Academic Affairs

The Mecklenburg Soil and Water Conservation District has honored UNC Charlotte Urban Institute Associate Director Mary Newsom and the institute’s “KEEPING WATCH on WATER: City of Creeks” project with its Urban Conservation Award.

The Soil and Water Conservation District is a local organization that works with residents, agencies and business owners to plan and direct programs for the conservation and development of natural resources.

An outside organization, the Charlotte Medical Education Expansion Committee, has released the results of a feasibility study for a medical school in the Queen City. The group’s consulting agency Tripp Umbach concluded Charlotte needs a four-year medical school to meet the needs of the region.

Robin Gary Cummings, M.D., deputy secretary for health services and state Medicaid director for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, was elected chancellor of UNC Pembroke by the Board of Governors of the 17-campus University of North Carolina.

Franklin Gilliam Jr., dean of the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been elected chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro by the Board of Governors of the 17-campus University of North Carolina.

The UNC Charlotte proposal for a Ventureprise Charlotte Launch program was selected as an NSF I-Corps Site in a nationally competitive solicitation by the National Science Foundation. The selection also designates UNC Charlotte as one of 36 universities that are part of the NSF National Innovation Network.

UNC Charlotte will host a regional input session on Monday, June 1, to enable the campus community and the public to provide feedback into the search process for the next UNC system president.

The UNC Board of Governors has started a search for UNC President Tom Ross’ successor; Ross will step down in January 2016.

Ted Amato, director of the Belk Scholars and Business Honors Programs in the Belk College of Business, and Craig Depken II, program dDirector for the Master of Science in Economics program, will be guests on the May 21 edition of “The Live Wire,” Inside UNC Charlotte’s streaming webcast. They will discuss the college’s  Belk Scholars Program in Business Analytics.

 “The Live Wire” can be viewed on desktop computers or mobile devices starting at 2 p.m.

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.

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.

Through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the UNC Charlotte J. Murrey Atkins Library will investigate how best to license and acquire electronic resources for academic libraries. The $271,000 award is a two-year research and planning grant to produce recommendations for the licensing and acquisition of electronic resources, particularly eBooks.