bobby Hodges ’54
’61, who was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles of the
NFL and by the Philadelphia Warriors of the NBA.
A product of Grainger High School in Kinston, Hodges
came to Greenville in the fall of 1950 and made the
football team as a freshman on a team that went 7-3
under Coach Bill Dole. He played both tackle and end.
As a senior and team captain, he caught 10 touchdown
passes in an 8-2 season and made the NAIA All-
American team. The team compiled a 25-14-2 record
during his four years.
When the football season ended each year, Hodges
immediately joined the basketball team, playing center
on teams coached by Howard Porter. After mediocre 13-
11 and 14-11 records during his first two years, things
picked up. Hodges led the Pirates to an 18-5 record as
a junior and capped it off with a magnificent senior year
that saw the team win 23 games while losing only two.
He averaged 26.7 points per game in 1954 and scored a
total of 2,018 points during his career, an ECU record
that still stands. Again, he was named a basketball All-
American along with All-North State Conference.
He had a long career mainly in education but worked
at jobs as varied as head basketball and football coach
at Lenoir-Rhyne University and as commissioner of
the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles. Now 79 and a
Wilmington resident, Hodges remains an avid ECU
fan and attends as many games as he can. “A bad back
keeps me from getting around as much as I would like,”
he explains. The back problem also keeps him off the
golf course where he used to shoot in the high 70s. “But
I do a lot of reading, travel whenever I can, and go the
YMCA as often as possible for some light workouts.”
“By the time I got to ECU in 1956, Bobby was already
a legend” said long-time friend Charlie Adams ’59
’62 of Cary, former director of the N.C. High School
Athletic Association. “He was fiercely competitive, but
off the field