Last Friday, Stephen Allred looked comfortable and relieved in his office on the west side of South Building, where he has been executive associate provost since March 2004. The day before, it had been announced that colleague, friend and fellow Equinox band member Holden Thorp would begin occupying the offices on the east side of South Building starting in July.
But when Thorp becomes chancellor of the University of North Carolina, Allred begins his new job as provost — of the University of Richmond.
It’s a big change for the Raleigh native who has known since the age of five that UNC was in his future.
“I came here with my father, UNC Class of 1934, to a football game,†Allred said. “He parked the car and we walked through campus and past Old East and he said, ‘When I came to school here, this is where I lived. Maybe when you come to school here, you can live here too.’ When I started school in the fall of 1969, I had applied to one school: the University of North Carolina,†Allred said warmly.
His father, the first in his Randolph County family of mostly mill and railroad workers to go beyond high school, “came here in the depths of the Depression, in the fall of 1930. He stayed for his doctorate,†Allred said. “It’s one of the reasons I love this place. It transformed my father’s life.â€
And his. Steve graduated in 1974, having met his wife, Julia, who graduated in ’75, in a statistics class.
They went out into the world together, where Steve received a law degree, a doctorate in education and work experience. In 1986, he returned to UNC, where his journey up the academic ladder started by teaching law, before he became director of the masters of public administration program in the School of Government, was appointed to associate provost for academic initiatives in 2001 and in 2004 was promoted to executive associate provost.
During the professional climb, two children rose and bloomed as well. James, who was a Morehead Scholar and student body president for the class of 2007, now teaches in England. Meredith is a rising junior in the UNC Class of 2010.
Allred, 56, said, “I’ve had the greatest opportunities in the world here, to work with the best people in higher-education administration: John Sanders, Mike Smith, Robert Shelton, Bernadette Gray-Little, James Moeser, Holden Thorp.â€
But how could a man “Tar Heel born and bred†leave North Carolina?
“I’m going to work with another great leader — Ed Ayers,†Allred said, speaking of the University of Richmond president, Edward L. Ayers, the former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia. “He’s extraordinary. It’s an opportunity to work with Ed and help him implement his vision.
“I got the offer and Julia and I went up,†Allred said. “It was not an easy decision, but one about which we are both very excited.â€
For their daughter, Meredith, it means being at college away from her parents without leaving her hometown. She was two when the family moved into their home in Ironwoods.
“I’m excited. It’s weird. I’ll have to learn to pack,†she said in a flurry.
And her parents will soon be walking to work, after buying a house three-tenths of a mile off campus. Julia will be working in admissions, as she has done at UNC.
Followers of the local jazz band Equinox will have to wait and see what happens next with the band’s bassist living in Virginia and its keyboardist living at Quail Hill.
Allred only knows that, “I’ll miss an awful lot about this place.â€
Contact Valarie Schwartz at 923-3746 or valariekays@mac.com