Campus decisions: who makes them, with what consequences and when to change them?
Decision making about whether to reopen a UNC System campus to residential students, especially students in dorms, is a complicated multi-layered process.
Topic: North Carolina
Higher Ed
The passing of two remarkable faculty members
In the past week, our Gillings School community lost two remarkable individuals, Phil Singer, PhD, emeritus professor of environmental sciences and engineering (ESE), and Travis Johnson, MD, MPH, associate professor in the Public Health Leadership Program, and founder and interim director of the Master of Public Health (MPH) Program’s Place-Based Health concentration in Asheville, N.C., our shared program with UNC Asheville and the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC).
Public Health
Charlie van der Horst – gone too soon
A remarkable man who made the world a better place Charlie van der Horst, MD, died Friday, June 14, during an ambitious, multi-day swim marathon on the Hudson River in New York. I’ve done one land marathon, but I cannot even imagine swimming 19 miles a day in open water – at age 67. According...
Gun Violence
Guns and threats of violence have no place on this campus
On two of the past three weekends, members of pro-Confederacy groups have visited our campus to continue to protest the toppling and removal of the Confederate soldier monument. I did not write after the first incident because one event, although deplorable, could be an anomaly. When the second event occurred, I felt compelled to respond. Two events could be the beginning of a trend.
Diversity, Inclusion and Equity
I voted. Hope you will too.
Early voting must stay I voted early. That way, whatever happens, it’s done. I cannot imagine not voting. It’s not something we should take for granted, especially as the world is experiencing a drift from democratic principles. Whoever you vote for, please vote. Some people say they didn’t vote in an election because there were no good candidates to choose from or the outcome didn’t matter. Outcomes matter. There are...
Environment
In the aftermath of destruction
One year after Hurricane Maria hits Puerto Rico, Florence strikes the Carolinas Comprehending the death toll in Puerto Rico Sept. 20 was the first anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which struck Puerto Rico as a powerful Category 4 storm and has left thousands of people still without power or with only intermittent service. After Hurricane Fran...
Government
From 1918 flu to African Americans in WWI to Silent Sam (again)
Why historical context is critical I am reading Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I (Harvard University Press, 2009), by historian Adriane Lentz-Smith, PhD, associate professor of history at Duke University. Dr. Lentz-Smith is an alumna of Yale University who completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UNC-Chapel Hill. I found this book because the author...
Public Health
Celebrating those who work
Many amazing people Every day, and especially Labor Day, I’m aware of how privileged I am to have worked in outstanding organizations with fabulous people. Among those places have been the National Cancer Institute and, now, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — the Gillings School. What excites me about the people with whom...
Diversity, Inclusion and Equity
Silent Sam “talks” too much
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.
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