February i994
Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina • 7
Philanthropic intersection
Spanker Foundation giving $10 million to UNC system
UNC President C.D. Spangler Jr.
says his family foundation’s gift
wUl support distinguished pro
fessorships on UNC’s 16 cam
puses.
By Todd Cohen
A s president of the
/ \ University of North Caro-
/ 1 lina system, C.D. Spanker
Jr. faces a hig challenge shared hy
his counterparts throu^out the U.S.:
How to attract and retain top-notch
faculty members at public universi
ties in the face of offers few can
refuse from well-heeled private insti
tutions.
Like his public university counter
parts, Spanker can try to wring dol
lars out of state lawmakers intent on
spending fewer dollars to meet rising
needs.
But as one of the wealthiest indi
viduals in the U.S., Spanker can do
something else. And he did just that
last month, annoimcing that his fami
ly foundation would give $1 million a
year for the next 10 years to UNC
campuses to establish and support
distinguished professorships on
UNC’s 16 campuses.
Spangler says the gift creates
opportunities “to reach beyond [state
salaries] and attract people of na
tional repute by having additional
funding.”
Directors of the $50 million-asset
C.D. Spangler Foundation, which is
named for Spangler’s father and
mainly funds higher education, wiU
decide each year how to divide the
annual $1 million gift among the 16
UNC campuses.
Spanker says he hopes the money
will create endowment trust funds on
each campus for a distinguished pro
fessorship, and help complete funding
for existing professorships.
Income from the endowments
would supplement state salaries for
the distinguished professors.
Chairs to be established by the
first $1 million gift include the
Raymond H. Dawson Distinguished
Professorship
in PoUtical Sci
ence at UNC-
Chapel Hill and
the Julia Jones
Daniels Distin
guished Profes
sorship at the
North Carolina
School of the
Arts in Win
ston-Salem.
Spangler Jr.
Report
Continued from page 3
they are ones we can’t pretend don’t
exist if we operate in the public
trust.”
While there was widespread
agreement about the validity of the
survey findings, there was less unity
when it came to discussion of strate
gies to address racism.
Brenda Williamson, director of
the Women of Color Program at N.C.
Equity — a statewide advocacy
group for women — is among those
favoring a one-on-one approach.
“We have to begin on an individ
ual basis,” she says. “1 happen to
have not only white, but Native
American and Asian friends who
have talked about the issue with me.
Unless you have personal relation
ships and can ask honest questions
and get honest answers, you’re not
really going to do a whole lot.”
On the other hand, the Rev.
Collins Kilburn, executive director of
the North Carolina Council of
Churches,, believes the focus needs to
be on changing institutions.
“Our understanding of racism is
that it’s not just a matter of personal
feelings, it’s a structural issue,” he
says. “1 want to underscore the need
tor racial justice that involves equal
economic opportunity. Racism is not
just people not understanding people
or having negative stereotypes. The
much more serious part is when one
group of people is twice as likely to
he unemployed as another.”
For those working in government
and social-service agencies, con
fronting racism is a necessity, not a
luxury, says Wake County Health
Director Leah Devlin.
The county health agency has
taken a two-pronged approach to the
problem by encouraging service
providers to be more sensitive to peo
ple of different races or ethnic back
grounds and, at the same time, giving
residents of minority communities
better access to health care.
The newly-created Southeast
Raleigh Center for Health and
Community Development lets local
residents define their own health pri
orities.
“If they say it’s streetlights and
crime, we have to respond,” Devlin
says. “We’re trying to be more com
munity focused.”
Linda Jones, director of Family
Services for the Greensboro
Episcopal Housing Ministry, believes
the key is not only what programs
are offered to poor and minority com
munities, but how.
“In a lot of organizations, whites
are the ones who have control over
services and goods,” she says. “Ri^t
there, that sets up a situation of ‘You
need and I have.’”
For the past two years, the
Housing Ministry has been part of a
neighborhood rebuilding project in
the mostly-hlack Eastside Park sec
tion of Greensboro that gives resi
dents responsibility for running safe
ty patrols and doing renovation
work.
“1 think the race relations answer
lies in people of different back
grounds growing to care about each
other,” Jones says. “We need to
invent some opportunities for people
of different races to just simply get to
know each other in an environment
that has nothing to do with money,
giving and receiving - where every
one is equal.”
Where will the push for improving
race relations come from?
Nancy Trovillion, assistant direc
tor of the North Carolina Arts
Council, sees the arts as a likely
arena for increasing tolerance.
“They are so universal and
appealing. And it’s a good way to
expose people in a very entertaining
and educational way to other cul
tures.”
Lena Epps Brooker, who man
ages diversity programs for The
Women’s Center in Ralei^, beUeves
the workplace is a natural starting
point because that is where people of
different races now have the most
contact.
“Employers have a new call to
provide the kind of training that cre
ates an environment where people
feel safe in talking about differ
ences,” she says.”
Among the other North
Carolinians who are working to end
discrimination is Tom McNeel, super
intendent of the New Hanover
County Schools.
