Journalist and author Liza Roberts gives keynote speech at Eve Carson Lecture

Liza Roberts, an arts and culture journalist, was the keynote speaker at Thursday's Eve Marie Carson Lecture. 

The lecture series was renamed to honor the legacy of former UNC Student Body President Eve Carson who started the event, previously called the Distinguished Speakers Series of Student Government. Past speakers at the annual event include author John Grisham, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, award-winning journalist and first UNC Black female undergraduate Karen Parker, along with other influential individuals. 

Roberts, who is also UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts’ wife, said that art has always been a part of her life. She was an art history minor at Hamilton College and said she has always sought out art wherever she lived. However, before becoming an arts and culture journalist, Roberts spent years working as a business news reporter at Bloomberg, CBS MarketWatch and CNBC. 

During an introductory speech, Kari Stoltz, a Carolina Women’s Leadership Council Executive Committee member, said that while Roberts' career is noteworthy, she is also highly regarded for her significant impact in North Carolina and on UNC’s campus. 

Stoltz said Roberts became the founder of the award-winning Raleigh-based Walter magazine, which impacted her career. 

“During her time covering art and culture from Walter, she became convinced that a book about the extraordinary contemporary art of our state was long overdue, and that experience became one of the factors that motivated her to expand her work into the world of visual art in North Carolina,” Stoltz said. 

In 2022, Roberts’ dream and vision became a reality and “Art of the State: Celebrating the Visual Art of North Carolina” was published by UNC Press. 

Roberts said that publishing this book is one of her proudest accomplishments because it reflects who she is and what she loves. 

“The book is probably the truest to who I am and what I care about, not only because it’s about art, which I love, but also because it’s about North Carolina, where we have lived for [19] years and its become a place that I am devoted to and want to help support and grow however I can,” she said in an interview with The Daily Tar Heel. 

She continues to support art in her bimonthly newsletter, Dispatches from the Art of the State, also highlighting North Carolina art and artists in her keynote speech at the lecture. 

Katie Ray Pratson, a Senior Regional Development Officer at UNC, said that when Roberts was first asked to be the Eve Carson speaker, she decided to "beautifully" tell other peoples' stories. 

Roberts brought Thomas Sayre and Leigh Suggs, two artists who graduated from UNC, to the lecture. After introducing them and some of their work in her speech, she participated in a roundtable discussion with them to dive deeper into their works and careers.  

“I would like people to know that you can start out here as an art student and become a word-class artist," Roberts said. "I think Thomas Sayre and Leigh Suggs are two remarkable examples. I love that they are such different artists and also from different generations and they both embody that same story. I hope that people hear that and feel excited about art at Carolina.”

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CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this article quoted Liza Roberts as saying she has lived in North Carolina for 10 years. UNC Media Relations wrote in an email to The Daily Tar Heel that the Roberts' have lived in North Carolina for 19 years.