July 11th,
2014
Dear everyone,
It would be
great to talk to you all personally (and I did try today to do that!), but I
wanted all to have the news today. It’s time for me to transition to the
faculty and for the Garden to be launched into a new era. Since I’ve had conversations
with many of you about this subject, I don’t think this will come as a shock!
I’ve tried to prepare you for the news. Whether this year or
next, it has seemed inevitable to me and only a question of timing.
I could fill
pages with the pros and cons about this, but it really boils down to two
essential facts:
First, the
Garden needs a full-time director. I’ve been thinking about this for several
years and the Provost’s Office is now ready and willing to take this great
evolutionary step in the history of the Garden. The Garden is so wonderful that
it will attract great candidates. With the Provost’s Office support for
this now, I say, as Chancellor Thorp did about our building, “Time to declare
victory and move on”. Very importantly, a window has opened and we need to act
on it.
Second, my age:
I turned 66 this year and will likely be nearing or past 67 when the new
director is on board. Dr. Bell retired at 65 and I will be 2 years passed that
benchmark! As the great bard, Mr. Bob Dylan, wrote in a recent song (did you
think I could pass up this opportunity?), “No man, no woman knows the hour that
sorrow will come”. I think I felt relatively immortal until I turned 65, but
for the past year I’ve been thinking about the books and other projects I want
to finish as my career winds down. After a year or two, under my faculty
position, I will also take advantage of UNC’s phased retirement program—a three
year program that will leave me in my 70s even if I start soon!
These two
factors have led me to decide to step down as Director of the NCBG effective
December 31, 2014 so that I can devote the remainder of my
career to teaching, research, and writing. Carol Tresolini soon will
appoint a search committee to identify candidates for the Garden's first ever
full-time director position. The goal will be to have someone in
place on January 1. Of course, I will continue to serve as Director
during the search through the end of the calendar year.
I’ve learned
from Ritchie to stay out of the way of the next director (but to be available
for advice) and I’ve learned from Ken Moore that the Garden is a good and
productive place for hanging out and doing good things, so you can expect me to
do both in the coming years. Maybe I'll still have a few more books in me--to
complete in the new Herbarium building.
The Garden has
become fabulous—the Education Center and closing of Laurel Hill Road, the
national importance of our conservation programs, the acquisition of the
Herbarium, Battle Park, and Forest Theatre, the elimination of our loan, the
great blossoming (literally) of the programs here, the national awards.
I’ve been feeling for the past year that this is a really good time to turn
over the this major institution to future generations!
In Biology 565, I end the semester with lecture that pulls all the threads
together from the course and points out that I, as professor, am handing them,
as students, a baton that must be passed inevitably and that they too will pass
the baton along one day. Imagine that baton as biodiversity or a world with a
healthy environment (of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit, as Bill McDonough
suggested) or the Garden itself, and you can see why this step is inevitable
and you can sense the importance of this "handing off".
I’ll think of
ways to thank all of you for this great period in my life. You all are
essential to the Garden and I have greatly appreciated your passion for the
work you have done over these years and are continuing to do.
I wanted to let
you know before Maine (July 20-August 12) because I didn’t want to announce and
then leave town and I wanted the Provost’s Office to get going on the
process…so today was the day.
Peter