General News

College of Education professor Spencer Salas is in India working with the U.S. State Department to train people to teach English in the capital New Delhi.

For three weeks, Salas will wind his way through Delhi’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods, working with secondary school instructors to improve the way they teach English.

In recognition of National Police Week, the UNC Charlotte Staff Council recently delivered coffee and donuts to the University’s Police and Public Safety Department.

Members of the council’s executive team, chair Jim Kay, vice chair Penny Stevens and communications officer Jessica Barton, dropped by the PPS Department to express appreciation to the officers for “all they do for our campus community.”

UNC Charlotte is one of the cosponsors for a conference that will draw hundreds of computer coders, developers and students on Thursday, May 28, at the Harvey Gantt Center for African-American Arts+Culture.

Billed as part watch party and part development workshop, the May 28 event coincides with the annual Google I/O conference in San Francisco. The Queen City event will be from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

A rowdy mob walked shoulder to shoulder with Dorothy Counts-Scoggins as she neared the doors of Harding High. Some yelled slurs, threw rocks or spat. It was the first day of class in 1957, and integration had started in Mecklenburg County. Counts-Scoggins was one of the first four black students to enroll at formerly all-white schools in Charlotte. In the years since, the area has been at times been a model for both what can go right, and at others for what can go wrong, when balancing a school district.

Derrick Griffith, a UNC Charlotte alumnus who was an outstanding student leader in the early 1990s, has been identified as one of seven people killed in a train derailment in Philadelphia.

Griffith, 42, most recently was dean of student affairs and enrollment management at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y. He joined the college in 2011 and had just earned a doctorate of philosophy in urban education from the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Full-time employees who have earned a bachelor’s degree can apply easily for admission as a post-baccalaureate (non-degree) student without any standardized test, transcript or recommendation requirements. 

Alternatively, they could apply to a graduate certificate program, many of which do not require a standardized test.

Whether one wishes to apply to a graduate program, augment professional skills to advance his/her career or simply take a course for personal enrichment, there is still time to apply for the fall semester. 

Saxophonist and UNC Charlotte alumnus Benjamin Still has won a gold medal in the 2015 Fischoff Competition as a member of the Mirasol Quartet.

Founded in 1973, the Fischoff Competition is the largest chamber music competition in the world. Each year, an average of 125 ensembles, representing 22 nationalities, enter the competition in either the wind or string categories of three to six performers. Fischoff is the only national chamber music competition with both senior divisions (ages 18-35) and a junior division (age 18 and younger).

The Charlotte Teachers Institute (CTI) has welcomed its new cohort of 104 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) teachers into its innovative, interdisciplinary seminars for 2015.

“This year’s CTI Fellows represent the wide range of teachers in CMS, from new to veteran, kindergarten to 12th grade and physics to interior design,” said CTI Director Scott Gartlan. “We continue to create significant growth opportunities for teacher leaders looking to deepen their knowledge base and impact the lives of their students.”

Phillip Brown, internal communications manager in the University’s Public Relations Office, recently won a Gold Hermes Award for publication writing for the article “Trailblazers Turn the Tassel.” The feature was published in the second quarter 2014 edition of the UNC Charlotte magazine.

UNC Charlotte broke ground May 12 on a new residence hall dedicated to housing students of the Levine Scholars Program and the Honors College. The new facility will be known as Levine Hall, in honor of Sandra and Leon Levine. Through their foundation, the Levines have committed more than $18 million to the Levine Scholars Program, which began in 2009. Levine Hall is scheduled to open in summer 2016.