General News

Alumnus Robert Niblock, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Lowe’s Companies Inc., is donating $2.5 million to UNC Charlotte’s Belk College of Business. His gift will support the Student Center for Professional Development in the Belk College, which will be named the Robert A. Niblock Student Center for Professional Development.

The Department of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences is the 2015 recipient of the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology received the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Academic Advising.  Also, José Gámez, associate professor of architecture, was presented the Provost’s Faculty Award for Community Engagement.

College of Education professor Sejal Foxx will represent UNC Charlotte at an upcoming event to strengthen school counseling and college advising; it is being convened by the White House.

She will join delegates from 35 states representing K-12 schools, nonprofit organizations, research interests, policymakers and other stakeholders in an effort to increase the number of traditionally underserved students succeeding in post-secondary education.

Jing Xiao, professor of computer science in the College of Computing and Informatics, is on the 2015 Robohub listing of “25 Women in Robotics You Need to Know About.”

Xiao’s research spans robotics, haptics and intelligent systems. An IEEE Fellow, Xiao is site director of the U.S. National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on Robots and Sensors for Human Wellbeing. During her academic career, she has authored more than 130 publications in journals, books and for major robotics conferences, and she holds one patent.

UNC Charlotte’s Master of Health Administration is ranked among the most affordable graduate degrees in health care administration by Healthcare Administration Degree Programs. 
Using the National Center for Education Statistics’ College Navigator database, more than 280 schools were identified as having qualifying degree programs. The 30 most affordable accredited programs were selected and ranked based on average annual cost, including tuition and fees. UNC Charlotte was ranked no. 17.

Plans are in the works to remove the Belk Tower, which UNC Charlotte personnel and outside consulting engineers have determined to have significant structural issues.

In an Oct. 17 statement to campus, Chancellor Philip L. Dubois wrote, “Although the tower is not an immediate risk to campus, it does pose a potential safety hazard, and it is prudent to take precautions. The deterioration of the tower is the natural result of age-related corrosion, water penetration and rust that have damaged the tower’s concrete, metal and electrical components.”

The InnovateHER Challenge national prize competition organized by the Small Business Administration (SBA), in partnership with Microsoft, is seeking products and services that impact and empower the lives of women and families.

Regional competitions are under way to identify 10 national finalists that will compete for $70,000 in cash prizes funded by Microsoft.

The Charlotte regional competition, hosted by Ventureprise and UNC Charlotte, invites applications; the deadline is Tuesday, Nov. 3.

For Halloween, the Campus Activities Board is bringing two mentalists and a ghost hunter to campus.

Jeff and Tessa Evason, mentalists who perform feats of ESP and second sight, will present a show on Wednesday, Oct. 28, and ghost hunter Chris Fleming will speak about supernatural phenomena and his personal experiences with ghosts on Saturday, Oct. 30. Both events are free and will be at 7 p.m. in the Cone University Center, McKnight Hall.

Participants in Leadership Charlotte were on campus Thursday, Oct. 15, as part of the program’s Education Day to explore the history, current landscape and outlook of education for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS).

The current Leadership Charlotte class will examine challenges related to the educational opportunities for all students and ponder possible solutions. The day also will include a tour of Charlotte Engineering Early College High School, a presentation by CMS Superintendent Ann Clark and an interactive panel with four CMS Board of Education members.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 500 students, faculty and business people, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) praised UNC Charlotte for providing the educational programs and research to advance cyber protection and combat cyber terrorism.

The senator said cyber terrorism is one of the primary threats to national security, and he noted that the “number one (cyber) security concern” are everyday ploys by cyber terrorists that trick people into opening bogus emails that allow access to confidential information.