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Tuesday, 19 September 2006 17:02 |
By JIM GENARO
Educators, students, politicians, friends and family members were among about 1,000 people who gathered at UNC Ashevilleës quadrangle last Friday afternoon for the formal installation of Anne Ponder as the schoolës sixth chancellor.
The event capped a week of activities that celebrated Ponderës installation, including an original theatre production, art and historical exhibits and a film and discussion by CBS news correspondent Drew Levinson.
 Anne
Ponder (left) takes the oath of office as UNC Ashevilleës sixth
chancellor last Friday afternoon. Her mother, Eleanor Ponder, holds the
family Bible on which she takes the oath, as former N.C. Associate
Justice Harry C. Martin administers the oath. Ponder was elected by the
UNC Board of Governors in May 2005 and has served in the position since
October of last year. Staff Photo by Jim genaro
Ponder
was elected chancellor by the UNC Board of Governors in May 2005 and
took office last October. Though she grew up in Asheville and graduated
from T.C. Robertson High School, Ponder attended UNC Chapel Hill and
served at Elon and Guilford colleges near Greensboro before serving as
president of Colby-Sawyer College, an independent liberal arts college
in New Hampshire.
In welcoming
remarks, UNC President Erskine B. Bowles said the ceremony was an
opportunity to "celebrate this campusë rich heritage and recognize its
unique history as this stateës only public liberal arts university. As
Chancellor Ponder well knows, I have very, very high expectations of
greater things to come under her leadership."
Among the
dignitaries who gave formal greetings to the new chancellor were U.S.
Rep. Charles Taylor, R-Brevard; N.C. Rep. Wilma Sherrill, R-Buncombe;
Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy; Nathan Ramsey, chair of the Buncombe
County Board of Commissioners; UNC Board of Governors Chair Jim
Phillips and Patricia Sullivan, chancellor of UNC Greensboro.
Sherill, in her
remarks, said, "The N.C. General Assembly has long been committed to
supporting higher education in North Carolina ... The success of our
state depends on our universities. They must have the funds necessary
to hire the best teachers and build the best facilities."
Commenting on UNCAës "unique role," she added, "Dr. Ponder is the person to lead that university."
Bellamy told
Ponder, "We believe that Asheville is a great city that has a great
future. We believe that UNCA is a great university that has a great
future. We trust you to guide the university to an outcome that is
unparalleled and unprecedented."
The keynote
address was presented by Philip H. Jordan Jr., president emeritus of
Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Bowles introduced Jordan as Ponderës
"mentor" and a long-time friend.
Jordan, who was
a trustee at CSC during Ponderës tenure there, told the assembly that
he was "highly honored and personally privileged" to present the woman
who "told us that she was known here as ǃÚLittle Annie Ponder from way
over yonder.ë"
He added, "There are three distinct features of your new leader that you should know about."
Ponder, he said,
is a "life-long learner who readily passes along her learning," as well
as being "gifted at seeing the big picture and distinguishing important
elements," and "a faithful colleague and friend wherever she works."
Jordan also commented on her tendency to use plain language and colloquialisms.
"An initiative
that she undertakes is something sheës ǃÚa-fixinë to do,ë" he said,
adding that she often uses "ǃÚPonderisms,ë which are never ponderous,
but always on-point."
Furthermore,
Jordan noted, Ponder has "a strong sense of community and an instinct
for the personal dimensions of professional relationships."
He also joked
about the large number of friends and colleagues that had traveled to
see her installed. "You can see from the invasion of New England
yankees who have come here ... that when your chancellor says, ǃÚYëall
come and see us,ë you know she means it."
Ponder was sworn
in by Harry C. Martin, a former associate justice of the North Carolina
Supreme Court. Her mother, Eleanor Ponder, held the familyës bible, on
which the younger Ponder took the oath of office.
After taking the
oath and receiving formal investments of her new position ÇƒÓ through the
presentation of a medallion and hood ÇƒÓ Ponder addressed the assembly.
"It is a true joy and honor to be the reason that we are all here in this place today," she said.
Ponder
acknowledged the prestigious reputation that UNCA has developed for its
liberal arts curriculum. "We are pleased, but not surprised when the
rest of the academic community ÇƒÓ and those who make it their business
to monitor the academic community ÇƒÓ recommend UNCA to each successive
generation of students," she told the audience. "The liberal arts and
the interdisciplinary habit of mind are more than what we do ÇƒÓ itës
what we are and what we teach."
Ponder added
that the liberal arts provide the "most long-term solutions to the most
serious threats to our way of life. Nowhere in higher education is
there a better example of how to find the long-term solutions to the
worldës problems."
She paraphrased
the book "The World Is Flat" by Thomas Friedman as saying that the
three qualities most required for success in the 21st centrury are
"knowing how to learn, high emotional intelligence and the facility for
creativity and intellectual rigor in equal measure." A liberal arts
curriculum fosters all three of these, she argued.
Ponder also
spoke of her hometown, saying, "The vibrant and creative City of
Asheville mirrors so much of what we do. We have a history that is
recent enough to remind us of the wisdom of our founders and the need
to be vigilant in our stewardship of the land around us ÇƒÓ a landscape
that is as close to paradise as any earthbound place that we know of."
Joking that,
"because the new chancellor is a literature major, there will always be
poetry in our midst," Ponder quoted the poet Wendell Berry.
"We pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart and in eye clear. What we need is here."
Ponder noted
that the university faces the peak of Mount Pisgah, "a Biblical symbol
of promise on possibility," she said. "We claim this destiny and this
place for our university."
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