Awards for distinguished service to the College of Arts & Sciences were presented to William R. “Bill” and Marcie Cohen Ferris, both Carolina professors emeritus, and alumnus David Pardue Jr. ’69 at a meeting of the Arts & Sciences Foundation Board of Directors on April 25.
Bill and Marcie Ferris received the 2019 William F. Little Distinguished Service Award, recognizing faculty, staff and volunteers who have served the College through their outstanding leadership above and beyond the duties of their position, in the tradition of Bill Little. Recipients are selected by the dean and senior associate deans of the College in consultation with the chair of the Arts & Sciences Foundation Board of Directors.
Little was a member of the College faculty for more than 40 years, a distinguished chemist and one of the founders of the Arts & Sciences Foundation.
Bill Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor Emeritus of History and Southern Studies. He is also senior associate director emeritus for the Center for the Study of the American South. He has dedicated his life’s work to Southern studies, African-American music and folklore.
President Bill Clinton nominated him to become chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1997, a position he held until 2001.
He came to UNC-Chapel Hill in 2002 and has written and edited 10 books, created 15 documentary films and recorded blues albums.
Bill has been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and his photography and Southern folklore documentation have been featured in the Smithsonian Museum.
Earlier this year, he received two Grammy Awards. The awards were for best historical album for Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris.
Marcie Ferris is professor emerita in the department of American studies.
Marcie’s research and teaching interests include Southern history and culture, particularly the foodways and material culture of the American South, the history of the Jewish South, and American Jewish identity and culture.
She came to UNC-Chapel Hill in 2003 and served as associate director of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies from 2005 to 2008. She was coordinator of the Southern studies curriculum from 2008 to 2015.
Marcie earned a 2006 James Beard Foundation Award nomination for her book, Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South. More recently, she published The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region to critical acclaim.
David Pardue Jr., who graduated from Carolina in 1969 with a degree in business administration, received the 2019 Dean’s Distinguished Service Award. The award recognizes volunteers who have served the College through exceptional vision, commitment and leadership. Recipients are selected by the Arts & Sciences Foundation Board of Directors.
Pardue has been a loyal donor to Carolina since 1983. He has supported a wide variety of departments and programs across the University, including:
- The Institute for the Arts and Humanities
- Departments of dramatic art, music, and physics and astronomy
- Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professorship and the Woody Durham Distinguished Professorship
- PlayMakers Repertory Company
- Carolina Public Humanities
- College of Arts & Sciences Annual Fund.
In the department of dramatic art, Pardue and his wife, Becky, established the David and Rebecca Pardue Distinguished Professorship in Technical Theatre and Production Management and the Courtnay Arpano and David Pardue III Graduate Fellowship Fund.
In addition, the D. Earl Pardue Faculty Fellowship Fund, the Pardue Professorship Fund and the Dr. George and Alice Welsh Professorship Fund benefit faculty in several departments.
Pardue and his wife, Becky, both early supporters of the IAH, served on the IAH Advisory Board during the planning of Hyde Hall.
Pardue also previously served on the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees and chaired the buildings and grounds committee during a period that oversaw the planning of 50 construction projects.
The awards were presented by Terry Rhodes, interim dean of the College, and Sunny Burrows, chair of the Arts & Sciences Foundation Board.
