Real-World RESEARCH Big-City THE QUEENS Higher A NEW INFORMS CITY AND CLT VISION FOR Experience POLICY Challenges CONNECTION Education CHARLOTTE MAGAZINE | WINTER 2020 Unity in Art NEW CAMPUS MURAL ENGAGES COMMUNITY Contents 2 Under the Oaks 12 Strengthening Queens 31 Class Acts 48 One Last Ting 14 Queens’ City How can Queens present solutions to Charlotte’s most pressing problems? By Michelle Boudin 19 A New Vision of Higher Education Five area college leaders discuss advancing higher education in the Queen City to the next level. By Dorothy Lineberger 24 Welcome Opportunity Student-faculty research project informs Charlotte’s immigration policy By Jodie Valade 26 Tis Wall Can Talk Art students engage community—and promote unity—through a new campus mural By Lori K. Tate PROCEEDING WITH HONOR On move-in day, as part of a longstanding Queens tradition, incoming students sign the non ministrari sed ministrare pledge. Here, led by a bagpiper, students make their way to Myers Park Baptist Church chapel. With gold pens in hand, they vowed to uphold Queens’ values: trust, honor, respect and integrity. ON THE COVER: Professor Mike Wirth and his Arts in Action students collaborated with professional and local artists to create a new campus mural to celebrate diversity and unity. “We’ve forgotten how to talk to each other across race and culture,” Wirth said. He hopes the mural will connect the Queens community and beyond. See page 26. Cover photo: Michael O’Neill Did You Know? A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO ADMISSION From the President Dear Alumni and Friends, Tank you for all you have done to welcome me and my family to Queens. I’m amazed by this wonderful community that works so hard in service of our university, and deeply grateful for the signifcant number of you who planned and attended a series of inauguration events including a community day of service, a panel discussion with fve college presidents that aired live on WFAE, and an installation ceremony that featured alumni from every year back to 1945. Students are more than their standardized test scores. I am energized by the opportunity to lead a university with a Tat’s why Queens recently announced its move to promising future. On almost a daily basis, I encounter students, become a test-optional institution. Te move means faculty and staf leading programs, conducting research, and that prospective students may choose whether or not achieving excellence in so many incredible ways. Tis is a big part to submit their ACT or SAT scores for admission of the reason why I am confdent that Queens is poised to be a consideration. national leader in higher education. You can see a few examples Test-optional admission dates back 50 years, of excellence in this wonderful edition of our magazine–an when Bowdoin College in Maine introduced the alumna writing for a national audience, a business professor concept, and has spread over the last decade to include turned best-selling author, and an athletic department garnering more than 1,000 accredited colleges and universities, national recognition for its performance both on the feld and in including the University of Chicago and Wake Forest the classroom. University. Queens’ decision to become test-optional You will also fnd compelling evidence of our robust came after a thorough investigation of market research partnership with the city of Charlotte. One story tells of our and conversation among university leaders. political science class that conducted immigration research project “Becoming test-optional enables Queens to create which is now informing policy for the city. Another is about some another pathway of entry to an increasingly diverse of the city’s pressing issues - like the shortage of workers in the student body,” said Jen Johnson, vice president of data and computation feld, and the economic mobility crisis. enrollment management and marketing at Queens. Queens can be an instrumental partner in tackling these issues “Extensive research has found that standardized in a way that mutually benefts our city and our students. I am tests favor students from higher socioeconomic calling on our community to think creatively and boldly on how backgrounds because they can aford test preparatory we do this. courses and can take the tests multiple times. We are Many of you have already shared your ideas and input. Please striving to eliminate any disadvantage to students keep them coming! We will be better because of your diverse without these resources.” input and our shared vision. I look forward to writing our next Queens takes a holistic evaluation approach by chapter together. looking at a range of criteria, including classroom performance, essays, teacher recommendations, high Warmest Regards, school curriculum and extracurricular activities. Students still will be able to submit test scores for consideration if they choose. Te new policy will take Daniel