This was originally published in the Chapel Hill Herald newspaper.
6:30 am – Alarm went off. Checked the calendar and saw that I could probably get away with a sportcoat and tie instead of a suit. Selected gray slacks and a Carolina blue shirt with a blue sportcoat.
7:05 am – Had the usual for breakfast — scrambled eggs and bacon. Emma and John had cereal. I read the papers.
7:30 am – Thorps pulled out of Quail Hill. I went to South Building, and Patti and the kids headed for Duke School. John had all his homework done, so life was good.
7:33 am – Arrived at South Building. Responded to some email and worked the paper inbox.
8:15 am – Bill Roper arrived to pick me up to meet the chair of the Orange County Commissioners, Valerie Foushee, at the Southern Human Services Center. We went in his Mini Cooper. We could have taken my car, but it’s even smaller. We were on our way to talk to Valerie about the possible new hospital in Hillsborough at the Waterstone site. Gary Park, CEO of UNC Hospitals and Margaret Dardess from the Health Care System met us there. When Valerie arrived we talked to her about the
new hospital. She seemed really excited. I was happy about that. Ever since we worked things out on the airport, Valerie and I have been good buds. Sounds like the county is going to be supportive, and I was glad we took the time to meet with Valerie.
9:30 am – Got back in the Mini Cooper and drove out to the Waterstone site. It really is a great place for a hospital. There’s a Durham Tech facility there, and it’s right next to the highway.
10:00 am – Arrived at Ayr Mount in Hillsborough to meet with Mayor Tom Stevens. Ayr Mount is a well-kept secret, but it’s a magnificent old near downtown. Tom said his office was too small, so he wanted to meet there. It was definitely big enough. We had a great talk with Tom. When we told him we wanted to build a hospital in Hillsborough, he said, “Cool.” We talked about some of the things that we needed to work out with the town, but it all sounded doable. Another great meeting, glad we did it.
11:20 am – Arrived back at South Building and headed over to the Stone Center to speak to the participants in our “Preparing Future Faculty” program. The PFF program is for graduate students hoping to become faculty members one day, and I was to speak about leadership. I’ve devoted most of my administrative career to helping graduate students, so I try to show up whenever they invite me to something. As usual, our students were incredibly engaging and had a lot of interesting
questions. I tried to be upbeat about the job market and told them that being a college professor was the greatest way in the world to make a living. They asked me how to be a chancellor, and I said you need to be a glutton for information.
1:00 pm – Had lunch. Nuts and a banana.
2:15 pm – Regular weekly meeting with our CFO, Dick Mann. Talked about the budget.
3:00 pm – Chancellor’s office staff meeting. Every week, all of the people in my office sit down and go over the calendar for the next month. Patti joined us to get the latest and to make sure her calendar was in sync with mine. We had an endowment board meeting coming up and trustees in two weeks, so there was a lot to go over.
4:00 pm – Met with Matt Kupec and Nancy Davis to go over communications strategies for upcoming events.
5:00 pm – Answered a few emails, but not very many, because I had the night off, and it was the first night off since before commencement. Patti, John and I had planned to go to Star Trek. John had changed his cell phone ringtone to the sound of a Star Trek communicator.
5:15 pm – Got back to Quail Hill. Patti and John decided we were going to Pazzo before the movie in Southern Village. Put jeans on and asked Emma how school was. She said, “Good.” The universal answer.
7:15 pm – Watched the movie at Lumina. John and I have watched so many Star Treks that we laughed at all the inside jokes. Patti didn’t get it all, but she seemed to have fun. I usually don’t like movies that require backwards time travel to make the plot work, but I thought it was a strong evening of entertainment, even though we seemed to be going where at least someone had gone before.
10:00 pm – Looked at emails and the weather for Thursday. Nothing big.
10:30 pm – Kirk out.