Volume1 Issue 1
KANSAN.COM
Page 8B
CHANCELLOR GRAY-LITTLE BRINGS NEW ERA FOR JAYHAWKS, CAMPUS
ROSS
STEWART
AUG.17
2009
Chapel Hill, N.C. — Bernadette Gray-Little shoots a contemplative look at the ceiling for a moment then points out the window at something she's going to miss.
"I enjoy that sight right out there," Gray-Little said. "More days than not I stop on the way in or out or I look out my window and I look out on that sight. It's a great sight."
She points out a window to a building, the university's Wilson Library, which looks like a regal whitewashed capitol building. It's two football fields away from her office at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, across a vast courtyard filled with criss-crossing sidewalks, surrounded by trees and old academic halls.
Gray-Little ended her 38 years of employment at UNC as provost July 8.
She began her role as the 17th chancellor of the University of Kansas on August 15.
Gray-Little still continues to pursue this early established ideal. She sees the worth in it.
Born and raised in Washington, N.C., a small town in the then-segregated South, her parents placed a great deal of worth on receiving an education. Her younger brother, Mark Gray, said it was presented to them as a way out of poverty.
FILE PHOTO/KANSAN
Her time at UNC shows her dedication to education. Her accomplishments, such as increasing diversity and creating an office of undergraduate research and a first-year seminar program, bettered UNC. She plans to do the same for the University.
Bernadette Gray-Little began her role as chancellor of the University on Aug. 15, 2009.
"In some ways, education became such a big thing that it became the end as opposed to a means to an end," Gray said. "I just remember education was the goal; I guess it was also a means."
Washington was still segregated in the 1950s when Gray-Little was growing up there. In spite of this, she said, the only time she really experienced segregation
Though her family did not have the means to support her higher education, her parents always pushed that education was a way out of poverty, according to her brother, who's now a lawyer in Greensboro, N.C.
GROWING UP:
EDUCATION
Gray-Little grew up the fourth child of eight with three brothers and four sisters. The first time she moved from her hometown was for college. Her father was illiterate and worked in construction. Her mother had a GED and was a home-maker who occasionally did custodial work.
was when she left the neighborhood. She said she didn't have one particular instance to share showing that segregation during her childhood really affected her choices in life. Her take on growing up and the difficulties she had in affording an education reveals something about her personality and how she approaches problems and challenges. She said certain things in life would be considered challenges in retrospect, but not at first.
"You could say it was a challenge to leave a small town in North Carolina and get a college education at a time when I came from a small school and my parents were not able to contribute anything to my education," Gray-Little said. "You might consider that a challenge, but at the same time it was just something that you worked on and got it done. It's hard for me to pull things out like that because at the time I didn't experience them as a challenge."
Gray-Little attended an allgirls Catholic school, where nuns served as teachers, from first grade to her senior year of high school. Her brother remembered her intelligence and that the nuns took notice when the subject of college came about. Without scholarships, Gray-Little wouldn't have been able to afford college and would have been limited to working a blue-collar job or entering a convent, Gray said.
"They said, 'Bernadette, you're bright. If you want to get an education we could get you a scholarship at Marywood up in Scranton, Penn., and you don't have to become a nun," Gray said.
ing up in rank there ever since.
Gray-Little received scholarships and moved from Washington to Scranton for her undergraduate degree in psychology. She said the segregation in Pennsylvania was not
Her office didn't reveal she was in the process of moving. Excellently clean, barely anything covering her desk, with a single packing box in the middle of it.
LIFE AT UNC
"She ran a university and she would run the University of Kansas with such order and precision that shed have 10 pieces of paper on her desk," Gray said. "Just 10. Just 10."
Working as provost, Gray-Little's latest job at UNC, meant she was in charge of personnel and money. One would expect her office to be filled with clutter from all the responsibilities that fall under that, but it was so well kept it looked like an office from a model home.
While at UNC, Gray-Little accomplished much as she worked her way up the academic totem pole.
Starting out as a professor, she later ran departments, served as the executive associate provost, a dean and the executive vice chancellor and provost.
Karen Gil, dean of the college of arts and sciences at UNC, spoke highly of the work Gray-Little had done and said she thought Gray-Little accomplished a lot in every position she held.
"Some of these programs were her legacy here at North Carolina." Gil said.
