ECU Report

ECU receives $1.9m grant for pharma center Painting explores global issues amid COVID-19

Klein covers evolution of MTV in new book

When MTV launched in 1981 with “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles, it was billed as a 24-hour video jukebox, and the success of that format showed it was possible for a cable network to succeed by identifying and targeting a market niche .

MTV’s was Generation X, loosely defined as Americans born between 1965 and 1982, said Amanda Klein, associate professor of film studies at ECU . But beginning in the mid-1990s and for the next decade-and-a-half, Gen X began to age out . So MTV studied how to stay relevant with a new generation of youth: millennials .

By the early 2000s catching a music video on MTV was difficult, and in 2010 the network dropped the word “music” from its corporate logo and branding, an acknowledgement the youth market was the most important thing, not the music . Klein’s new book, Millennials Killed the Video Star, published in February by Duke University Press, explores how MTV shifted its programming toward identity-based reality shows and what that shift says about the youth who became its new target audience .

“It’s always good to point out when you talk about generations and these kinds of labels that it’s not a real thing . It’s not like you’re born in this or that year so you’re fundamentally different from someone who was born (at a different time),” she said . “I’m impacted by my gender, my race, my social class, my education, but a factor in how I see the world and my touchstone for experiences is when I was born .

“And so MTV is really interesting when talking about youth culture, because it’s a channel that’s about targeting youth . ”

MTV’s experiment with reality television started in the early ’90s with The Real World .

“You start to see these different ways of talking about what identity is,” Klein said . “If you look at early seasons of The Real World, you see cast members who are starting to talk about what it means to be Black or what it means to be gay . But the white characters, especially in the early seasons, seem always a little confused . They don’t know what they are .

“And so you see in these later MTV series these opportunities for white kids to feel like they have an identity . You see that really strongly in shows like Jersey Shore and Buck Wild . ”

Drawing on interviews with producers and actors from several of the shows, Klein concludes the programming helped shape how MTV’s mostly white audience viewed and discussed their own identities .

Klein has made several media appearances of her own, including on E! Entertainment’s series For Real: The Story of Reality TV, which premiered March 25 .

Top, some of the original MTV cast meet Zippy the Chimp. Bottom, the cast of the MTV hit Teen Mom. Amanda Klein

– Jules Norwood

Greenway marker recognizes Native American inhabitants along Tar River

History and recreation will come together along the Greenville Greenway thanks to ECU faculty members and a local nonprofit group.

Randy Daniel, chair of ECU’s Department of Anthropology, has partnered with the local nonprofit organization Friends of Greenville Greenways and its founder, Jill Twark, associate professor of German in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, to produce an educational marker documenting archaeological excavations along the Tar River that revealed Native American settlements.

According to Daniel, Native Americans lived along the Tar from about 11,500 to 3,000 years ago. Summer field schools over several summers located more than 20 Native American settlements along the stretch of the river within Pitt and Edgecombe counties. Some of the oldest were discovered almost 3 feet below the ground surface.

“What we found at these sites consisted largely of stone tools such as spear and arrow points, cutting and scraping tools and their manufacturing debris, along with pottery sherds,” he said.

Twark said the marker will show the public what those digs have discovered. “They are accessible, tiny museums requiring no entrance fee to enjoy and learn from,” she said.

The new marker was funded by the Greenville Noon Rotary Club in collaboration with FROGGS and was installed by the Greenville Recreation and Parks Department near the Toyota Amphitheater at the Town Common in downtown Greenville.

– Lacey Gray Top, students dig at Native American settlement sites along the Tar River. Bottom, the educational marker documenting the excavations.

Alumnae-owned PR agency ranked among best in US

Jamie Sigler O’Grady ’01 and Sarah Evans ’01 own one of the nation’s top PR agencies, according to Forbes magazine’s 2021 rankings of public relations firms . The award for J Public Relations comes after a challenging year for the agency, which specializes in travel, destination and consumer brands . Its clients include tourism organizations such as Visit North Carolina and Visit Utah as well as hospitality brands Vail Hospitality, Relais & Chateaux and Iconic Luxury Hotels . When the coronavirus pandemic brought vacation travel to a near halt, clients began calling to pause or cancel their business .

