If board meetings had movie titles, Friday's get-together of the UNC system's Board of Governors might be called "The Long Goodbye."
The board spent much of its two-hour meeting Friday morning bidding adieu to various board members, administrators and campus leaders. Speeches were authored. Resolutions awarded. Hugs given and received. Kind words all the way around, Eric Ferreri reports.
Much of the praise Friday was directed to James Moeser, the retiring chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill. Moeser came to Chapel Hill in 2000 from the University of Nebraska to fill the void left by the death of Michael Hooker.
UNC system President Erskine Bowles said Moeser arrived to find a campus with room to grow.
"He took a very good university and, in his quiet but firm manner, demanded we make it great," Bowles said, pointing to Moeser's successes in leading a $2.4 million fundraising campaign, shepherding a massive construction boom, and defending the university’s decision to select a book about the Islamic holy book as the summer reading selection soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Moeser’s successor is Holden Thorp, a chemistry professor and current dean of UNC-CH's College of Arts and Sciences. He begins work July 1.
