Shannon Kennedy
H I G H L I G H T S music building in the College. The Kenan Music Building was dedicated in 2009. Public concerts, faculty and student recitals, and lectures — many from departments other than music — draw crowds to Hill Hall each year. The facility complements performances in Memorial Hall. Major upgrades will transform the now dated lobby rotunda to an expanded and light-filled space suitable for receptions and intermissions. The auditorium lacks air conditioning, making it essentially unusable in the summer. That will change, with plans for a climate control system, state-of-theart acoustical treatments, a professional-grade stage, and a piano and equipment lift. An enhanced backstage area with updated green rooms and storage, improved lighting, piano preservation facilities, additional practice rooms, and improved administrative and teaching spaces adjacent to the rotunda will complete the renovations. The cornerstone for the original building was laid on June 1, 1907. Funded by Andrew Carnegie, the building served as the University’s first consolidated library. In 1918-19, it even served as headquarters for Carolina Playmakers when Thomas Wolfe was a member. The music department moved to the building in 1930, and it was renamed Hill Hall for the late John Sprunt Hill, a UNC alumnus, and his family. •
$5 MILLION KENAN GIFT LAUNCHES HILL HALL RENOVATION
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Will Owens
$5 million gift from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust will launch an extensive renovation of the music department’s Hill Hall. Work will center on improvements to Hill Hall’s rotunda and 550-seat auditorium in the century-old building. The total cost of the project is estimated at $15 million, none of it in state-appropriated funding. In addition to the Kenan Trust’s gift, the Office of the Provost will provide $5 million, and the College will raise the remaining $5 million in a special campaign. After a planning phase, work is expected to begin in 2015 and will take two years to complete. In 2007, the Kenan Trust gave $8 million to the music department, including $4 million to establish 16 full music scholarships for undergraduates and $4 million to complete funding for a new
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Frank Borden Hanes Sr. leaves lasting legacy
rank Borden Hanes Sr., a native of Winston-Salem, N.C., and a longtime friend and benefactor of the College, passed away on July 17. He was 93. Few have done more to promote the arts and sciences at Carolina than Hanes, a 1942 graduate of the University. As a student, he was Rex of the Order of the Gimghoul and a member of the Carolina Playmakers. He was an officer in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during World War II, serving on the destroyer USS Wadsworth. Hanes understood the need for private support at his alma mater decades ago. He was the founding chairman of the Arts and Sciences Foundation; in 1975 he oversaw a resolution that recommended its creation. Hanes endowed the Thomas Wolfe Scholarship in Creative Writing in 2000, providing a full scholarship to young writers at Carolina. He was instrumental in endowing other funds that benefit the College, including the Frank Borden Hanes and Barbara Lasater Hanes Professorship in English, the Hanes Visiting Professorship in Art, the Wilmer K. Borden Fellowship in the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, the Austin H. Carr Distinguished Professorship, the James Gordon Hanes Chair in the Humanities and others. The Frank Borden and Barbara Lasater Hanes Art Center was dedicated in 1985 in honor of the ABOVE: Frank Borden Hanes Sr. family’s support of the arts on campus. During his lifetime, Hanes was honored with the North Carolina Award for Public Service (the state’s highest civilian honor), the William Richardson Davie Award and Distinguished Alumnus Award from UNC, as well as an honorary doctorate of letters from Carolina. Hanes was a poet, novelist, journalist, farmer, outdoorsman, businessman and philanthropist. His works include The Fleet Rabble: a Novel of the Nez Perce War, which received the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction and was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. •
CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES • FALL 2013 • COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • 9