O’Grady and Evans “Pre-March, we had our biggest month ever in February . We had just signed Virgin Limited Editions (Richard Branson’s luxury portfolio) and were working with really strong, successful hospitality companies,” Evans said . “Within eight days, we lost about 60% of our business . It was completely unbelievable . ”

Evans was named to the university’s inaugural “40 Under 40” list and is a recipient of the Incredible ECU Women Award by the Women’s Roundtable . She and O’Grady have returned to campus to speak with classes, and the agency funds a scholarship for students interested in public relations . Several JPR employees started as interns from ECU . And O’Grady’s son, Aidan, is a rising sophomore at ECU .

– Erin Ward

ECU Report

Black alumnae address diversity in tech comm

Four alumnae were featured in a December national roundtable on Black technical communication hosted virtually by Virginia Tech and attended by more than 500 people .

“Being Black in academia can be isolating, depending on who you are, what kind of work you want to do and whether there are people around you who support your endeavors,” said Constance Haywood ’17, who received her master’s in English from ECU and is pursuing her doctorate at Michigan State University .

“When I came into ECU’s English graduate program, I was pleasantly surprised that there were multiple graduate students working alongside me who looked like me and could relate to me both culturally and professionally . The department solidified the importance of Black presence and voice in academia . Their dedication to diversity through the recruitment of Black students and the invitation of Black thought into classrooms not only shaped my graduate experiences but continues to shape my own work,” Haywood said . “Long story short, in order for the tough conversations to take place, Black people need to be in the room . At ECU, there were quite a few of us in the room . ”

Cecilia Shelton ’19, Temptaous Mckoy ’19 and Kimberly C . Harper ’12 received their doctorates in rhetoric, writing and professional communication from ECU .

“My time at ECU provided a space where I could exercise my intellectual muscles and grow into a scholar that is prepared to do work in a number of contexts . My mentors, colleagues and community were valuable collaborators and champions of greater inclusion and justice in technical and professional communication,” said Shelton, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland .

“Diversity and inclusion work requires a great deal of mental and emotional labor, and ECU assisted me in developing solid skills for identifying a work-life balance,” said Mckoy, an assistant professor at Bowie State University .

Harper is an assistant professor at N .C . A&T State University and founded “The Space of Grace,” a podcast on Black maternal health and reproductive justice .

“ECU gave me the tools to see the world through a wide lens,” Harper said .

Clockwise from top left, Constance Haywood ‘17, Cecilia Shelton ‘19, Kimberly C. Harper ‘12 and Temptaous Mckoy ‘19.

– Lacey Gray

Golden LEAF gives $1.9 million to create Eastern Region Pharma Center

ECU has received a nearly $1.9 million grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation for the creation of a pharmaceutical manufacturing training center.

The Eastern Region Pharma Center is designed to teach students and pharmaceutical employees advanced manufacturing techniques and address a need for pharmaceutical workers with four-year college degrees in an area known as the BioPharma Crescent in eastern North Carolina. Pitt, Johnston, Wilson, Nash and Edgecombe counties are home to a variety of pharmaceutical companies, including Thermo Fisher Scientific, Mayne Pharma, Novo Nordisk, Grifols, Pfizer and CMP Pharma.

Pitt, Johnston, Wilson, Nash and Edgecombe community colleges are also part of the five-year project.

Within ECU, the project will draw on faculty expertise from the departments of engineering, technology systems and chemistry and later from the colleges of business and education.

Harry Ploehn, dean of the College of Engineering and Technology and the project leader, said the center brings ECU and regional assets together to benefit eastern North Carolina.

“With better coordination across the BioPharma Crescent counties, all of the partners — including industry, community colleges and ECU — will be more effective at recruiting students into lucrative, rewarding careers in the pharmaceutical industry, not to mention retaining our talent in the region,” he said.

Ploehn said the pharmaceutical industry already employs thousands in the region, and the demand for employees will continue to grow. He cited a December announcement by Thermo Fisher in Greenville to expand and add 500 jobs as well as a 2020 N.C. Biotechnology Center workforce study projecting aggressive growth of the pharmaceutical industry’s workforce needs, especially for those with graduate and bachelor’s degrees.

