The General Alumni Association of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill honored five individuals Saturday (May 10) for outstanding service to the University.
Recipients of the association’s 2008 Distinguished Service Medals were Chancellor James Moeser, who will step down June 30 after leading the University for eight years; University Board of Trustees members Roger Perry, chair, and Russell “Rusty” Carter, secretary; and Dennis and Joan Gillings, who in 2007 committed $50 million to UNC’s School of Public Health, and who also were honored for previous service.
The medals were awarded at the UNC General Alumni Association’s annual alumni luncheon during its spring reunion weekend. The association has awarded the medals since 1978 to UNC alumni and others who have provided outstanding service to the association or the University.
Moeser became UNC’s ninth chancellor in 2000. Carolina and Moeser launched the Carolina Covenant, which began a national movement to make a debt-free college education possible for qualified low-income students. The first class of Carolina Covenant Scholars graduated Sunday (May 11). Other progress during Moeser’s tenure has included leading Carolina First, the most successful private fundraising campaign in University history – raising $2.38 billion – and undertaking an unprecedented physical transformation of main campus through one of the most ambitious building programs in the country.
Perry, a native of Spring Lake, is president of East West Partners in Chapel Hill. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Carolina in 1971. He served on the University’s Board of Visitors from 1997 through 2001. He was appointed to the Board of Trustees in 2003 and was elected chair last July. Perry appointed the search committee that sought Moeser’s successor and served as co-chair and a member. He is a guest lecturer at the Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Carter, a native of Tabor City who graduated from UNC in 1971, is president of Atlantic Packaging in Wilmington. He was on the University’s Board of Visitors from 1997 through 2001, then was appointed to the Board of Trustees, for which he is secretary. He was on the Chancellor Search Committee and has been a member of the Morehead-Cain Scholars Selection Committee. In 2007, Carter and his family established the W. Horace Carter Distinguished Professorship in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication to honor his father. The Graduate School recently presented Carter with the Dean’s Award for Significant Contributions to Graduate Education. He has been an alumni club president for Columbus, New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick counties.
In 2006, Dennis and Joan Gillings of Durham endowed the Dennis Gillings Professorship in Biostatistics at the School of Public Health, where he was a biostatistics professor before founding Quintiles Transnational, one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical services companies. Last year the couple committed $50 million to help the school address pressing public health challenges facing North Carolina and the world. In recognition of their pledge, the School of Public Health will be renamed the Dennis and Joan Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Joan Gillings chairs the University of North Carolina at Wilmington Board of Visitors. Dennis Gillings is on the School of Public Health Dean’s Advisory Council and the Graduate School’s Graduate Education Advancement Board and the UNC Health Care Board of Directors.
General Alumni Association Web site: http://alumni.unc.edu/
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Carter | Dennis and Joan Gillings | Moeser | Perry |
General Alumni Association contact: Doug Dibbert, (919) 962-7050
News Services contact: LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589