Message from Chancellor Aswani K. Volety
Dear UNCW Community:
This month UNCW commemorated its 76th anniversary, reaching worthwhile milestones to celebrate the occasion, including enrolling our largest-ever class of first-year students this fall, with about 2,700 Seahawks. UNCW earned national recognition from U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings, with our programs and services placing us 109th among all of the public institutions in the nation.
Thanks to generous support included in the General Assembly’s recent state budget, UNCW is soaring into the future with much-needed funding to enhance our commitment to people, our region and the State of North Carolina. The budget includes well-deserved raises for our faculty and staff, as well as strong support for the entire UNC System.
We honored faculty who have made significant contributions in teaching, research and service during the Fall Faculty Meeting and also recognized faculty who earned tenure and promotions. This past weekend we held Family Weekend, welcoming students’ relatives to the Seahawk community. Events included the Legacy Pinning Ceremony, where family members who are alumni of UNCW or current students pass down the family tradition of being a Seahawk.
Eden Briley '23 is among nine students awarded a competitive DeJoy-Woś Family Foundation Scholarship. Two assistant professors in the College of Humanities, Social Sciences and the Arts (CHSSA) received prestigious national fellowships, and two other Seahawks are recipients of the NC Sea Grant STEM Fellowship.
Our annual Wings Up for Wilmington day of service marked the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Florence, which hit our Cape Fear region with widespread flooding and damage in 2018. More than 200 volunteers worked on community projects as part of this year’s Seahawks that Serve Week. Unfortunately, the university and the community lost a dedicated advocate this month with the passing of Linda Pearce Thomas, the first African American woman to serve as chair of the UNCW Board of Trustees. She will be missed.
I’m proud to announce a new campus event, a lecture that aims to highlight diverse perspectives. The first Chancellor’s Dare to Learn Lecture features political strategists Donna Brazile and Karl Rove in a candid and informative debate. This is just another way UNCW works to encourage the community to explore a wide range of ideas, reflected in the university’s motto, Discere Aude, which is often translated as “dare to learn.”
Yours in Seahawk spirit,
