Happy belated birthday, UNC

This University recently turned 220 years old. Whether it’s actually the oldest public university in the country (of course it is) is not important to this column. What is important is that 220 years is a long time, and as good of an opportunity as any to reflect on what UNC is, and should be.
UNC isn’t its landmarks.

As sentimental as I am, I want this University to outlast Davie Poplar. One of these days that tree will fall, no matter how much concrete is involved.

Speaking of concrete, someday Wilson Library, the Bell Tower and even the Dean Dome will come down, too. But the University is not its landmarks.

UNC isn’t its people.

James K. Polk became the president of the United States of America after graduating from this University, but his UNC legacy is as the namesake of a quad that a lot of people call, “You know, the one with the library and the flagpole. Yeah, the normal-shaped one.”
At any given moment, the people who make up the UNC community — staff, students, faculty, administration — make UNC what it is.

But only for that given moment. Almost one-fourth of the undergraduate population leaves every year. Even the longest-lasting staff, faculty and administrators are only here for a few decades. That seems like a long time, until I remember that UNC is 220 years old.

The group of people will change throughout the years, until eventually no one who is here right now will be left. But UNC is not its people.

The Old Well will rot away, the Bell Tower will crumble, chancellors will come and go.
So what makes this university UNC?

UNC is a set of core values.

That’s easy to say. The harder thing is defining those values. Luckily, UNC has done that for us: “Lux libertas.”

It’s lux — light — the sensual representative of knowledge and hope since classical times.

It’s libertas — freedom — in its most basic sense, both opportunity and responsibility.
I leave those definitions intentionally vague: a starting point.

These values aren’t imposed on us. Instead it’s our job as members of this University community to strive to define these values in the era we live in. These definitions will change, but the beauty of values, as opposed to landmarks or people, is that they endure as they change. They endure because they change.

UNC will be UNC as long as it wholeheartedly endorses the pursuit of the truth, regardless of whether or not that pursuit is in vogue.

UNC will be UNC as long as it creates opportunities for all people who strive to engage in that pursuit on the highest level, regardless of who they are or what they have.

But values don’t ensure that this University will last forever. If UNC abandons its values — if it decides that gain is more important than knowledge or that convenience is more important than opportunity and responsibility — it wouldn’t matter if people still remembered MJ or continued to drink from the Old Well: UNC would no longer be UNC.