The state’s life sciences industry expanded its collective workforce by 11% in 2020, an amount that equals about 3,000 jobs, according to the N.C. Biotechnology Center. The industry as a whole is responsible for about 224,000 jobs across the state between 775 life sciences companies that operate here and 2,500 that provide supporting functions. The estimated impact is $84 billion in annual economic activity for the state, including $2.3 billion in state and local taxes. “This opportunity will assist in developing the longerterm pipeline of local talent into these organizations and serves as a phenomenal step in workforce training and talent development,” said Mark Phillips, vice president for statewide operations and executive director of the eastern region for the N.C. Biotechnology Center. – Ken Buday

Construction is almost complete on the new Life Sciences and Biotechnology Building on ECU’s campus, which will house the Eastern Region Pharma Center.

ECU Report

Chauncey leaves $5.2 million to university

A former ECU faculty member left the university a multimillion-dollar gift in her will that will support School of Music scholarships .

Beatrice “Bea” Chauncey came to ECU in 1949 and spent 41 years as a flute instructor, helping grow the small music department into one of the premier music schools in the Southeast .

Her dedication to the Bea Chauncey program was so steadfast that in 2011 she committed a $500,000 planned gift to the school . At the time, it was the biggest gift ever promised by a faculty member at the university .

When Chauncey died April 2, 2017, at age 94, her gift turned out to be much, much more . The sum was actually an eye-popping $5 .2 million . Due to the complexity of her estate, the distribution process began in 2020 .

The $5 .2 million gift, a portion of which was counted in the total for Pirate Nation Gives, ECU’s annual day of giving, will double the amount of scholarship money the School of Music can award .

“That doubles our ability to attract students . It will allow us to expand our recruiting area,” School of Music Director Chris Ulffers said .

In addition to her love for music, Chauncey’s hobby was making stock market investments . She became a shrewd investor and would show friends the room in her house dedicated to her trading research .

When she set up her will, the gift to ECU was conservative because she didn’t want to overpromise in case of potential market fluctuations or end-of-life costs, said Greg Abeyounis, senior associate vice chancellor for development .

“As Bea grew older, there was a great amount of market growth that significantly compounded the generosity of this donation,” he said .

Chris Buddo, dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication, said there were many places Chauncey, a native of Akron, Ohio, could have given her money . “Because she loved the school and the people that were in the school, that’s where she wanted to see her money go,” he said . “She really helped put the School of Music on the map, and this will keep it on the map — for a long time . ” – Erin Ward

Jackson Tucker ’14, a designer for Sierra Nevada Corp . in Durham, worked on a pair of electric motors used in the robotic arm, turret coring drill and sample caching assembly on the Mars rover Perseverance, which landed Feb . 18 . “I was tasked with generating 3D models and 2D drawings for our designs, starting in the prototype phase all the way through the development of the flight products and other hardware needed during the assembly and testing,” he said . He also worked alongside another designer to create and design components for the gearboxes . Perseverance launched last July 30 and was designed to provide a better understanding of the geology of Mars and to seek signs of ancient life .

Medical school, other programs receive high marks from U.S. News

The Brody School of Medicine is one of the nation’s most diverse medical schools and among the best for primary care in the 2022 U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Schools, released March 30.

ECU graduate programs in education, English, library science, public administration and public health also were included in updated rankings for 2022.

U.S. News worked with the Robert Graham Center, a division of the American Academy of Family Physicians, to publish four new stand-alone rankings for medical schools. Brody’s rank in those are as follows:

• Most diverse medical schools, 13th (24.9%) • Most graduates practicing in primary care, 10th (40.1%) • Most graduates practicing in rural areas, 28th • Most graduates practicing in health professional shortage areas, 16th (51.33%)

Brody ranked the highest for medical schools in North Carolina in each of the new categories. Brody also ranked 28th in primary care for best medical schools.

