In the past few days, I said I wasn’t going to write about Silent Sam, the Confederate memorial statue on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus since 1913, unless there were new events. That was before a day filled with multiple conversations with people in our school, email exchanges with a student and an argument about the statue with my husband.
College towns not insulated from violence Saturday, the news was barely out about clashes in Charlottesville, Va., between white supremacy groups and demonstrators against them before we started hearing from people who were anxious and upset about the events. Then, when violence erupted, and Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old local woman, died tragically after a man...
In this post, I do not speak for the Gillings School or for UNC-Chapel Hill. Questions about the roles, rights and responsibilities of the Center for Civil Rights (CCR) Over the past several months, students and others have asked me, on several occasions, to comment about the impact of a UNC Board of Governors policy upon...
Examining ourselves Every seven years, we are required to conduct a rigorous self-study and assess ourselves in relation to a set of criteria established by the accrediting body for public health, the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). The result of our self-examination is an almost 300-page report, provision of hundreds of documents and...
Welcome back, especially to Gillings students! We welcome your return. In this post, we offer suggestions for a successful semester and for life. Selectively sharing some sage advice I have various rituals that I practice when anticipating a new year. Everyone has them. We make dinner plans with people we rarely get to see, I...
Change is inevitable It’s been less than two weeks since the election, and there’s a lot of recalibration going on. Life will change in some ways. Today, we don’t know how; we can only speculate. The times require us to use a new lens for viewing current events and thinking about the future. And whichever...
UNC-Chapel Hill bestowed five Distinguished Alumni Awards at University Day ceremonies on Oct. 11 in Memorial Hall. Left to right are recipients Dr. Rosalind Fuse-Hall, Dr. Sandy Shugart and our own biostatistics alumna Paula Brown Stafford, keynote speaker Steve Farmer, Chancellor Carol Folt, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Dr. James Dean and UNC System President...
I’m relieved and so grateful that the Supreme Court upheld the University of Texas at Austin’s protocol to consider race in admissions decisions. That doesn’t mean race should be the only cogent factor, but for university leaders who want to increase diversity in our schools–and we are among those who do–being able to consider race is an...
2016 Commencement at Carolina Sunday, May 8, could not have been more perfect for the University’s commencement. Check out the Carolina blue sky over thousands of blue-clad, glad Carolina grads in the photo above and video below. It was the first time students were seated on the field in 16 years, and it was great fun...
Panoramic shot of our commencement in Carmichael Arena. Photo by Jennie Saia. Gillings’ School commencement with Dennis Gillings The Gillings School’s 76th commencement took place Saturday, May 7, on a beautiful Carolina day. About 400 of our 632 graduates celebrated in Carmichael Arena with their families, friends, faculty and staff. After processing to “Pomp and...
Two days and counting… This Saturday, May 7, nearly 650 students will graduate from the Gillings School, most with degrees and some with certificates. Dennis Gillings, PhD, CBE, former biostatistics faculty member, the man who founded and became the chief executive officer of Quintiles, one of the world’s most successful companies, will give the graduation...