News Release

By KIM WEAVER SPURR
College of Arts and Sciences

CHAPEL HILL — Philosophy scholar Dr. C.D.C. "David" Reeve has been named the Delta Kappa Epsilon Distinguished Professor, the first professorship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to be funded by a Greek organization.

Another fraternity and a sorority have since begun campaigns to endow additional distinguished professorships to help Carolina keep and attract outstanding faculty.

Delta Kappa Epsilon began efforts to establish a $1 million endowed professorship at UNC in 2000 when Edward "Tee" Baur of St. Louis kicked off the campaign in the College of Arts and Sciences, making a lead gift of $100,000. The Beta chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, Carolina’s first fraternity, was founded in 1850.

Baur, a UNC and Delta Kappa Epsilon alumnus, and other alumni of the fraternity have raised more than $820,000 in pledges and gifts for the professorship. Through the North Carolina Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund, donors who give $666,000 and more to establish professorships at Carolina qualify for matching state grants of $334,000 to create endowments of at least $1 million.

Baur, vice president of Duke-Weeks Realty in St. Louis, said the idea first came to him when he served on the UNC Board of Visitors in the late 1990s.

"I was talking with a DKE alumnus about a way to link the fraternities closer to the university in a meaningful way," he said. "I thought this would be a great way for people to give to the (university’s) Carolina First Campaign, but to be a part of a smaller campaign they could relate to as well."

Gifts to the professorships count toward the university's Carolina First Campaign goal of $2 billion. Carolina First is a comprehensive, multi-year, private fund-raising campaign to support Carolina's vision of becoming the nation's leading public university.

It was important to the fraternity’s alumni that the faculty member appointed to the professorship demonstrate excellence in undergraduate teaching and make the subject matter relevant to the lives of the students, Baur said.

"We wanted someone who could engage the undergraduates in a way that really interests them and could really excite them," he said.

College of Arts and Sciences Dean Dr. Bernadette Gray-Little said Reeve is that kind of person, a professor who has gained a reputation as an "excellent and engaging lecturer in the philosophy department."

"Professor Reeve is internationally recognized as one of the most distinguished and original scholars in ancient philosophy," she said. "His classes fill to capacity, and he continues to recruit extraordinary graduate and undergraduate students, further enhancing the university’s stature in the field of philosophy." Reeve, a faculty member in the UNC philosophy department since 2001, works in the areas of ancient Greek philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, moral psychology, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of sex and love. He is the author of numerous books, including "Love’s Confusions" (Harvard University Press, 2005).

Baur’s efforts have inspired other Greek organizations to give back, and the momentum is growing. His friend Garnett Smith of Naples, Fla., a 1969 Carolina graduate, donated a $100,000 lead gift to start another Greek professorship at UNC, the Phi Delta Theta/Matthew Mason Distinguished Professorship.

The professorship will be named in honor of the late Mason, a beloved long-time employee at the Phi Delta Theta house. Under the leadership of Shoffner "Shoff" Allison of Charlotte, who graduated from UNC in 1998, the Phi Delts have raised more than $725,000 in pledges and gifts. The professorship is in the queue to receive state matching funds; the first recipient will be appointed by July 2006.

A sorority campaign for a Delta Delta Delta Distinguished Professorship also is under way. Alumna Becky Cobey of Greenwich, Conn., of the UNC Class of 1975, is leading fund-raising efforts for what will be the first sorority distinguished professorship at Carolina.

Rewarding, retaining and recruiting top scholars is a key priority for the College of Arts and Sciences, Gray-Little said.

"In the current, highly competitive marketplace, distinguished professorships help Carolina to compete for the talent necessary to sustain its national reputation," she said. "Through the generosity of Delta Kappa Epsilon, and now Phi Delta Theta and Delta Delta Delta, alumni are lending vital support to academic life in the college."

Baur said he hopes UNC Greek organizations will establish at least six professorships.

"There has been a lot of synergy and energy generated by these professorships," he said. "It’s all part of a goal to strengthen the Greek system at the university. (These gifts) will be valued for generations to come."