The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees is asking the campus community to submit thoughts and ideas about a request to rename Saunders Hall and the larger question of fully understanding the University’s 221-year-old history.
This outreach is part of the trustees’ months-long effort to seek input from the Carolina community. In May 2014, the board welcomed the opportunity to hear students’ concerns about Saunders Hall. Trustees explained the University’s current naming policy and committed to follow up that has since included researching the issues and gathering facts. Trustees have listened to a wide range of interested people – current and former campus leaders, alumni, student groups, faculty, historians and policy experts – during hundreds of conversations.
Now the trustees are encouraging students, faculty and staff and alumni to visit http://bot.unc.edu/comments/ to submit their thoughts and ideas through April 25, 2015. Each submission, which will be made via a web-based form, should include:
- Your name and affiliation with the University;
- A rationale for your idea, any relevant facts and details about how the trustees and the University would implement your idea.
All submissions are subject to public disclosure since UNC-Chapel Hill is a public institution.
Alston Gardner, vice chair of the Board of Trustees and chair of its University Affairs Committee, announced the new feedback initiative on March 25, 2015. To view a PowerPoint presentation summarizing how the board has engaged on the renaming issue, click here.
“Our board wants to encourage discussion of our history generally and building names more specifically,” Gardner said. “Our students have raised important concerns. We have been listening carefully over the past several months, and now we want to make sure that anyone in our campus community with thoughts and ideas has the opportunity to share them as we continue our deliberation process.”
Gardner and Trustees Lowry Caudill, board chair, and Chuck Duckett, vice chair of the University Affairs Committee, described the board’s objective of finding a comprehensive, long-term solution reflecting Carolina’s values in a Feb. 25 Daily Tar Heel letter to the editor. Click here to review.
Published March 25, 2015