Sustainability and Higher Education
Monday, April 13, 2015
Nancy Schrom Dye Lecture Hall
Thomas W. Ross is president of the 17-campus University of North Carolina system. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College (1972) and graduated with honors from the UNC School of Law at Chapel Hill (1975).
After a short stint as an assistant professor of public law and government at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government, Ross joined the Greensboro law firm of Smith Patterson Follin Curtis James & Harkavy in 1976. He left in 1982 to serve as chief of staff for U.S. Congressman Robin Britt. The following year, at the age of 33, Ross was appointed to fill a vacancy on the North Carolina Superior Court. He held the position for 17 years.
While serving on the bench, Ross witnessed first-hand a state justice system beleaguered by uneven sentencing and a fast-growing prison population. In 1990, he led a new Sentencing and Policy Advisory Committee made up of judges, lawyers, legislators, law enforcement officers, and citizens. They devised a structured sentencing system to toughen sentences for violent crimes and repeat offenses, while increasing community-based alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenses. The NC General Assembly adopted the plan in 1993, and the system has since become a model for similar programs nationwide.
He left the bench in 2001 to serve as executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, a Winston-Salem-based philanthropic organization. During his seven-year tenure, the foundation awarded about $20 million annually to nonprofit groups focused on community economic development, democracy and civic engagement, the environment, precollege education, and social justice. Ross stepped down in 2007, to return to Davidson as its president, serving in that role until he assumed leadership of UNC.
Active in civic and community activities, Ross currently serves on the board of governors of the Center for Creative Leadership, the executive committee of the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, the Association of Governing Boards’ Council of Presidents and Intercollegiate Athletics Project Advisory Group, the Council on Competitiveness, advisory boards for the NC Humanities Council and the NC State University Institute for Emerging Issues, and the honorary board of directors of the Conservation Trust of North Carolina. He also serves on the boards of the National Humanities Center, the David H. Murdock Research Institute, the NC Biotechnology Center, and the UNC Health Care System.
Ross has received numerous awards for his varied public service and professional achievements. His many contributions to the judicial system have been recognized through the William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence (2000), given annually to one state judge in the nation; the American Society of Criminology President's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Justice (2007); the NC Justice Center Defenders of Justice Award (2008); and the NC Bar Association Citizen Lawyer Award (2010), and many others.
David Orr is Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and senior adviser to the president of Oberlin College. He is a founding editor of the journal Solutions, and serves as the executive director of the Oberlin Project, a collaborative effort of the city of Oberlin, Oberlin College, and private and institutional partners to improve the resilience, prosperity, and sustainability of Oberlin.
Orr is the author of seven books, including Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford, 2009) and coeditor of three others. He has authored nearly 200 articles, reviews, book chapters, and professional publications. In the past 25 years, he has served as a board member or advisor to eight foundations and on the boards of many organizations including the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Aldo Leopold Foundation.
Currently he is a trustee of the Bioneers, the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, and the Worldwatch Institute. He has been awarded seven honorary degrees and a dozen other awards including a Lyndhurst Prize, a National Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation, and a Visionary Leadership Award from Second Nature. Orr is a frequent lecturer at colleges and universities throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.
While at Oberlin, he spearheaded the effort to design, fund, and build the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, which was named by an AIA panel in 2010 as “the most important green building of the past 30 years,” and as “one of 30 milestone buildings of the twentieth century” by the U.S. Department of Energy.
