College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences

UNC Charlotte’s speech team won third place at the Novice National Championship Forensics Tournament in early March at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. The award recognizes the top novice competitors from across the country in competitive public speaking, debate, and interpretation of literature.

Rocks, hills, and other geological features played a significant — but little known — role in the Civil War, influencing combat between the North and the South in ways that may surprise you. In the next Personally Speaking series talk, on March 29 at 7 p.m., UNC Charlotte expert Scott Hippensteel will give new meaning to the phrase “American soil.”

UNC Charlotte Professor of English and American Studies Program Director Jeffrey Leak and colleagues have received a new American Association of University Administrators (AAUA) award for a special issue of the Journal of Higher Education Management that focuses on the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racial justice and equity.

UNC Charlotte Professor of English and American Studies Program Director Jeffrey Leak and colleagues have received a new American Association of University Administrators (AAUA) award for a special issue of the Journal of Higher Education Management that focuses on the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racial justice and equity.

Professor Kimberly Buch has been a leader in the transformation of UNC Charlotte’s culture of service over the past two decades, while directly inspiring 500 UNC Charlotte students to devote 25,000 hours to hands-on service learning. In recognition of her work, Buch has received Campus Compact’s Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award, a national honor that celebrates faculty’s exemplary engaged scholarship accomplished through their teaching and research.

Professor Emeritus Theodore (Ted) Self Arrington, a renowned political scientist widely recognized for his expertise and who served in several leadership roles at UNC Charlotte, passed away on Jan. 12 with family members by his side.

UNC Charlotte Knight Distinguished Professor of Public Policy Jean-Claude Thill is named an AAG Fellow by the American Association of Geographers for his immense contributions to geography through research, teaching and mentoring of students and other researchers. The data-driven, spatial and interdisciplinary approaches Thill takes help people better understand how social, environmental, economic, policymaking, and other processes are organized and related.

For his translation of Hiroko Oyamada’s novella The Hole, UNC Charlotte Assistant Professor of Japanese David Boyd has won the coveted Japan-United States Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, presented by the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University.

Associate Professor Emeritus Susan Gardner died on January 2, 2022 after an extensive illness. Gardner joined UNC Charlotte’s English Department in 1990 and had taught in the United States, South Africa, Denmark, and New Guinea. Colleagues described Gardner as a strong advocate for diversity and global engagement who was vibrant, thoughful, kind, and generous to students and colleagues. A memorial service is planned for later in the spring.

Betsabe Rojas Gonzalez is one of the first UNC Charlotte students or alumni ever chosen for the highly competitive Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Program graduate fellowship. Fellows receive up to $84,000 for two years of graduate studies, internships, and other professional development opportunities and have the opportunity to work as a U.S. Foreign Service officer.