The Robertson scholars leadership program was founded by the late philanthropist and Carolina alumnus Julian Robertson ’55 as a way of providing eight semesters of full tuition, room and board to scholars at both Carolina and Duke University.

“The scholarship is all about investing in young leaders to create change,” said Torrey Lin Weiner, a sophomore Robertson scholar double-majoring in journalism and philosophy. “It elevates us by keeping us in touch with a higher level of community with more intention.”

The scholars also build a community among themselves during a multitude of events and learning opportunities. The trip to the Ackland in October was one example.

Lin Weiner is not an artist but attended to gain a better understanding of the man behind the collection.

“It’s interesting getting to see this collection and develop more of an understanding of who Robertson might have been,” Lin Weiner said. “You can see the intentionality in what he collected. It was cool to draw connections between the pieces as we went through the session.”

The session was led by Elizabeth Manekin, the Ackland’s head of university programs and academic projects.

Her session looked at several different pieces of the collection, including the sculpture by American artist George Rickey, titled “U.N. III.” She said the piece left a special impression on the scholars.

(Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)

“They were immediately taken by the sense of movement in the piece,” Manekin said. “The way it’s displayed doesn’t allow for its intended motion. But the students immediately understood that potential energy and after watching a video of it moving, they were even more mesmerized.”

Manekin praised the Robertson scholars for their thoughtful, engaged responses. She credits this to their standing as an interdisciplinary group who can bring their own passions into their understanding of the pieces.

“One student in the session was a biology major, and she was looking at the Rickey piece as a double helix,” Manekin said. “There was also a computer science major who related the piece to code and manipulation.”

For Lin Weiner, the experience at the Ackland was an inspiring one.

“I think the reason I’m a Robertson scholar is because I’m passionate about people and their stories,” Lin Weiner said. “Through the Ackland, I was able to get an understanding of the stories behind the paintings and the people behind the collection.”

“Color Triumphant” will be on display at the Ackland until Jan. 4.

But none has been as rewarding to her as the completion of The Reese Brantmeier Project, the restoration of two community tennis courts in her hometown of Whitewater, Wisconsin.

Growing up with a passion for tennis came with its challenges, like courts at her elementary school that were unplayable. She was fortunate. Her family was able to drive her 45 minutes to an hour to courts where she could practice every day. Not everyone had that luxury.

In the fourth grade, Brantmeier told her principal that she was going to fix those courts, recalled her mother, Becky Brantmeier.  The magnitude of the project was a bit much for a fourth-grader, but once she arrived at Carolina in 2022, Brantmeier was ready to get to work.

Brantmeier and her mother teamed up with the Patrick W. Ryan Memorial Tennis Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to promoting tennis in southeastern Wisconsin. After nearly three years, the courts were completed this summer.

“She does not drop anything. It is a conviction,” Becky Brantmeier said of her daughter. “If she says it, it’s happening.”

Brantmeier is very grateful for her mother’s support. “She was the first person to help me get it off the ground, so it was special to be able to share this with her.”

People in attendance for the grand opening in July included Brantmeier, her family, her elementary school principal, her UNC coaches and many of the Whitewater community members. Several local elementary school students came out to play on the new courts.

“Knowing how much this would have meant to me when I was 8 years old is so cool,” Brantmeier said. “Knowing that my 8-year-old self would be so excited to go play on these courts and being able to see that opportunity be given to any 8-year-old who’s in that elementary school now.”

Brian Kalbas, UNC women’s tennis head coach, flew up for the ceremony to show his support.
“Going to the dedication and everybody coming out to the dedication, it was a moment that was truly special,” he said. “It’s just amazing how much she has meant to so many people in that hometown.”

But this isn’t surprising to anyone who has gotten to know Brantmeier. She’s unselfish. She cares about others.

“It’s so rare in this day and age for someone who is that talented and that gifted want to give back to so many other people,” Kalbas said. “It’s usually that they want to reap all the benefits. They want to be showered with the praise, and she’s not that way. She’s unique.”

The tennis player’s mother is now learning lessons from her daughter.

“I’m home now with my dogs and my husband, and this experience has made me think, ‘You know what? I’m going to step out of my comfort zone and do something,’” Becky Brantmeier said. “She has motivated me and a lot of other people.”

