CHARLOTTE – Sept. 9, 2008 – While it is customary for a large university like UNC Charlotte to recruit talented faculty members each year, administrators are energized by the quantity and quality of appointments to endowed positions for the 2008-09 school year.

“This is the largest number of endowed positions we have filled in a single year in the history of this institution,” Provost Joan Lorden said in her recent Convocation speech to faculty and staff. “I believe this demonstrates the kind of confidence donors have in UNC Charlotte.”

The influx of new talent, which will augment an already solid faculty, portends a dynamic future for the University, she said. Some of the endowed positions are new and some are existing ones that are being filled. Their expertise runs the gamut from business to nursing to cancer research.

They include:

Denis Arnold, John and Marguerite Surtman Distinguished Scholar in Business Ethics.

Arnold comes from the University of Tennessee, where he was director of its Center for Applied and Professional Ethics since 2006. Arnold taught in the School of Philosophy, where he was an Associate Professor. He also taught classes in management and served as Director of Graduate Studies. He is widely published and has authored or co-authored several books on ethical theory and business and global labor challenges.

Joseph B. Mazzola, Belk Distinguished Professor in Business Administration.

Mazzola, who comes from Georgetown University, also serves as the dean of the Belk School of Business. At Georgetown, Mazzola previously served as executive dean of faculty and senior associate dean. He also has written on such topics as operations management, management science and global supply chain security. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgetown, he taught at Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill and Wake Forest University.

Pinku Mukherjee, Irwin Belk Distinguished Scholar in Cancer Research.

Mukherjee comes to UNC Charlotte from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., where she was an Associate Professor of Immunology and Director of the Cellular Immunology Laboratory. Mukherjee’s research focuses on the development of efficient and targeted immune modulating therapies delivered directly to the tumor site in breast and pancreatic cancers.

Mary Ann Nies, Carol Grotes Belk Endowed Chair in Nursing.

Nies comes from Stony Brook University, where she served as Assistant Vice President of Health Services for Research in Community Health since 2005. Nies also was a Professor of Nursing and a Professor of Preventative Medicine and she was the Helene Fuld Health Trust Leadership for Academic Nursing Fellow in 2004-2005.

Laura Talbot, Dean W. Colvard Distinguished Professorship in Nursing.

Since 2003, Talbot has been an associate professor and deputy director of the PhD program in the Graduate School of Nursing at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. Talbot also served as Mobilization Assistant to the Surgeon General for the Air Force District of Washington, D.C., where she was the Commander’s principal advisor. Talbot also was responsible for assisting in the planning and implementation of Air Force and joint medical solutions for Air and Space Expeditionary Force deployment, homeland operations and joint operations within the National Capitol Region. Her current funded TriService Nursing study is is to test two different approaches to prosthetic rehabilitation as potential treatments for improving muscle strength, pain and functional performance of daily activities in war injured military personnel with a lower extremity amputation.

Weidong Tian, Distinguished Scholar in Risk Management and Insurance.

Tian comes from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, where he had been on the faculty since 2003. His expertise is in derivative markets, risk management in financial and insurance markets, and financial product design. He has taught courses in Asset and Liability Management, Mathematical Models in Finance and Discrete-Time Finance. Tian has published extensively in these areas and is a frequent contributor to national and international conferences on finance.

Zheng Zhou, Addison H. and Gertrude C. Reese Distinguished Scholar in International Business

Zhou’s expertise in international marketing comes from his work as an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Business at the University of Hong Kong. His research work has focused on strategic orientation, innovation and new product development and relationship marketing, strategic marketing in emerging economies.

Lorden said these faculty members will enhance the intellectual capital of UNC Charlotte and demonstrate how the institution is maturing into a major research university.

“Most of the faculty that we hire are recent graduates from doctoral programs. They bring new ideas and tremendous energy, and have begun to establish themselves in their disciplines, but they are still at the early stages of their careers,” said Lorden.

“The prominence of these senior faculty raises the visibility of the programs that they join and their experience enables them to mentor their more junior colleagues,” she said. “The gifts that make these appointments possible are a tangible expression of the confidence that individuals and corporations in our community have in our institution to educate our students, engage the community, and push the envelope of discovery in many areas of scholarship.”

About UNC Charlotte

A public research university, UNC Charlotte is the fourth largest campus among the 17 institutions of the University of North Carolina system. It is the largest institution of higher education in the Charlotte region. The university offers 18 doctoral programs, 62 master’s degree programs and 90 programs leading to bachelor’s degrees. Fall 2008 enrollment exceeds 23,300 students, including almost 5,200 graduate students.

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Media contact: Paul Nowell, 704.687.5828, pmnowell@uncc.edu