New UNC system president Ross: 'This is our time'

The News & Observer
October 7, 2011
BY JANE STANCILL

GREENSBORO -- Tom Ross was sworn in Thursday as UNC system president, during a ceremony of pomp and music tempered with the awareness that the higher education landscape has shifted.

At an inauguration at N.C. A&T State University in Ross' hometown of Greensboro, the new president struck a determined and optimistic tone, despite the reality of dwindling public dollars and bigger challenges for education as the world catches up to the United States. The university system has a distinguished past, Ross said, but people are afraid for its future and anxious about North Carolina's horizon. "We are in an economic and social malaise and fear we may never come out of it," he said in his inaugural address. "We have heard the words 'the new normal' so often we sometimes believe that where we are right now is where we will stay. Well, I don't buy it. I don't buy it. It doesn't have to be that way. This is our time, and what we do with it is up to us." Click here to read more.