$6 million Kenan Trust gift to Honors will help nearly double size of program

Colleges & Universities University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
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<p>From The UNC Website:</p>

<p>Thursday, May 22, 2008</p>

<p>A new $6 million gift from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust will help nearly double the number of students invited to the College of Arts and Sciences’ Honors Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.</p>

<p>The gift, which adds faculty to teach honors courses, qualifies for a $3 million grant from the North Carolina Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust, bringing the total value of the gift to $9 million. The state fund, established in 1985 by the N.C. General Assembly, provides matching grants to recruit and retain outstanding faculty.</p>

<p>The Kenan Trust gift creates six $1 million endowments, each augmented by the state match of $500,000, and will support a minimum of six assistant or associate professors who will be desig-nated as William R. Kenan Jr. Fellows or William R. Kenan Jr. Scholars, respectively, in the College of Arts and Sciences.</p>

<p>Chancellor James Moeser announced the gift today (May 22) during his final report to the Board of Trustees as chancellor. He steps down June 30 after nearly eight years in office. Chancellor-Elect Holden Thorp, elected earlier this month by the UNC Board of Governors, begins July 1.</p>

<p>“This gift to the Honors Program reflects the desire of the Kenan Trust to pay tribute to Chancellor Moeser for the leadership he has provided to Carolina over the past eight years, and to his desire to double the number of participants in the Honors Program,” said Richard M. Krasno, executive director of the Kenan Trust. “We also want to signal our confidence in new Chancellor-Elect Thorp, who has been a tremendous champion for the Honors Program as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. These are two great leaders for the University, and we are proud that this gift honors them both.”</p>

<p>In his “State of the University” speech in 2002, Moeser first proposed a doubling of the Honors Program to help increase the University’s yield of high-ability students and, at the same time, adding faculty to high priority areas of the College of Arts and Sciences.</p>

<p>“This gift helps move the University significantly closer to achieving that goal,” Moeser said. “We are grateful to the Kenan Trust for helping extend the reach and scope of an Honors Program that has long been regarded as one of the best and most accessible of its kind in the country.”</p>

<p>The $6 million gift also matches private support from two recent major gifts to the program.</p>

<p>In September 2007, an anonymous donor gave $5 million to fund five new professorships named for alumni Peter Thacher Grauer and William Burwell Harrison. State matching funds will add $2.5 million, making this a $7.5 million endowment. In December 2007, the Morehead-Cain Foundation created the Mary H. Cain Distinguished Professorship in Art History, resulting in a $2 million endowment, including state match, that will add four honors courses in art history. When combined, private gifts and state matching grants from the three donors total $18.5 million in endowed support for the program.</p>

<p>Thorp sees the impact of the Kenan Trust gift from a unique perspective. He was admitted as a sophomore to the Honors Program as a Carolina undergraduate from 1982 to 1986, and taught honors courses as a chemistry professor after he joined the UNC faculty in 1993.</p>

<p>“As a student, I was challenged and inspired in honors classes in math and chemistry,” Thorp said. “As a faculty member, teaching honors courses was among the most rewarding experiences of my career, and, as chair of chemistry, I enjoyed watching my colleagues fight over the honors assignments.”</p>

<p>“The Kenan family, through its magnanimous gifts and academic vision, continues to transform the liberal arts experience at Carolina for our students and faculty,” he added. “I am honored to join with James in thanking the Kenan Trust for making the Honors Program the most recent beneficiary of its generosity.” </p>

<p>The Kenan Trust gift comes at a time when a deciding factor for students who choose Carolina over distinguished peer universities has been the nationally acclaimed Honors Program, said James Leloudis, associate dean for honors. </p>

<p>A limited capacity to serve all qualified students has caused the program to lose hundreds of talented applicants to other schools, he said. </p>

<p>“Of the 3,800 students in the Class of 2011, 200 first-year students were invited to join Carolina’s Honors Program. With the past year’s new gifts, and more available honors courses, nearly 10 percent of entering students in future classes will receive invitations,” said Leloudis. “This gift will greatly help our ability to recruit top undergraduates, as well as keep talented North Carolina students here at home.”</p>

<p>Any of the current 120 honors courses are open on a space-available basis to all students with a “B” average. Students who are not invited to join the program may apply during their first three semesters. Each year, more than 300 students in 51 departments and curricula complete senior honors theses under the supervision of college faculty.</p>

<p>The William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust was created in 1965 from the estate of alumnus William R. Kenan Jr., class of 1894. During the Carolina First campaign, which ended Dec. 31, 2007, the trust and related Kenan entities and family members made commitments to UNC totaling nearly $70 million. More than half of that total was designated for the College of Arts and Sciences, the oldest and largest academic unit at Carolina. </p>

<p>The Kenan family’s ties to the University date to 1790 when James Kenan, a member of the University’s first Board of Trustees, contributed $50 to the construction of Old East, the first state University building in the nation. A member of the North Carolina General Assembly, James Kenan helped draft and pass the university’s charter.</p>

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<p>Thank you so much for posting!</p>

