Resolution 05-03

Welcoming the Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

WHEREAS, the Mission of the Employee Forum is to address constructively the concerns of employees of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, including the representation of staff concerns to University officials, state legislators, and the citizenry of North Carolina; and

WHEREAS, it is the desire of the members of the Employee Forum to recognize and acknowledge the esteemed academic and intellectual heritage of this the oldest public university in the nation; and

WHEREAS, this Forum acknowledges the vision of former University President Harry Woodburn Chase who in the 1920’s defined the University’s mission as taking the lead in “the hammering out of a new civilization”; and

WHEREAS, this forum recognizes President Chase’s vision as exemplified by the establishment of the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences under Howard Odum, in 1924, and by his pledge to “take a frank honest look at the south,” which served to explore fundamentally new interpretations of race relations, women’s studies, working conditions, and labor relations, and that challenged the prevailing basic orthodoxies of the Jim Crow South; therefore

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Employee Forum invites the Center of Poverty, Work, and Opportunity to consult and participate with the Employee Forum and its committees on issues affecting our common mission and goals; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that it is in support of the University of North Carolina’s tradition of intellectual innovation and enquiry that this Forum wishes to extend its most earnest welcome and best wishes for future success to the Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity, thereby ensuring the continuation of this University’s finest traditions of fearless, intellectual academic enquiry and public service.

Signed on Behalf of the Delegates of the Employee Forum.

Chair, Tommy Griffin