'Sharing her light': Professor's dog and campus icon leaves behind legacy of love
UNC math professor Mark McCombs never planned on bringing Uma McCombs, his chocolate Labrador, to meet his students.
But everything changed about seven years ago, when McCombs' then-student Mollie Pepper decided she would go to his office hours. At the time, Pepper was struggling in McCombs' discrete mathematics class, but rather than just helping her with the course material, McCombs reassured Pepper of her fears with continuing to take the class.
McCombs told Pepper to go home and do something that brought her joy. Pepper said that she most wanted to play with her dog, but since her dog was at home with her parents, that was not something she would be able to do.
"I said, 'Okay, well, tomorrow at 3 p.m., I'd like you to meet me out in front of Phillips, and I want to introduce you to Uma,'" McCombs said.
What started out as a meetup between Pepper, her roommate and Uma quickly turned into a crowd of 15 or so students.
"Uma fell in love with them right away, and they fell in love with her right away," he said.
For the next six years, Uma McCombs continued to come to campus, greeting students with a grin on her face, tail wagging. By featuring Uma in word problems and through her swim parties during the COVID-19 pandemic — where McCombs would set up a Zoom call showing Uma playing fetch at Jordan Lake — together, McCombs and Uma enriched his classroom learning experience.
Part of students' involvement in Uma's life started with the creation of Uma's Instagram page after that first meeting between Pepper, her roommate and McCombs.
“Mollie said to me ‘professor McCombs, does Uma have an Instagram page?’” McCombs said. “And I said, 'I’m an old guy. I don’t know how to do that.’”
About two weeks later, McCombs got locked out of the account when Instagram upped security features. When asked, “How old are you?” McCombs answered that Uma was 6 years old. Instagram only allows users aged 13 and above.
McCombs became Uma's account administrator, and since then, the account has accumulated nearly 1,500 followers.
“He would be like, in class, ‘I’m bringing Uma to campus today,’” Pepper said. “And then she got famous.”
Every semester since, McCombs has brought Uma to campus at least once. The meet-ups turned into 'Umapalooza,' a title McCombs coined to describe the events. McCombs would advertise these meet-ups on Uma’s Instagram with goofy graphics and posts.
Eventually, Umapalooza moved onto Polk Place, or the lower Quad, due to the event’s popularity. More than 90 students came to an Umapalooza on a reading day a few semesters back, and after a few semesters, he said students would know about Uma when they arrived to class on the first day.
"And invariably, one of the first questions somebody would ask would be ‘So, when do we get to meet Uma?’” he said.
Uma spent her first four months of life on a farm in Pittsboro. The farmer mentioned to an acquaintance of McCombs’ wife that Uma was too sweet to be a hunting dog, and he planned on giving her up to the shelter if he could not place her with someone that day, McCombs said. A few hours later, Uma had found her new home.
“She became an essential part of our heart from that very first day [we met her]," McCombs said.
Bryn Giugnotook McCombs' Mathematics 118: Aspects of Modern Mathematics class in spring of 2022.She remembers McCombs showing Uma’s parody audition for iconic horror movie "The Shining" on the last day of class. McCombs liked to make spoof audition videos featuring Uma for fun. McCombs would also sometimes show silly videos of Uma at the beginning or end of class, she said.
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“See, I have insomnia, and I also have Photoshop and I have video editing software, so it’s kind of a dangerous combination,” McCombs said.
His favorite is Uma’s audition for a remake of a movie called "Easy Rider."
“Uma was his little sidekick in comforting and making sure that we got through everything,” Giugno said.
Marshall Graham took four separate classes with McCombs over his time at UNC. He said that he remembers McCombs incorporating Uma into his lectures whenever possible.
"Mark's character, the way that he included Uma in all of our lectures, and he would go out of his way to do things like his swim parties and meet-ups on campus that didn't have any academic benefits," he said. "And it just showed that he cared about his students a lot and was very attached to our well-being."
Julia Bassetttook one of McCombs’ classes in the spring of 2021 when classes were still online. Bassett said that Uma’s meet-and-greet on the Quad was the first time she met one of her professors in person.
“It really felt like she was bringing together a whole community,” she said.
McCombs and his wife said goodbye to Uma on Saturday, June 8 after Uma’s long battle with arthritic pain.
McCombs posted on Uma’s Instagram the next day to share the news with Uma’s family, friends, former students and fans. He shared one of his favorite pictures of Uma from an Umapalooza of her looking up at a student, licking peanut butter off the student’s finger. McCombs said he liked the picture so much because of the way the backlit photo illuminates Uma and reminds him of the famous Michelangelo mural in the Sistine Chapel, “The Creation of Adam.”
He posted the picture alongside a quote from "White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field" by Mary Oliver: “Maybe death isn’t darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us."
McCombs said he is thankful for his students for helping him through his grief since losing Uma. Students he had years ago, he said, have been reaching out through Uma’s Instagram page expressing condolences.
“I’m so grateful to Uma for sharing her light,” he said. “And giving me the opportunity to share her light with you all.”