For the tennis player, it was always about how she could impact others. She wasn’t concerned about how difficult it might be to make this dream a reality.

“If you have the right intentions, and you find the right people, you can really achieve anything,” she said.

And she did.

“Similar to the skin and the gut, the inside of our lungs is covered in microbes that can help maintain lung health, also called the microbiome,” said UNC School of Medicine’s Meghan E. Rebuli, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma and Lung Biology. “However, if the balance of bacteria present in the lungs is altered by exposures, such as what we were testing here with wood smoke, it has been associated with lung disease.”

The research, led by first author UNC School of Medicine graduate student Catalina Cobos-Uribe, was published in American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Researchers identified how much of the different bacteria present in the lungs change after breathing in smoke from burning wood. Mucus samples from the lungs — called sputum — were collected among participants in the study.

Importantly, it was noted that some bacteria that are known to be “good” bacteria were less common after exposure and some bacteria known to be “bad” were more common. This data suggests that wood smoke can alter the lung microbiome, reducing good bacteria and increasing bacteria that can potentially cause harm if present in too large of an amount.

In addition to shifts in the lung microbiome, researchers observed a drop in lung macrophages, an immune cell important for clearing harmful exposures, including particles and microbes. Overall, even short-term exposures to wood smoke, used here as a model for wildfire smoke, in humans can shift the balance of the lung microbiome and immune cells.

“While we thought it was possible for the microbiome to communicate and coordinate with lung cells when responding to wood smoke exposures, we were not sure what we would find,” said Rebuli, corresponding author. “Here where we identified an association between microbiome changes and macrophage changes is a relatively novel insight.”

This work offers a unifying link of better understanding the role of the respiratory microbiome in the lung response to inhaled pollutants. It also highlights how the lung microbiome could be used to screen patients for increased risk of adverse health effects due to wood smoke exposure or to potentially tailor preventative or treatment strategies.

“This could add additional biomarkers, changes in levels of specific bacteria, that could be used to detect early smoke exposure effects in the lung,” said Rebuli. “Long-term we hope that this research will lead to respiratory microbiome-targeted therapies, such as probiotics or microbiome-focused drugs to restore microbiome balance after wildfire smoke exposure.”

As he finished a mastering session for rap supergroup Public Enemy’s “Apocalypse 91 … The Enemy Strikes Back” album, Young turned the studio into a classroom, seamlessly explaining the how and why of what he was doing.

More than three decades later, Young is still offering music production lessons. He just finished his first semester as a full-time faculty member in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’ music department, teaching two sections of MUSC 156: Beat Making Lab as well as MUSC 212, a one-credit-hour class for students participating in the UNC Hip-Hop Ensemble.

Both courses are natural fits for Young. He said his students’ enthusiasm is what stands out the most from the semester. “They’re excited about making beats,” Young said, “and they rise to the occasion and get it done.”

The same can be said about Young in a career characterized by longevity and variety.

Born and raised in Queens, New York, he was a saxophonist in his youth and began DJing in the late 1980s, working at a popular Long Island nightclub as a teenager. Around the same time, Young started hanging out in the studio with Public Enemy and by the summer of 1989 was producing for the Bomb Squad, the group’s in-house production team.

His beats are on multiple Public Enemy projects, and he also produced solo projects by group members Chuck D (a childhood neighbor), Professor Griff and Flavor Flav. Young has worked with legendary acts like Ice Cube, Busta Rhymes, Eric B. & Rakim and Mobb Deep among others. Several movies, including “Sister Act 2 (Back in the Habit)” and Spike Lee’s “He Got Game,” feature his beats, too.

“I worked with everybody,” Young said.

Displeased with the commercialization of rap and changes in lyrical content, Young decided to focus more on music composition in 1994 after working as a composer on the first season of the TV series “New York Undercover.”

“I didn’t get into it for the money. I just love making music,” he said. “Once I started composing, I was like, ‘Man, I want to do more of this.’”

That desire led Young to the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music composition. He’s composed several orchestral works and created the world’s first hip-hop concerto, “The Five Elements,” in 2024.

Young also serves as a hip-hop ambassador for Next Level, a U.S. Department of State program run in association with the UNC-Chapel Hill music department that took him to Egypt in 2017 and will send him to Italy next year.

