UNC Asheville Honors Alumni and Faculty at Founders Day Dinner

UNC Asheville honored three distinguished alumni and one faculty member at a Founders Day dinner on Thursday, Sept. 29. Earlier that day, UNC Asheville Chancellor Anne Ponder gave a State of the University Address at a special program in Lipinsky Auditorium. The annual Founders Day celebration highlights UNC Asheville's start in 1927 as Buncombe County Junior College and its transformation into one of the nation’s leading public liberal arts colleges.

Alumni awards were presented by Chancellor Anne Ponder and National Alumni Advisory Council Chair Audrey Mosley (Class of 1974), Deputy General Counsel for the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

The Francine M. Delany Alumni Award for Service to the Community was presented to James Stickney (Class of 1978). A native of Asheville, Stickney serves as the chair of the Board of Directors of the United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County Inc. and is the past chair for the YMCA Capital Campaign. He has served on the boards of the American Red Cross, Family Services Center, and The Better Business Bureau of WNC. A past-president of the UNC Asheville Alumni Association, he has also served as a member of the UNC Asheville Foundation Board and The Bulldog Club. 

Steve Honeycutt (Class of 1985) received the Thomas D. Reynolds Alumni Award for Service to the University. Honeycutt, UNC Asheville’s budget officer, is a longtime alumni volunteer. For 13 years, Honeycutt has organized the annual Student Move-In, coordinating some 100 UNC Asheville faculty and staff volunteers who assist students and their parents with the move into residence halls.

The newest University award, the Order of Pisgah, is given to a graduate of the last ten years for outstanding achievement in a field of endeavor and for service to the University. Brian Byrd (Class of 2000) is the first to receive this award. A doctoral candidate in parasitology and vector-borne infectious diseases at Tulane University, Byrd began his research career as an Undergraduate Research Scholar at UNC Asheville. He received the Faust Outstanding Graduate Student Award at graduation from Tulane’s Master of Public Health degree program in 2002. Byrd is currently working with both the West Nile virus and the Lacrosse virus, the leading cause of pediatric encephalitis in the United States.

In addition, the National Alumni Advisory Council presented the Distinguished Faculty Award to Merritt Moseley. Moseley, who joined the UNC Asheville faculty in 1978, is professor of literature and language. He has published books on David Lodge, Kingsley Amis and Julian Barnes and serves as the editor of the “Dictionary of Literary Biography” volumes on British novelists since 1960. Moseley holds a doctorate from UNC Chapel Hill.

Media Contacts:

• Dr. Kevan Frazier, UNC Asheville Associate Vice Chancellor for Alumni, 828/251-6512
• Jill Yarnall, UNC Asheville Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526