Dozens of UNC-Chapel Hill alumni, faculty and friends of graduate education gathered at the Carolina Inn in mid-November to honor Harold and Holly Glass, steadfast supporters of graduate education at Carolina. The Glasses, of Philadelphia, established a three-year term professorship for a faculty member and a corresponding fellowship for the graduate student the professor selects to mentor.
Alan Nelson, a faculty member in the University’s philosophy department since 2006, is the inaugural Harold J. Glass USAF Faculty Mentor/Graduate Fellow Distinguished Term Professor. Nelson selected doctoral student Krasimira Filcheva to receive the professorship’s first graduate fellowship.
“As a part of his professorship, Dr. Nelson will provide important insights into how Carolina can make this faculty mentor/graduate student relationship even stronger,” said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost James W. Dean Jr. “What an opportunity this new professorship provides for our University community to learn – and to share our leadership in faculty mentorship within the national higher education community.”
Graduate School Dean Steve Matson presented a framed certificate to Nelson and a bouquet of flowers to Filcheva. Near the conclusion of the program, Matson presented the Glasses with a commemorative hand-crafted captain’s chair featuring the University seal on the front and a plaque on the back recognizing the extraordinary professorship the Glasses have created within The Graduate School.
The professorship is named in memory of Harold E. Glass’ father. Harold J. Glass (1914-1980) served heroically in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. In announcing the professorship in October, Harold E. Glass said, “My father experienced extraordinary events in a lifetime of service to his country, family, comrades and friends. He was never one to draw attention to himself or his experiences. So the opportunity for my wife and me to honor him with this professorship means much to the two of us and to others in his family. With this professorship, his service to others continues.”
A Carolina doctoral graduate in political science, Harold E. Glass is a research professor of health policy at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. He also serves on the University’s Board of Visitors and The Graduate School’s Graduate Education Advancement Board.