Young directs the UNC Hip-Hop Ensemble Fall Concert at Hill Hall on Nov. 11, 2025. (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)

Inside the classroom

Young teaches students the fundamentals and history of the craft and encourages them to really listen to songs. “Isolate what’s going on, and figure out what sounds are being used,” he said. “Is there a hi-hat? Or what’s keeping the pulse?”

He also challenges students with in-class beat assignments on computer software Ableton. Their creations range from hip-hop and R&B to techno and house music.

Web Allen, a junior business administration major, enjoys the “hands-on” nature of the course. Allen, who sings and beatboxes in a cappella group Psalm 100, also appreciated that Young came to hear his group perform.

“I was like, ‘Heck yeah, thank you!’” Allen said. “It was fun having him.”

Young had a great semester, but he said teaching — like beat making — is trial and error.

“You have to see what sticks and what works,” he said.

“They’re excited about making beats,” Young said about his students, “and they rise to the occasion and get it done.” (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)

But the scholarship has grown immensely in financial benefit since its inception. The stories of two recipients, one in 2024 and one in 1975, show its impact over 50 years and for the future.

Shaping her experience

In March, second-year Doctor of Pharmacy student Kassidy Johnson was lying in a hospital bed, unable to speak or walk because of a severe concussion caused by a car crash. While she recovered, she found a new level of support from her peers and professors at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.

“The professors were very approachable. They moved their schedules around so I could come in to take the tests or take tests online,” Johnson said. “They were very understanding, and I could tell that they just really cared about me.”

Though she still faces months of rehab, Johnson’s grit and determination got her caught up on her studies. She’s now back in the classroom ready to take on the remainder of her training, showing the tenacity that helped her earn the Fonnie Jackson Andrews scholarship in fall 2024.

The scholarship is one of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s signature Blouin scholars program awards. It will cover Johnson’s tuition for all four years of the program, an international rotation with the Global Pharmacy Scholars program in her fourth year, and professional development opportunities throughout her time at the school.

“This scholarship has freed me so that I do not have to work while I’m going through this program,” she said.

Johnson practiced as a doula before pharmacy school, so she is interested in learning more about options in obstetrics, pediatrics or neonatology. “We have two faculty members that we can go to for, really, anything. The scholarship has really shaped my experience here as a whole.”

Setting up sustainable income

Dan Dalton ’76 ’80 (MS) was the very first recipient of the Fonnie Jackson Andrews award in 1975. A first-generation college student putting himself through pharmacy school on the work-study program, Dalton used the award to set up a sustainable income as a photographer to pay for the rest of his education.

Dalton spent the funds at Foister’s Camera Store on Franklin Street, augmenting and upgrading his photography equipment. Throughout his time at UNC, he photographed events and special functions for the school as well as student organizations, fraternities and sororities — even wedding photos for his classmates.

“Being creative helped me make connections that created ideas,” Dalton said. “That same creativity and curiosity, amplified over various personal and professional moments throughout my post-college experience, led to the culmination of being recruited back to my alma mater 27 years later.”

In 2007, Dalton played a pivotal part in launching, and later expanding, the UNC Hemophilia Treatment Center Pharmacy. He continued this work for 15 years, guiding and managing a program that now covers not only the University’s center, but also the four other federally recognized hemophilia treatment centers in North Carolina.

After a long career of varying roles in pharmacy, Dalton now does consulting work. He’s also still practicing photography, recently venturing into videography.

Johnson and Dalton are connected across five decades by the Fonnie Jackson Andrews scholarship, an award that has grown in worth and impact. Scholarships like this one are made possible thanks to the generous support of donors. If you would like to support PharmD student scholarships, reach out to Regina Craven, PharmD program director of development, at cravenra@unc.edu.

Read more about Johnson and Dalton.

Naloxone Near Me is the first website to compile sources of available no-cost and pharmacy-based naloxone in one place. Naloxone is a medication that is highly effective at reversing opioid overdoses. Individuals visiting the website can select any county in North Carolina and find sources of no-cost naloxone and whether pharmacies sell naloxone in that county. The website also includes a link to Naloxone Saves, which directs people to specific locations where they can access naloxone.

“I hope Naloxone Near Me helps counties identify where they can improve naloxone access so they can better advocate for funding to eliminate access gaps,” said Delesha Carpenter, professor and executive vice chair in Eshelman’s division of pharmaceutical outcomes and policy. “That’s the main goal with the website: to help counties identify specific ways they can improve access to naloxone.”

