Academic Affairs

“Thank you for calling Niner Central and The University of North Carolina at Charlotte.”

Appropriately nicknamed the “voice of UNC Charlotte,” Chris Garcia is responsible for this recorded message that greets the thousands of Niner Central customers who call each week.

UNC Charlotte’s 49er Democracy Experience once again took the lead to communicate with students about the importance of voting in advance of Nov. 6 elections.

The semester’s largest registration event, #JoyofVoting, created a festival-like atmosphere where students played games, enjoyed free food and talked about the political situation; 49er Democracy Experience also registered 230 students to vote.

In 2012, James and Deborah Fallows began a years-long journey to explore America’s smaller communities, traveling by a single-engine, propeller plane. They chronicled their adventures in the book “Our Towns,” a collection of stories that depict civic and economic reinvention taking place across America.

The Wall Street Journal has described Barbara Oakley’s research as revolutionary. A best-selling author, educator and engineer, Oakley will share the secrets of neuroscience to unlock the brain’s power for maximum learning during a UNC Charlotte presentation for faculty, staff and students.

The UNC Charlotte Wind Ensemble, joined by the University Chorale and the Pride of Niner Nation Marching Band, will present “For Heroes Proved: A Veterans Day Concert” at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 11, at Ovens Auditorium.

UNC Charlotte was awarded a major collaborative research grant by the National Science Foundation’s Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program. The award, “AGEP North Carolina Alliance: An Institutional Transformation Model to Increase Minority STEM Doctoral Student and Faculty Success” is a five-year grant that provides $2.2 million to three institutions, with $663,163 to UNC Charlotte.

UNC Charlotte’s post-master’s certificate in university and college teaching, first offered in 2017, is designed to prepare graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, current faculty and others with the skills needed for the full range of faculty responsibilities at a range of institutions of higher education.

Ventureprise at UNC Charlotte is hosting seven international entrepreneur professional fellows as part of the U.S. Department of State’s 2018 Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative (YTILI).

The program, implemented by the German Marshall Fund, selected Charlotte, Seattle Boston, Austin, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Denver, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., to serve as host cities. 

Nominations for the prestigious Harshini V. de Silva Graduate Mentor Award and First Citizens Bank Scholars Medal are being accepted through Nov. 2 and Nov. 9, respectively.

The First Citizen’s award recognizes outstanding scholarship, creativity and/or research. The de Silva award recognizes an outstanding faculty member who also is an outstanding mentor. Nominations for the de Silva award come from departmental chairs; nominations for the First Citizens Bank award may come from any UNC Charlotte faculty member.

Krystal Turner, a graduate assistant in the Graduate School, recently participated in the annual conference of the Association of Play Therapy (APT) in Phoenix where she helped promote graduate education at UNC Charlotte and presented the research project “Child/Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT) for Adoptive Families: Parents’ Lived Experiences.”