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When Drs. Mary Harper and Herman Thomas arrived at UNC Charlotte in the 1970s the winds of
social and political change still lingered in the air. Hundreds of students were embarking
on educational and intellectual futures that were exciting but unfamiliar. Many were first-generation
college students. It was Harper and Thomas who helped give them direction . . . Harper
and Thomas gave them direction to help them chart a course on their new journey. As a
way to pay tribute to the contributions and highlight their legacy the Harper Thomas legacy
endowment study abroad has been created.
The main reason I thought it was important to recognize both Dr. Harper and Dr. Thomas
is when we came to UNC Charlotte we were on a journey and a lot of us didn't know where
we would end up and what Dr. Thomas and Dr. Harper provided us was a road map to help
us understand who we are as individuals and also how to best navigate the course here
at UNC Charlotte. There was an opportunity to help them develop
self-confidence to feel equal to learn how to function in a multicultural society to
develop a sense of pride to help them develop leadership abilities. Some of these students
came not realizing that the potential that they possess. It was like as if we were the
key that unlocked this door to their potential. We all work together for a common purpose
that was to make sure that entering first generation students in particular got the
maximum change to succeed at UNC Charlotte. From that perspective what I learned from
really both Dr. Thomas and Dr. Harper is to be the best that you can be and they both
did a lot to if you will instill that in us when we were here.
Their work however was not restricted to the campus or the city. Both Harper and Thomas
recognize the need for students to become citizens of the world.
So many of them were from isolated communities they have never been around people of other
ethnicities. Along with that came the idea that if you're
going to study the sources of culture tradition to African American experience in particular
you needed to know something about Africa and so were able to in the early years get
students to go to Africa and then incidentally visit several other locations on the way to
and or from. Dr. Harper and Dr. Thomas helped set the stage
for students to study abroad experience. Using their own resources and community support
they and some of their colleagues introduced many students to another reality, a different
world a global perspective. The way it advantage me is when we started
signing international contracts at work I was always the first person that was everybody's
lips in terms of hey she's been to international business course and she is the right person
to lead the project and it made it an easy situation having been through that training
to integrate with them you know international teams I was working with people from Switzerland,
Great Britain in places like that. Had I not experienced that I don't know if it would
have been as easy a transition for me to work with those teams.
With a minimum of $75,000.00 the Harper Thomas legacy endowment provide a perpetual merit
based scholarship to support international educational experiences. Preferences for the
award will be given to self-identified first generation college students from underrepresented
populations. There's a need for students to experience
cultures that are not the same as their own. This is the advantage of traveling abroad
you get to the experiential learning. We believe very much in experiential learning
before that term became to be popular. It enhances whatever field they are studying.
This past summer I actually went on a faculty lead Mt. Zion dig project and it was led by
Dr. James Tabor and Dr. Diane Zablotsky. I had not traveled outside the county before
that. This was my first experience abroad, I definitely learned a lot of lessons that
I don't think I can learn in like a standard classroom setting. It was a lot to do with
just dealing with diversity but there are also things of archaeology that we learned
in the field that we couldn't necessarily learn from a lecture in the class or hearing
professor speak on a topic. But I do believe that going to Jerusalem and going abroad for
my first time did change my life it changed my perception.
The way we would hope people would donate is to give a minimum of $49.00 we would also
like to suggest that to give a tribute to the year that you graduated that you could
give let's say if you graduated in 1981 you could give $81.00 and we would like to maximize
any contribution that you give so if you work for a company that has matching grants if
you could utilize that vehicle it would be appreciated and we would also like to take
this opportunity to say thank you for considering contributing to the fund to recognize the
legacy of Dr. Harper and Dr. Thomas. I would just like to say thank you to Dr.
Harper and Dr. Thomas and the other pioneers they kind of lead the way for students like
myself because without them going and striving through the challenges and all that it would
have made things a lot harder for myself. So they were able to do good things which
enabled me to be able to do good things also. The world in fact the universe is a place
for opportunity.