Brooks honored for community work
Hoggard, former professor dies at 92
UNC staffer receives writers award
Three honored with women’s advancement awards
Decorations & Distinctions

Brooks honored for community work

E. Willis Brooks is a professor of Russian history by trade, but at heart he is an advocate for University employees wwho have yet to finish high school or, in some cases, learned how to read.

History Professor Willis Brooks advocates for literacy opportunities for UNC employees.

It is in this latter role that the Employee Forum at its April 5 meeting honored him with the Employee Forum Community Award — more commonly known as the Three-Legged Stool Award. The award recognizes contributions by employees who work to promote cooperation and collaboration among faculty, staff and students.

Lucy Lewis, assistant director of the Campus Y and former director of the Orange County Literacy Council, said Brooks, who is retiring this spring, has demonstrated a passionate, unwavering commitment to basic literary skills for UNC employees, particularly low-wage workers.

“He has not only been a tireless advocate for employees with low literacy skills but he has actively worked with employees, students, staff, faculty, administrators and the community to address this critical but often overlooked need,” she said.

In 1987, Brooks helped create Project Literacy, a Campus Y committee of students who provide literacy and basic skills tutoring to UNC employees, and has served as faculty adviser ever since. He was instrumental in developing the Durham Technical Community College GED program for UNC workers, and has worked to improve program instruction, monitoring, evaluation and employee access. He has worked with UNC directors of training to improve program publicity and strengthen supervisor support.  He regularly addresses the Annual Asbestos Awareness meetings to reach more employees about literacy programs. He has advocated with successive administrations for adequate work time for employee education. He has worked with the Orange County Literacy Council since 1996 as a board member and now president, with a special emphasis on UNC workers.   

Because of him, Lewis said, there is a heightened awareness of, and ongoing programs to address, the need for educational services for UNC employees.

He is a teacher of history, but an advocate for learning at any age. Anybody can be a student, no matter what his or her station or stage of life. Even here. Especially here. And in accepting the award, Brooks hammered that point home.

 “This University has wonderful students and a brilliant faculty but it doesn’t spend the time it should, morally and ethically, to allow its own employees to become all they can be.”

Hoggard, former professor dies at 92

Lara G. Hoggard, who elevated to prominence choruses ranging from those of small public schools to universities and nationally and internationally known groups, died March 16 in Durham. He was 92.

A William Rand Kenan Jr. professor of music at the University from 1967 until he retired in 1980, Hoggard founded the Carolina Choir and brought it national and international recognition.

Born to a cattle rancher in Kingston, Okla., in 1915, Hoggard won first prize for piano in a county competition after just one lesson, at age 11. A janitorial-work scholarship, which paid $35 a month, enabled him to attend Southeastern Teachers College in Durant, Okla., — now Southeastern Oklahoma State University. While there, he put two siblings through college.

The Carolina Choir, the UNC Chamber Singers, the men’s and women’s glee clubs and the UNC Symphony Orchestra will honor him in an April 2008 performance. The program will include Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem,” a piece that Hoggard studied and edited in his retirement.

Donations can be made to the Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, 2200 W. Main St., Suite A-230, Durham, N.C., 27705. A tribute to Hoggard is posted on the UNC music department’s website, music.unc.edu.

UNC staffer receives writers award

Pamela Duncan, a database manager with the North Carolina Institute for Public Health, has been awarded the James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South by the Fellowship of Southern Writers. The Institute for Public Health is a unit of the School of Public Health.

The award was presented March 30 at the Arts and Education Conference on Southern Literature in Chattanooga, Tenn. Previous winners include Ron Rash, Silas House, George Scarborough, Charles Frazier and James Still.  Duncan is the first woman to receive it.

Duncan recently celebrated the release of her third book, “The Big Beautiful,” a sequel to her first novel, “Moon Women.” The new novel tells the story of a middle-aged woman who flees her staid life in the mountains and escapes to the North Carolina coast to discover what she really wants out of life. Duncan’s second novel, “Plant Life,” won the 2003 Sir Walter Raleigh Award, North Carolina’s highest honor for a work of fiction.

Duncan was born in Asheville and grew up in Black Mountain, Swannanoa and Shelby. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from UNC and a master’s degree in English/creative writing from N.C. State University. She lives in Saxapahaw and has worked for the School of Public Health since 1985.

Three honored with women’s advancement awards

The University on March 27 honored three individuals with the University Awards for the Advancement of Women.

