Project Staff

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The North Carolina Botanical Garden has established itself as a national leader in conservation and native plant gardening. Established in 1971, the Garden has grown to hold 600 acres, 27 staff members, some 200 active volunteers, and a budget of over one million dollars. Cultivated grounds include the Coker Arboretum (5 acres on the main UNC campus) and the Garden proper (7 acres located 1.5 miles from the center of campus). The Garden holds some 2,500 species of plants and produces educational programs for the public, including school groups, throughout the year. The Garden was a founding member of the Center for Plant Conservation, a national organization that protects US endangered plant species.

The UNC Herbarium was founded in 1908. It has grown to hold 660,000 specimens of plants, the largest holding in the Southeast and a key resource for any work on the identification and distribution of plants in our region. Among the important books produced from this collection are the landmark Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas, the ongoing Flora of the Southeast (two volumes published), and Vascular Plant Systematics. The Herbarium routinely serves as a center for plant identification (new weeds, rare plants, poisonous plants) and for studies of changing plant distributions.

The UNC School of Library and Information, rated at the top program in library science (tied with the University of Illinois) in the U.S. News library science ratings. Library and information science is a growth field. SILS offers a full education program: two Master's degrees, one in Library Science and one in Information Science; a Ph.D. program, an undergraduate minor and will soon have an undergraduate major in Information Systems; and continuing education programs. The School is accredited by the American Library Association. A 54-seat computer lab in the School's Information Technology and Resource Center is equipped with state of the art hardware and software. The School's library has more than 84,500 volumes and subscribes to 3,600 journal titles in all aspects of library and information science. The library forms a part of the Information Technology and Resource Center staffed by professional librarians. The library occupies adjacent space with the computer lab and has a spacious reading room. An extensive and dynamic curriculum reflects advances in the field. Specializations in various aspects of librarianship including school and public librarinship and information science including database administration and internet applications are offered by the 20-member full-time faculty.

McDougle Middle School opened in 1994 and was named a North Carolina School of Excellence in 1998. The school has 750 6th-8th grade students (250 per year will participate in our activities).