Welcome
The University of North Carolina Wilmington began the 2007-08 academic year with tremendous pride and optimism inspired by the national recognition we have achieved. The latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, released in August, once again place UNCW among the top 10 public regional universities in the South. In fact, we moved from seventh to sixth among public regional universities and from 20th to 14th among all master’s colleges and universities in the South.
Bright, talented students are drawn to the power of the UNCW experience. Our incoming freshmen have an average high school G.P.A. of 3.74, and their average SAT score is 1160, our highest ever. In fact, the average SAT score for our incoming class has increased 56 points over the past five years. This year, we held a New Student Convocation to mark a significant and symbolic beginning to the academic year, an important way for our students to enter UNCW’s community of scholars.
The momentum that propels UNCW to soar higher derives from our students’ achievements, faculty and staff accomplishments and strong support from alumni, friends, volunteer board members and other donors. Some of our significant, recent achievements include the following:
- A $667,000 gift from the C.D. Spangler Foundation that allows UNCW to qualify for $333,000 in funds from the State of North Carolina to establish the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Jazz, which will enable our Department of Music to recruit a nationally/internationally recognized jazz performer.
- A $34.5 million appropriation from the state to construct a new teaching laboratory building that will provide badly needed classroom space. This appropriation is the largest single capital appropriation ever in the university’s history. The legislature also approved salary increases for our faculty and staff, which will help UNCW retain dedicated employees and more effectively recruit new faculty and staff.
- The Atlantic Monthly named our MFA Program in Creative Writing one of the top "Five Innovative/Unique Programs" in the country; and by the way, Assistant Professor David Gessner’s essay “Experiencing a Feeling of Wildness” was broadcast in July on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
- UNCW students on a campus tuition committee advocated for the creation of Seahawks SOAR, a new program to provide 100 percent of the financial aid needed for four years for up to 500 students whose families' income falls within a range of up to one and a half times the poverty level as defined by the federal government. SOAR stands for the support, opportunities, accessibility and responsibility students need to succeed at UNCW.
- Professor Steven Emslie from the Department of Biology and Marine Biology has received significant recognition in scholarly journals as well as the New York Times for his study of penguin remains over a 45,000 year period, measuring Antarctic ice movement.
- UNCW and the school systems in New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick counties received a $1.18 million grant from the National Science Foundation to fund the design, development and delivery of programs that expand information technology (IT) experiences for public school students and their teachers.
- For the first time in its history, UNCW received several donations of at least $1 million each within a single fiscal year, and the university's overall fundraising for 2006-07 totaled approximately $9.7 million. The major gifts included more than $1 million from BB&T to support a new program and the Student Managed Investment Fund in the Cameron School of Business; $1 million from Wilmington philanthropists Mark Griffis and David Robertson to fund 20 new scholarships, providing at least one scholarship for each academic department on-campus; and $1 million from the Osher Foundation to support the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute operated by the Division for Public Service and Continuing Studies.
- In addition, UNCW just opened Seahawk Landing, an apartment complex for juniors and seniors that now enables us to house nearly one-third of our undergraduate students on-campus, an impressive accomplishment that will truly transform the campus community. Furthermore, it will undoubtedly have a positive impact in improving retention and graduation rates and in laying the groundwork for alumni support in years to come.
- We have other construction projects scheduled to commence in the months ahead. We will break ground later this year on a state-of-the-art School of Nursing building, which will help us address the critical need for nurses in North Carolina and beyond. Planning is also underway for a new marine biotechnology building at the Center for Marine Science – a facility designed to support UNCW’s leading role in the region’s burgeoning biotech field.
- Several additional projects are on schedule for completion this academic year, including the Fisher Field House, named for Herb and Sylvia Fisher, alumni and generous donors; the renovation of Wise Alumni House; and the transformation of the University Union and Burney Center, which will make our core campus the finest gathering place for students in North Carolina.
- I hope you will have an opportunity to experience our Seahawk pride this year by attending soccer, volleyball and cross country matches or any of the many other UNCW athletic events (check out UNCWSports.com). Last year, our teams won conference titles in several sports – Women’s Golf, Men’s Swimming and Diving, Men’s Track and Field – and our coaches and students have been similarly recognized. Three coaches were named as CAA Coach of Year - Cindy Ho (Women’s Golf), Jim Sprecher (Men’s Track and Field) and Paul Cairney (Women’s Soccer). Melissa Milstead was named the Colonial Athletic Association’s Top Female Scholar Athlete-of-the-Year, and Anna Raynor earned Co-Female Athlete-of-the-Year honors from the conference.
And speaking of sports, our new Athletics Director, Kelly Mehrtens, is hard at work developing plans to take our programs to an even higher level. She is a former All-America collegiate athlete at the University of Alabama and former fourth-place Olympic trials finisher. She has held posts at Northeastern University, the University of Miami, the University of Illinois and, most recently, at the University of Kansas, where she was the associate director of athletics and senior women's administrator. A fine chance to see her introduced would be at Midnight Madness, a wonderful celebration to kick off the basketball season, scheduled for October 12.
Our arts events and academic lectures are perennially successful. The Carolina Ballet’s first-ever summer residency at UNCW was a resounding success. The gala performance was sold out, and dozens of talented young dancers from around the nation had an opportunity to spend time on our campus. This year’s events will be no less outstanding. Check out http://www.uncw.edu/arts/.
I am extremely proud of the progress we are making in so many areas at our great university. The remarkable achievements we’ve attained, combined with our ongoing commitment to reaching our strategic goals, have positioned UNCW to soar even higher this year. I sincerely appreciate your interest in the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
Sincerely yours,
Rosemary DePaolo
Chancellor
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