Summer 2012 Newsletter
Dear Colleagues:
As I complete my seventh year as UNC Charlotte’s fourth chancellor (on July 15), I am pleased to provide you with another update on activities at the University. For those of you who have regularly received and read these periodic missives, you’ll note that this one is a tad bit late in arriving. Normally, I like to issue my updates shortly after the commencement ceremonies but, this year, one thing after the next seemed to get in the way. I can promise you that I haven’t been goofing off. In fact, I missed commencement this year as my daughter, Ali, was celebrating her graduation from West Virginia University. With three college graduates now out in the working world, I can see the Promised Land!
Back home, however, commencement went on quite well without me. Commencement is a ceremony that traditionally marks the completion of an academic journey, but the event also represents a beginning. For UNC Charlotte, this year marked the start of a new era, as the University celebrated our 100,000th alumnus during spring commencement ceremonies. To help commemorate the occasion, past alumni association presidents were on hand, along with members of some of our first graduating classes.
Marketing major Fabian Elliott was honored as the 100,000th graduate in the company of nearly 3,500 of his peers, 48 of whom earned doctoral degrees. In fact, the 2011-12 academic year was a record breaker, with 118 doctoral degrees awarded in total.
Commencement provides a moment to pause and reflect, but the pause doesn’t last for long. The University is a place of constant change, with little “down time” for the faculty and staff who create a positive experience for our students. The University community has been diligently preparing to welcome the largest-ever freshman class in our history—631 more prospective students than anticipated have accepted admission for fall 2012. If all of the students who’ve accepted admission attend, our estimate is that fall freshman enrollment will total 3,801.
Clearly, more students are choosing UNC Charlotte, and we’re doing our best to make their transition to the University seamless and stress-free. We’ve developed a “Move-in 2012” website to provide information to incoming students and their families as they gear up to descend on campus in the fall. The website is just one of many tools we will use to facilitate the move-in process and to help our students succeed as they begin their own journeys toward commencement. I hope this newsletter finds you enjoying the summer months and that you can now settle in to read about the good news from UNC Charlotte. And, as always, if you want additional detail on any specific item mentioned in this newsletter, please feel free to contact my assistant, Shari Dunn.