Gray-Little spearheaded two prominent programs in 1999 when she was senior associated-dean for undergraduate education.
One was the office of undergraduate research, where undergraduates were encouraged to use UNC as a research institution. Undergraduates prepared works focused on pressing issues locally, nationally and internationally. This was a focus of Gray-Little's at UNC, and may be at the University as well, as
build substantial relationships with professors in a close environment.
“
BERNADETTE GRAY-LITTLE
"You could say it was a challenge to leave a small town in North Carolina and get a college education at a time when I came from a small school and my parents were not able to contribute anything to my education."
From Marywood University she went to St. Louis University in St. Louis for her master's and doctorate in clinical psychology.
the same as it was growing up in Washington. Segregation in terms of stores and other public places was not there, but in terms of neighborhoods, it still was.
After that, she was offered a few professorships, including one at the University and at UNC. She took the position at UNC in 1971 as a professor of psychology and has been mov-
The other program she started was a first-year seminar that all freshmen were required to take. A class of about 20 students met with a professor and studied that professor's expertise.
she has made references to increasing research here.
The idea behind the seminar was not only to encourage freshmen to learn about things that interested them but also to
HOME LIFE
She made it a point to have undergraduates understand what research is and how it can be conducted.
HOME LIFE
Gray-Little has two children,
Mark Little and Maura Garcia,
and a husband, Shade Little.
Mark is doing postdoctoral work at Duke and is a consultant for the business school at UNC. Maura just finished her master's in fine arts at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She is also a choreographer and runs a dance company and is planning to relocate her dance company to Kansas.
Shade grew up in Washington, N.C., as well and was called a math genius by several people in Chapel Hill. At the moment, he doesn't plan on teaching at the University when the couple arrives, but Gray-Little said he wouldn't be sitting still for too long.
From what Mark said, his mother and father are quite different from each another.
Gray-Little, even at home, is quiet. But Mark said even with the contemplative side her colleagues describe, she's actually
Mark said his mother preferred very nice things, while Shade enjoyed things purchased in thrift stores. He said she was style-conscious, didn't go to thrift stores and dressed well—her shoes and jewelry go to
Though she and Shade are different, Mark said he thought it was complementary rather than problematic.
— her shoes and jewelry go together.
a bit silly. Gray-Little and Shade didn't allow TV in their house on weekdays for the kids. If Mark ever had on a silly movie or TV show shed tell him to turn it off, but would still laugh at it.
"People have a list of adjectives to describe her," Mark said. "In our home context the first thing that comes to mind, she's a very silly person. None of those people would use that word; it wouldn't come to mind.
In comparison, Shade is said to be someone who likes to speak his mind.
"My father is very loud," Mark said. "I used to run track. You can't hear anything, but I could always hear my father yelling 'Run!' because he's so loud. It's like night and day."
Gray, her brother, doesn't remember too much about growing up with Gray-Little. She went off to her first year in college when he was in first or second grade, though he does remember meeting Shade for the first time when Gray was in his early teens.
"I was easily bought off." Gray said. "He bought me off with a quart of milk."
Gray said he remembered his family saying his sister had a high school crush on Shade. She brought Shade by before she was about to go overseas to study and asked Gray what he thought of Shade.
Grav-Little said Shade would
"I remember thinking, 'Well, he just bought me some chocolate milk, so I think he's pretty all right," Gray said.
not be idle for very long because it was not in his temperament. At UNC he worked with student academic services and did some advising, math, statistics and tutoring. Gray-Little said Shade enjoyed working with students without having to grade math papers.
Gray went to law school at UNC in 1978 while Gray-Little was working there. His reasoning was to get one good meal a week at her place. One thing that Gray enjoys is their mother's recipe for yeast rolls. Gray-Little is the only one left in the family who knows how to bake them since their mother died.
There has been some difficulty in locking down how Gray-Little plans to accomplish these goals. She said she wanted to look at them and see what could feasibly be done to achieve them after her arrival.
Gray-Little has made broad statements about what she wants to see accomplished during her time at the University. They include increasing diversity and research along with attaining National Cancer Institute designation.
"So you have a goal, which is general, but the things you have to do to get there are very specific," Gray-Little said. "I think in both cases it's important to look at what is being done and what can be done. I know where I'd like to go, but I don't know all the specific steps to get there."
LIFE AS A IAYHAWK