G. Lugo efect for students applying for fall 2020. President —Danielle Phillips ’13, MS ’18 2 MAGAZINE On My Remember When A MERRY FEAST: THE BOAR’S HEAD Nightstand BANQUET TRADITION BY CAROLYN RADCLIFF My mother was a voracious reader and appreciated Angie Tomas’s Te with a huge collection of paperback Hate U Give, Charlotte Mecklenburg mysteries, so as a teen I developed a Library’s Community Read. fondness for Dorothy Sayers, Margery I will fll in reading gaps by Allingham and other mystery writers. turning to works like Teir Eyes Were Today I seek out books with characters, Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, settings and points of view that are less which I recently read. Now of course familiar and more interesting. a classic, this book was criticized by I thrive on recommendations James Baldwin and others when it was Photo courtesy of Everett Library, Queens University Archives from friends, President Obama’s published. To say that Hurston was annual reading lists and even Twitter. improperly appreciated in her lifetime Christmas feasts in the great houses of Te Hidden Life of Trees: What Tey is an understatement. Te story of her medieval England began with a boar’s head, a Feel, How Tey Communicate, by Peter rediscovery by Alice Walker and others tradition that continues at Queens University of Charlotte and The Queens’ College in Oxford, Wohlleben, which is currently in my is fascinating. England. According to legend, 500 years ago, virtual to-read pile, came to me from a Another classic I read last summer a student was walking on the grounds while friend. is Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison’s reading his volume of Aristotle when he was Obama’s reading lists have led me Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved, attacked by a wild boar. The student saved to Washington Black by Esi Edugyan, which is riveting and disturbing, and himself by shoving his book down the animal’s a work of historical fction depicting delivers a punch to the gut. Morrison’s throat. The moral of the story: books and a remarkable escape from slavery and recent passing is a loss for us all. education are life’s strongest defense. subsequent life adventures. I also In my to-read pile (meaning they Queens has celebrated the Boar’s Head discovered Tayari Jones’s An American are on my “shelf” in the Libby app on Banquet in Morrison Hall since 1933. At the Marriage, a painful story of injustice and my phone): Luis Alberto Urrea’s House annual occasion, a trumpet fanfare announces resilience in the New South. of Broken Angels, Men Without Women the Boar’s Head procession. A stately parade includes a candle-bearer, the reader of the Boar’s From Twitter discussions, I by Haruki Murakami, Bel Canto by Ann Head scroll, and the bearer of the boar’s head learned about Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Patchett, and, for a change of pace, Dare itself. They process to Queens’ choir singing the Fears Death, a masterpiece of African to Lead by Brené Brown. same Latin carol used at The Queens’ College in futurism, and Blair Braverman’s Welcome —Carolyn Radclif joined Queens as the director of Oxford. When the procession reaches the center to the Goddamn Ice Cube , which is the Everett Library in July 2019. Prior to arriving of the dining room, the Boar’s Head legend is about a young woman’s journey from in Charlotte, she was a librarian and administrator read, and the university president accepts it with her California upbringing to Norway, at Chapman University in California and at Kent the words: “Let the merriment and feasting reign the Arctic, and ultimately the famed State University in Ohio. She co-owns a business, in the hall!” Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Carrick Enterprises, and she has published and Community-wide book clubs draw presented frequently on the topics of information — Adelaide Anderson Davis ’61 my attention, too, and last year I read literacy and assessment. KNOCKING IT OUT OF THE PARK President Dan Lugo threw out the ceremonial for the Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, frst pitch at the Charlotte Knights baseball Cleveland Indians and Anaheim Angels. Cockrell, game in August. Joining Lugo on the mound Queens’ assistant coach, most recently served as a were former Major League Baseball players hitting coach for the Yankees. and Queens’ baseball coaches Jack McDowell The Royals begin their 2020 season, the and Alan Cockrell. McDowell, Queens’ head second year of NCAA Division II baseball at coach and Cy Young Award winner, pitched Queens, in early February. 3 Ofce Hours WITH BOB WHALEN, PhD History Professor Some have called his ofce a time machine. A visit inside the Watkins Hall ofce of Queens’ Carolyn G. and Sam H. McMahon, Jr. Professor of History Bob Whalen, PhD, reveals a treasure trove of books, artifacts and memorabilia that harken back to history’s vital lessons.