UNC Asheville will celebrate its annual Founders Day with a range of campus events October 4-6. Highlights this year include an arts festival, a Bulldog Athletics cookout, alumni reunions and the presentation of the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year award. The events are open to the public.

The celebration kicks off at 5 p.m. Thursday with "Arts and Eats," a performing and fine arts festival to benefit UNCA's dance program. More than 100 artists will present works ranging from visual arts and dance to music and film at galleries, stages, screening rooms and other sites on and around the Quad. The festival runs until 10 p.m. All performances are free and open to the public.

The festival will also feature $12 per person grilled dinner on the Quadrangle. For reservations, call 232-5652.

On Friday, Undergraduate Research projects will be highlighted in a special exhibit and discussion from 9 to 11 a.m. in the Ramsey Library lobby. The library's Special Collections will host an institutional history exhibit throughout the weekend.

Also Friday, the campus will hold a groundbreaking ceremony for new residence halls in Governor's Village at 11 a.m., followed by a UNCA birthday cake party at 11:30 a.m. at Reed Plaza and a concert by the University Ensembles at the same location at 12:15 p.m. An opening reception for the Alumni Art Exhibition will be held at 5:30 p.m. in University Gallery, Owen Hall.

At the 6:30 p.m. Founders Day Dinner, Zollie Stevenson Jr., a 1975 graduate, will be presented the Distinguished Alumnus Award for 2001. Stevenson, who is a senior education program specialist at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, is executive director of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity's Education Foundation. Alpha Phi Alpha is the nation's first Greek-letter fraternity for African American college men. The Education Foundation awards scholarships, holds collegiate scholarship bowls, provides training to members through Alpha University, and provides community mentoring and voter registration programs. Stevenson is project director for a Alpha Phil Alpha-Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America mentoring initiative, and a national faculty member for the March of Dimes/Alpha Phi Alpha pregnancy prevention program. While at UNCA, Stevenson, a Greensboro native, was Student Government Association president and editor of the student newspaper. Stevenson holds a doctorate from UNC-Chapel Hill. The Founders Day Dinner will be held in Owen Conference Center. For reservations, call 828/251-6512.

On Saturday, the Bulldog Athletics cookout begins at noon next to Greenwood Field. Lunch is $5. The men's soccer team takes on Liberty University at 2 p.m. at Greenwood Field and the women's volleyball team plays Radford University at 4 p.m. in Justice Gym.

The evening wraps up with a concert by Anima, featuring traditional and classical Brazilian folk music at 8 p.m. in Lipinsky Auditorium. General admission tickets are $18.

Reunions for Black alumni, Teaching Fellows, and graduates of the atmospheric sciences, literature and language, education and biology departments, and predecessor institutions are scheduled throughout the weekend. For more information, call UNCA's Alumni Relations Office at 828/251-6512 or e-mail the office here.

Media Contacts:

• Mary Chakales, UNCA Alumni Relations Director, 828/251-6512
• Merianne Epstein, UNCA Public Information Director, 828/251-6676