$3 million gift will benefit Honors Carolina

Peter Grauer ’68 believes in how Honors Carolina can change students’ lives.

Grauer, chair of worldwide media company Bloomberg L.P., served for more than 15 years as chair of the Honors Carolina Advisory Board. A recent $3 million gift commitment will endow the Peter T. Grauer Associate Dean for Honors Carolina Fund.

The endowment will provide salary and research funding. It allows the associate dean to pursue scholarly endeavors and to have a source of discretionary funding to support ongoing program development and curriculum innovation.

“Honors Carolina is a magnet to attract the best and brightest students,” Grauer said. “It gives Carolina a bold and lasting competitive advantage. It provides our faculty with the opportunity to work with truly gifted students. Honors Carolina makes the Chapel Hill experience even more unique, even better.”

Associate Dean for Honors Carolina Jim Leloudis is the fund’s first recipient. Leloudis has served as associate dean for Honors and founding director of the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence for more than 18 years. His research focuses on the history of the modern South, with emphases on labor, education, race and reform.

Heather Boneparth ’80, current chair of the Honors Carolina Advisory Board, said, “It is quite fitting that Peter’s gift will honor Jim’s exceptional leadership and ensure that Honors Carolina will continue to benefit from the leadership required to continue the path of innovation which has become the hallmark of the program.”

Dean Kevin Guskiewicz added, “The Grauer Fund will allow Jim and his successors to sustain the tradition of excellence associated with Honors Carolina.”

Grauer is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Program for Management Development. He is a former member of the UNC Board of Trustees.

Story by Mary Moorefield