McNeel has joined an ad hoc com
mittee of local educators and commu
nity leaders that recently ran a full
page newspaper advertisement
under the headline, “Racism Hurts
UsAU.”
In Durham, North Carolinians
Against Racist and Religious
Violence has been holding “teen sum
mits” in which high school students
of different races and economic
backgrounds come together to talk
about their experiences.
“Young people hear the brunt of
things that adults can choose not to
deal with,” says Executive Director
Christina Davis McCoy. “Students
come to school with all kinds of
issues that are not being talked
about or addressed. We feel teens
have the answers to problems hut
their input is not being sought.”
The Reynolds report was limited
to black-white relations because
blacks and whites make up most of
the population in North Carolina.
Some nonprofit leaders were crit
ical that it did not also include the
views of Hispanic, Native American
and Asian-American residents.
Although he believes the results
are soUd, polling expert John Shelton
Reed warns that surveys about race
must be viewed with some skepti
cism because people often reply in
ways they feel will be “socially desir
able.”
“A classic example is that in
1942, 98 percent of southern whites
said they were in favor of segregated
schools,” says Reed, who directs the
Institute for Research in Social
Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. “By
1980, that was down to 5 percent.
“Plainly, in 1980, some of these
people were not telling the truth. It
just wasn’t respectable to say you
were a segregationist in 1980. In
1942, some of those people probably
weren’t telling the truth” for the
opposite reason.
Since releasing the survey, the
Reynolds Foundation has formed a
Measuring the gaps
Survey shows races growing apart
A report on race relations
released last month by the Z. Smith
Reynolds Foundation is thought to
be the first of its kind in North
Caroiina.
The Winston-Salem foundation
commissioned the survey at the
request of its statewide advisory
panel.
“A question was raised: “What
is the most pressing problem?” and
race relations surfaced immediate
ly,”’ says Robert Bridges, chairman
of the committee that requested the
study. “The greatest challenge now
is to create some settings across
racial lines where we can begin to
understand each other better.”
The survey, conducted hy
Howard, Merreli & Partners in
Raleigh, found that blacks and
whites in North Carolina have limit
ed contact and very different per
ceptions of issues involving race.
Poiling expert John Shelton
Reed, director of the Institute for
Research in Social Science at UNC-
Chapel Hill says the findings of the
Reynolds survey are consistent
with national surveys on race.
The Z. Smith Reynolds report
was based on interviews with 812
North Carolinians and four focus
group discussions in Wilmington
and Greensboro that were broken
down hy race and — in the case of
black respondents — by gender.
Among the findings:
• Sixty-two percent of whites
and 76 percent of blacks said it is
hard for people to talk honestly
about race relations.
• Thirty-two percent of whites
and 38 percent of blacks believe vio
lent racial disturbances like the Los
Angeles riots will occur in North
Carolina in the near future.
• Blacks and whites had oppo
site opinions on treatment of blacks
by the state’s criminal justice sys
tem. Almost two-thirds of blacks
surveyed said getting equal justice
is a problem, while nearly the same
percentage of whites felt blacks
receive equal treatment.
• A majority of whites and
blacks favor open housing laws and
oppose giving blacks “preference
over equally qualified whites in
such matters as getting into college
or getting jobs.”
• A little more than half of
whites and more than three-quar
ters of blacks said they were inter
ested in getting directly involved in
improving race relations in their
communities.
For a copy of the report, call the
Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation at
(910) 725-7541.
Barbara Solow
committee to look at solutions to
racism. Foundation leaders are
already holding forums with state
human relations commissions, com
munity groups and others who have
expressed interest in the survey find
ings.
When asked what he would like to
see done with the report, John
Kernodle, executive director of the
Community Justice Resource Center
in Greensboro, has this response:
“I think this information needs to
be shared with and discussed not
only by pohcymakers in the criminal
justice field, but service providers.
It’s the kind of information that
ought to influence public poUcy.”
C. Edward McCauley, president of
the Cary-based North Carolina
Hospital Association, also wants the
findings to be more widely publi
cized.
“It this report is accurate, it
speaks a lot about why we’re not
making more progress than we are,”
he says. “I think making groups like
ours in health care aware of what the
feelings are is like throwing seeds.
Somewhere they might find fertile
soil.”
Brooker of The Women’s Center
cautions that ending racism will take
more than good intentions.
“It’s going to cost money - on the
part of our state and county govern
ments, our school systems and
employers,” she says. “But it you’ve
got a physical problem, you spend
money to make it well. My theory is
that this is an ailment that is just as
deadly as a lot of physical ailments.
We need to find the resources to
address it.”
For Sister Maxine Towns, who
runs the newly-created African
American Ministry for the Catholic
Diocese of Raleigh, the most impor
tant thing is to continue the conver
sation started by the Reynolds
Foundation report.
“I’d like to see people make a
more conscious effort to try to sit
down and talk with one another,
work out differences,” she says. “If
you don’t understand something,
ask, instead of interpreting what the
other person means. They might he
using the same words as you hut
they really are speaking a different
language.”
W
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