In addition, ECU’s graduate education program ranked 136th out of 277 ranked, placing it in the top 50% of programs nationwide. Other ECU programs in updated 2022 rankings are doctorate in English, 147th; master’s

Exterior photograph of the The Brody Medical Sciences Building, one of the key buildings on the ECU Health Sciences Campus. in library science, 47th; master of public administration, 146th; and master of public health, 123rd. Programs offered predominantly online are ranked separately in U.S. News Best Online Programs, which is released at a different time of year.

– Crystal Baity

Arjun Patel receives his residency match letter and more at the annual National Residency Match Day event March 19 at the Brody School of Medicine at ECU . Seventy-six graduating medical students participated in the match, with more than 58% going into primary care residencies: 14 in family medicine, 13 in internal medicine, 10 in pediatrics and eight in OB/GYN . Twenty-seven students matched to residency programs in North Carolina this year, including six who matched at Vidant Medical Center and ECU . See students talk about Match Day at bit .ly/2PkqKOX .

ECU Report

Dental alumna creates garden to fight food insecurity

In a garden on a ribbon of old family farmland in the mountains of Ashe County, dreams are harvested alongside vegetables.

The garden is a vision nurtured by Dr. Amanda Stroud ’15, dental director for AppHealthCare in northwestern North Carolina. Even during her dental school days, Stroud imagined a dental office that would provide oral health care and more for its community.

With the help of partnerships, resources, energy and patience, she created the AppHealthCare Community Dental Garden, which last year yielded 360 pounds of produce and gave 70 families access to healthy food.

“None of us works alone; we work as a community to help our neighbors,” Stroud said. “We’re proud of what the garden has helped us do for our neighbors this year. I’m looking forward to watching the fruits of our labor multiply for the good of our community in the coming years.”

Stroud’s goal this year is 600 pounds of food and 100 families.

The quarter-acre plot sits on land at Gentry Farm 1821 in Nathans Creek, an Ashe County farm owned and run by Amanda Gentry and her partner, Wendy Painter. Gentry is a fifth-generation steward of the family land and is president of the Ashe County Farmers Market. When Stroud contacted Gentry after the project outgrew Stroud’s first garden outside her dental office, the answer was simple.

“Our mutual goals fit perfectly,” Gentry said. “Dr. Stroud knew about Gentry Farm and our commitment to raising quality healthy food and our interest in getting as much healthy food out into the community as possible.”

Stroud had seen patients who were experiencing hunger and food insecurity and wanted to do something about it. She and her team of volunteers and family members planted zucchini, yellow squash, beans, potatoes and other vegetables with sturdy shelf lives.

“We significantly downsized our plan due to COVID,” Stroud said. “We almost postponed the garden altogether (until 2021), but thanks to Amanda Gentry and her flexibility at Gentry Farm, we were able to move forward on a smaller scale.”

According to studies by Feeding America, one in seven North Carolinians struggles with hunger; one in five children experiences food insecurity. According to the North Carolina Justice Center, the state has the 10th highest rate of food insecurity in the nation, with nearly 590,000 households without enough to eat.

Dr. Amanda Stroud and her son, Anderson, spread hay in the Ashe County garden where Stroud grows vegetables for dental patients with food insecurity.

– Spaine Stephens

Painting explores global concerns during the pandemic

Cynthia Bickley-Green, who has taught in the ECU School of Art and Design for 27 years, was honored for a painting she created during the pandemic at the City Art Gallery in Greenville .

Her piece, Lamentation 2020, is a 5-by-12-foot acrylic painting that was selected by the North Carolina Museum of Art for reproduction on vinyl to display at the museum’s outdoor park in Raleigh . The painting is composed of three panels that explore global concerns of racial equality, the coronavirus and climate change . The colorful abstract piece looks chaotic, Bickley-Green said, because of the nature and intensity of the subject matter .

Bickley-Green also participated in an exhibit at the N .C . Museum of Art called Front Burner: Highlights in Contemporary North Carolina Painting . The exhibit was on display through Feb . 14 and featured some of Cynthia Bickley-Green the most relevant and engaging paintings made in the state .

Bickley-Green is the coordinator of the art education program in the ECU School of Art and Design . Her research explores the biology of art, the intersection of visual media and pedagogy, and the development of social identities .

– Crystal Baity

Bickley-Green works in her studio.