The school started this process in 2023 when they received funding from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health to create a novel place-based measure of naloxone availability. Researchers started with a survey of organizations who were distributing no-cost naloxone. Then, they obtained access to Medicaid and Medicare prescription claims data and conducted “secret shopper” studies of pharmacies to see if they had over-the-counter naloxone in stock.

Having naloxone can help in situations where people may witness an overdose.

“People mistakenly think they’re safe if they are using nonopioid substances, like cocaine, but opioids like fentanyl are often mixed into these drugs, so it’s important to have naloxone on hand to reverse an overdose,” said Carpenter. “It’s good to have naloxone available if you’re going to be around somebody who is using basically any kind of drug because if they do overdose and you then administer naloxone, it’s very effective at reversing overdoses and preventing death.”

Pharmacy-based distribution of naloxone has been shown to reduce overdose deaths, so it’s important that pharmacies sell naloxone, especially in areas where other opioid overdose prevention services are unavailable. In addition to selling naloxone, pharmacies can partner with community-based organizations to distribute naloxone for free.

“I think, for the state of North Carolina, this can be a trickle-down effect that can benefit everybody,” said Carpenter.

The school hopes to continue updating the website annually and is seeking funding to keep the site updated, since new sources of naloxone are coming online every month.

The earliest Commencement program in Wilson Library’s holdings showing a processional order is from 1844. It lists a marshal named Virginius H. Ivy and four assistants as leading faculty, students and even “strangers and visitors” from South Building past the original Caldwell Monument just west of Old West building, to “the Chapel,” as Person Hall was called.

An 1893 North Carolina University Magazine describing campus in the mid-1800s states that all students elected the chief marshal from the junior class and that the “marshal was conspicuous for good manners . . . and savoir faire.” The marshal’s duties included selecting six assistants called “subs,” riding to Raleigh Road to “escort the band into the village” and sporting a gold-headed cane while leading the processional. One duty, discontinued by the 1870s, was to stand on South Building’s steps to announce the titles of the processional sections as they passed by.

Early one-page programs warned that marshals were to be “prompt and vigilant in pointing all persons to their appropriate places” while “authorities” will “expect and require obedience to their commands.”

(Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)

Modern times

During the past four decades, marshals have usually numbered 30 to 40. Carolina Alumni staff began advising the group in the late 1990s. Today, they help organize the graduate processional and hand out programs and water bottles. You can identify marshals by the dark blue stoles they wear.

Marshals consist of elected class officers and a diverse group of juniors who apply for marshal positions in April. Then, officers select marshals in time for them to volunteer for Spring Commencement. They work at University Day and Winter Commencement. They also plan and hold events such as benefit nights, a class ring ceremony, the Bell Tower Climb and Last Lecture.

Marshals help officers build and promote a fundraising campaign, soliciting donations from classmates for a class gift to the University.

Photo from The Alumni Review of the 1914 Commencement processional, showing class marshals wearing sashes and leading the processional to the original Memorial Hall. (Archival photo 1914)

Changes through the years

Commencements once were smaller, yet still important, affairs than they are today. As the celebration grew in scope, Student Affairs personnel on the Commencement committee worked closely with incoming senior class officers and marshals, who led sections of the processional to their seats, which kept the event on schedule. They carried banners with the names of schools and degrees.

Fred Schroeder, former dean of students, organized the marshals from 1964 to 1997, assisted by staff members Jim Kessler and Laura Thomas. Schroeder, who retired in 1998, had marshals rehearse the day before Commencement. He and his wife, Sue, hosted a cookout at their house that night.

Kessler, former director of accessibility resources, coordinated marshals for Commencement from 1998 until 2012. After a dry run the day before Commencement, Kessler organized a cookout on South Building’s landing overlooking Polk Place.

During the 1940s and 1950s, seven or eight marshals served. The number increased gradually in ensuing decades, topping out at 43 in 1994.

Marshal milestones

In 1936, the first female marshal, Nannie Louise Davis ’37, was elected. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in commerce and lettered in basketball.

The University’s Centennial in 1895 kept marshals busy. They worked at Commencement on June 3, a ceremony celebrating George Washington’s birthday on Feb. 2 and the Di-Phi Inter-Society Debate.