Chancellor James Moeser makes the presentation of the University Awards for the Advancement of Women to Emily Dunn, left, and Annette Madden. Not pictured is the third winner, Barbara Harris, who is on research leave.

The awards honor individuals who have mentored or supported women on campus, elevated the status of women or improved campus policies for them, promoted women’s recruitment and retention, or promoted professional development for women.

A reception for the award, which was created last year, was held at The Carolina Inn in conjunction with the campus’ 10th annual Women’s Week, March 24-30.

The three winners — one faculty member, one staff member and one student, graduate student or postdoctoral scholar are eligible — each receive a monetary award. The faculty and staff winners receive a check for $5,000; the student scholar, a check for $2,500.

This year’s award winners are: Emily Anne Dunn, a senior anthropology major; Barbara Harris, history professor and chair of the Curriculum in Women’s Studies, both in the College of Arts and Sciences; and Annette Madden, associate director for professional development and enrichment programs at the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education.

Dunn, of Boca Raton, Fla., created a women’s empowerment and safety organization, called Project Dinah, during her first year at Carolina. The organization educates men and women about sexual assault and prevention, and it oversees the annual “Take Back the Night” event for women’s empowerment. Project Dinah has offered free self-defense classes, handed out safety whistles to students, and disseminated rape prevention information. Through her efforts with the program, Dunn has worked to eradicate stereotypes about rape and spur discussions about its prevention.

Harris, of Chapel Hill, has overseen the development and expansion of the Curriculum in Women’s Studies for nearly two decades. Under her leadership, the curriculum has grown from a sub-discipline within the larger interdisciplinary major to an independent curriculum that offers majors and minors to undergraduates and certificates of concentration to graduates. Harris was president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians from 1990 to 93, and she is vice president and president-elect of the North American Conference on British Studies.

Madden, of Durham, is director of the Friday Center’s Bridges Program for Academic Leadership for Women. For the last 10 years, she has provided opportunities for female faculty and staff across the UNC system and other colleges and universities to learn leadership skills for advancing their careers in an academic setting. The program educates women on topics including legal and ethical matters in higher education, institutional crisis management, academic budget management, leadership and career development.

The University Awards for the Advancement of Women were created following the retirement of the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award in 2004.

Bowen

Gary Bowen
Kenan distinguished professor in the School of Social Work, Bowen has been elected president of the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR). He will serve as president-elect until 2009 when his term as president begins.

Founded in 1938, NCFR provides an educational forum for family researchers, educators and practitioners to share in the development and dissemination of knowledge about families and family relationships, establishes professional standards and works to promote family well-being.

In fitting dramatic foreshadowing, Bowen received the NCFR Student Award in 1981 in recognition of demonstrated excellence as a student with high potential as a future contributor to the field of family-related studies.

Michael Thomas
A preschool teacher at FPG Child Development Institute’s Child Care Program, Thomas has received the Mary Y. Bridgers Child Care Provider Award from the Child Care Services Association. The award is presented to a Triangle child-care teacher for outstanding service to children.

Peggy Jablonski
Vice chancellor for student affairs, Jablonski was recently honored by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) as a “Pillar of the Profession.” This award honors individuals through contributions in their name to the NASPA Foundation for their exemplary work in Student Affairs.

Jablonski has completed four years with NASPA as editor of the NASPA Journal. She begins a two-year appointment to the board of directors as a member-at-large. NASPA is the leading professional association for Student Affairs, with more than 11,000 members around the world.

Rebecca S. Wilder
Director of the graduate dental hygiene program in the School of Dentistry, Wilder has been selected to receive the University of Missouri at Kansas City 2006-07 Alumni Achievement Award for her national leadership within dental hygiene.

The awards honor one alumnus from each of the university’s 12 academic divisions for professional success and exemplary community service. The award will be presented at the association’s dinner April 19.

Genna Rae McNeil
Professor of history, McNeil has been awarded a research fellowship by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. McNeil will conduct research at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.

Her project title is “Witness — Two Centuries of African American Faith and Practice of the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem, New York, 1808-2008.”

Founded in 1994, the Lehrman Institute promotes the study and love of American history.

Julie Robinson Molina
Second-year graduate resident in the department of pediatric dentistry, Molina has been name a recipient of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry/OMNII Pediatric Dentistry Postdoctoral Fellowship for 2006-07.

The recognition is presented by the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry Foundation and OMNII Oral Pharmaceuticals, a division of 3M.