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<p>I think the Honors Program needs to be revamped in general. It doesn’t seem to follow any sort of standards for inviting students like other universities do. It was very hard for me to choose to go to Carolina when it was the only school that did not offer me a space in the Honors Program or merit money.</p>

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<p>Haha - I totally agree with you. I still can’t believe that my son accepted an offer from a school that did not offer him money or Honors. With his stats, I am really confused why he was not offered honors. However, he plans on applying while a freshman.</p>

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<p>Why couldn’t they have done this last year? I’m in the same boat as NewJerseyMom’s son…amazing stats (excuse the arrogance), top tier other choices, but no honors or merit at carolina. I was a morehead finalist, but apparently that doesnt count for anything :(</p>

<p>nevertheless, go unc! haha.</p>

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<p>Just because you’re a Morehead finalist doesn’t ensure your placement into the Honors Program. Both programs have different criteria for choosing their students, and really, most of the time, because Morehead finalists already receive tuition from the university, the admissions office tends to use spots in the Honors Progam to recruit other students who otherwise wouldn’t have chosen Carolina over other top-teir schools (kids who are just as, if not more, competitive than Morehead finalists).</p>

<p>I think there’s a misconception when it comes to weighing the competitiveness of different entering students. There are TONS, and I mean TONS, of Carolina freshmen that will be entering next year who haven’t received merit money or placement into the Honors Program who deserved one or both.</p>

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<p>This is from today’s DTH and goes into some more detail:</p>

<p>"In his final meeting with the UNC Board of Trustees, Chancellor James Moeser announced a gift to benefit the University’s Honors Program - $6 million from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust.</p>

<p>The grant, allocated for the endowment of six new faculty positions, has been matched with an additional $3 million from the North Carolina General Assembly.</p>

<p>“The Kenan Trust wanted to do something to honor the chancellor, and the Honors Program is something he really cares about,” said Richard Krasno, executive director of the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust.</p>

<p>The gift is a large step along the way of realizing Moeser’s goal of doubling the Honors Program’s acceptance rate from 5 percent of incoming students to 10 percent.</p>

<p>Some members of the University community are concerned that limited opportunities for incoming students to join the program act as a deterrent, discouraging talented college applicants from accepting admission to UNC.</p>

<p>“The hope has always been for a significant expansion of the program to be done on the same model as the first-year seminars,” professor Ritchie Kendall said.</p>

<p>Chancellor-elect Holden Thorp shares Moeser’s vision for the expansion of the program.</p>

<p>“(The Honors Program) is a topic that goes right to the heart of what we’re doing in the (College of Arts and Sciences),” Thorp said.</p>

<p>The gift is also a show of support for Thorp on the part of the Kenan Trust. “We wanted to give him some momentum,” Krasno said.</p>

<p>The six endowed professorships will be distributed to departments within the College of Arts and Sciences that have a high demand for honors courses.</p>

<p>“The dean of the college, in consultation with the senior associate dean, will decide where these positions end up,” Thorp said. “And those departments will offer four more honors courses.”</p>

<p>The additional faculty will not necessarily teach the new honors courses, but their presence will free up professors who otherwise would have been needed to teach large lectures to teach smaller classes.</p>

<p>“That’s always been the stumbling block - not having enough honors courses,” Kendall said.</p>

<p>Not only will the Honors Program benefit from the gift, with the new endowed positions, the College itself will reap the benefit of additional faculty members.</p>

<p>“That’s the beauty of it,” Thorp said. “We’ll have the honors courses, but we’ll also have new colleagues who will be doing research and teaching more courses.”</p>

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<p>Yes, I realize there are a lot of qualified people out there. Sorry if I sounded bitter.</p>

<p>Just to set the record straight, finalists don’t receive anything anymore.</p>

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<p>Am I the only one that thinks the honors program is unnecessary? I understand it is meant to attract top students but wouldn’t the money be better spent on recruiting top professors? I just think the idea of an “honors” program is divisive and serves such a small part of the student body when hiring top professors would benefit the entire student body. UVA and Berkeley don’t have honors programs that I know of and they have no problem recruiting top students, some would say better than UNC.</p>

<p>I’m by no means saying I’m an authority on this matter I was just wondering what others thoughts were on the subject.</p>

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<p>I will be 100% honest:</p>

<p>No one really discusses the honor program much once you get here. I’m sure it’s a cool thing to be in, but there is definitely, definitely no divide between honors and non-honors kids. At least, I’ve never experienced it.</p>

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<p>Heathergee’s comment is consistent with my D’s experience. The Honors program was very important to her before she went to UNC. The only thing that is ever mentioned now are the Honors classes, and even those aren’t a huge deal. Many on this forum have said if you really want to take an honors class, you can often contact the professor and talk your way in. And, at least with my D’s experience, UNC has plenty of fabulous classes and plenty of classes with smaller enrollments. She’s taking a 500 level class in the fall with an enrollment of 5. She emailed the prof over spring break (before registration was open) and said she’d read about the class and was interested. He wrote back and said he’d enroll her!</p>