University of North Carolina Athletics
Tony Waldrop Returns to Carolina as Vice Chancellor
June 28, 2001 | Track & Field
June 28, 2001
y L.J. TOLER, UNC News Services
CHAPEL HILL -- Yes. You can go home again.
The appointment of Dr. Tony G. Waldrop, a Morehead Scholar and track star at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the 1970s, today (June 28) received approval by the UNC Board of Governors Personnel and Tenure Committee, acting on delegation of the full board, to lead research efforts at his alma mater.
Waldrop, 49, a Columbus, N.C., native with three UNC degrees, will begin work Aug. 1 as vice chancellor for research and graduate studies. Reporting to Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Dr. Robert Shelton, Waldrop will work to enhance UNC's standing as a top research university. The title elevates responsibility for the university's $400 million-a-year research enterprise to the level of vice chancellor.
Waldrop, now a professor of molecular and integrative physiology and vice chancellor for research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, also has been an interim graduate school dean there. He has a long track record of research and teaching in cardiorespiratory physiology and neurobiology at Illinois, UNC and the University of Texas.
"Carolina is more than fortunate to bring on board a scholar, researcher and administrator as outstanding as Dr. Waldrop," Shelton said. "At Illinois, he has proven his talent in the same role he will take on here: ensuring that UNC maintains the brainpower, funding, buildings and innovative contracts needed to spawn discoveries that make our world a better place and improve people's lives."
Waldrop's research has been supported by agencies including the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association. AHA selected him as an established investigator. At Illinois, Waldrop is a University Scholar, the premier recognition accorded to faculty by their colleagues. His interest areas are hypertension, developmental neurobiology and the effects of hypoxia (deficiency of oxygen reaching body tissue) on brainstem neurons.
Waldrop's move brings to mind the book "You Can't Go Home Again," by another distinguished UNC alumnus and western North Carolinian, Thomas Wolfe, and it highlights the value of Morehead Awards. The full four-year scholarships bring UNC some of the most talented students nationwide in academics, physical vigor and leadership. Now, a beneficiary will return to help lead Carolina.
"I very much like my job at Illinois," Waldrop said in a phone interview. "The only thing that could persuade me to move was the opportunity to work at an institution of as high or higher quality as the one where I am now ... And Carolina is home."
Waldrop met his wife, Chapel Hill native Julee Briscoe Waldrop, at UNC. She also ran track, and she earned a bachelor's degree in health and physical education in 1981. Her father is Dr. Vic Briscoe, a UNC professor emeritus of physics. Recently, Julee Waldrop accepted a job as a clinical assistant professor in the UNC School of Nursing. The couple has two sons, Cabe, 16, and Dallas, 13.
Waldrop is a member of the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame. In 1974, he was named ACC Athlete of the Year and won the Patterson Medal, UNC's highest athletic award, for athletic ability, sportsmanship, morals, leadership and general conduct. While at Carolina, he ran an unprecedented 11 consecutive sub-four minute miles in competitive races and set the then-indoor world record of 3 minutes, 55 seconds. He won the 1973 indoor 1,000-yard run and the 1974 indoor mile NCAA championships, six Atlantic Coast Conference tiles and a gold medal in the 1,500 meters at the 1975 Pan American Games.
Despite those feats, "the thing about UNC that I'm most proud of is the Morehead Scholarship," he said. "It meant that I could come to Carolina. My family in western North Carolina couldn't have afforded to send me. I'm very proud to be a graduate of Carolina."
Attractions of the job at Carolina include major research initiatives in genome sciences, he said, and consideration of including research facilities in future development of UNC's Horace Williams tract. At Illinois, he steered efforts to develop the new University of Illinois Research Park.
Waldrop earned a bachelor of arts in political science in 1974, graduating as a Top Five NCAA Student Athlete. He completed a master of arts in physical education in 1980 and a doctorate in physiology in 1981. He earned a 1975 NCAA postgraduate scholarship.
As a graduate student, Waldrop taught physiology for physical education students, designed and directed a physiology lab for dental students and taught cardiovascular and respiratory physiology to medical and pharmacy students. He went to the Harry S. Moss Heart Center at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas for postdoctoral training. He was a research fellow there from 1982-86, and he taught respiration and physiology for medical and health science students. In 1986, he joined the faculty at Illinois, where he has taught undergraduate, graduate and medical students.