Sources include 1893 University Magazine and UNC Libraries sources.

At the time, chemotherapy options were “really nasty, nontargeted chemo drugs,” she recalls. That conversation sparked a drive to understand how cancer drugs work, and how to make them better. Later, her own experience with battling breast cancer gave her a patient’s perspective when doing her own research.

Today, Pattenden is an associate professor in the division of chemical biology and medicinal chemistry at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. A doctoral graduate from the University of Toronto and later a postdoctoral researcher at both the Stowers Institute in Kansas City and the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, she has built her lab around chromatin biology and its central role in cancer.

As Pattenden explained, her lab focuses on chromatin, the scaffold that packages DNA into a cell nucleus. For the DNA sequence to be read, the chromatin needs to be opened. Her work highlights how these accessible “openings” in chromatin often give cancer cells their identity and drive their growth.

Pattenden’s lab is tackling some of the toughest challenges in pediatric oncology in two major projects.

One project focuses on Ewing sarcoma, a bone and soft tissue cancer in children and young adults. Working with Dr. Ian Davis, chief of pediatric hematology oncology at UNC Children’s Research Institute, Pattenden’s team worked to uncover compounds that might counteract the effects of an abnormal protein. This abnormality opens chromatin in places it shouldn’t, activating gene expression programs that drive tumor growth. Her lab designed an assay to target its activity — specifically, its ability to open chromatin.

With support from the National Cancer Institute’s Experimental Therapeutics program, the team screened more than 120,000 compounds. After three years in the NExT program, and over 15 years of research at Carolina, they are now narrowing down compound candidates that might one day move to the clinic for testing.

“We’re talking about the molecular mechanism, so we’re getting right down to the cellular level,” she said. “Success for us looks like finding a new target or a new way to target a key pathway in the tumor cell.”

A second major effort is aimed at the aggressive pediatric cancers osteosarcoma, a cancer that begins in the cells that form bones, and neuroblastoma, a cancer that starts in immature nerve cells.

Whether working with pediatric oncologists, chemists or engineers, Pattenden views teamwork as essential. “I think the only way any of these projects would be possible is because of collaboration,” she said.

Ultimately, her motivation circles back to patients. Cancer is not one disease but many, each requiring new ideas and new tools.

“These diseases are so complicated. Because cancer isn’t just one thing, it’s many, many, many things, we need this kind of research,” she said. “Our goal is to ultimately find a target that we can modulate with a small molecule to specifically target the cancer so that we don’t negatively affect normal cells in the process.”

Read more about Pattenden’s research.

Read more about Carolina’s research impact.

Carolina ranks No. 7 among public universities and No. 23 overall on the 2026 Best Colleges for Future Leaders list.

“We are honored to be recognized among Time’s Best Colleges for Future Leaders, but what truly matters is the daily commitment behind that achievement,” said James Orr, senior vice provost for student success. “Our faculty and staff work together to mentor, challenge and uplift our students every day. Through thoughtful support and rigorous opportunities, Carolina is transforming potential into leadership that can make a difference.”

The University has been home to leaders across industries for more than 232 years. Carolina is committed to serving first-generation students as well as generations of Tar Heels, raising the bar in athletics, academics, research and the arts through various initiatives and programs and providing a best-in-class student experience.

Carolina’s role as a leading national university spurs opportunity for North Carolina and the world. Initiatives and accomplishments include:

• Supporting the Carolina Covenant, which has provided more than 10,000 students the opportunity to graduate debt-free through scholarships, work-study and grants
• Studying and researching specific issues impacting North Carolina residents and beyond, including new cancer therapies, technologies to address Alzheimer’s disease and treatments for brain injuries in veterans
• Welcoming community college students through the Carolina Student Transfer Excellence Program, which offers low- to moderate-income North Carolina students a pathway to transfer to and graduate from Carolina
• Creating a new school that will position itself as a national leader in applied technology, libraries, archives and data science research and teaching
• Fostering startups that employ more than 131,000 people and contribute nearly $8 billion in economic impact

To understand the career paths and formative experiences of American leaders, Time and Statista analyzed a group of 4,800 of the most influential figures shaping U.S. society today, from policymakers and corporate executives to leading scientists, educators and cultural innovators. The dataset is updated yearly to include younger leaders in emerging fields and industries.

Read the full list.