| FOR RELEASE : Immediately |
CONTACT: Chancy M. Kapp |
| DATE: October 4, 2006 |
TELEPHONE: 919-807-6962 |
Phi Beta Kappa of Wake County honors President Martin Lancaster
RALEIGH: H. Martin Lancaster, President of the North Carolina Community College System, has received the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Wake County Alumni Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
Founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation's oldest undergraduate honors organization. Its mission is fostering and recognizing excellence in the liberal arts and sciences.
Dr. Robert Rollins, Jr., President of the Wake County Alumni Chapter, presented the award at a dinner in Raleigh on Tuesday, Oct. 3. He cited President Lancaster's outstanding service to promotion of the humanities in North Carolina's community colleges.
Alice Lancaster accepted the award on behalf of her husband, who is Northern Ireland completing agreements for joint degree programs between North Carolina's community colleges and universities in the United Kingdom.
She quoted him as saying, " It is a great honor for me to be the recipient of this year’s Wake County Phi Beta Kappa Distinguished Citizen Award. With both a wife and a daughter who are Phi Beta Kappas, I particularly welcome, as you can imagine, something on the wall that links my name with this esteemed association! My nine years as president of the North Carolina Community College System have been among the most rewarding of my life."
Lancaster leads a system that includes 58 comprehensive community colleges with more than 800,000 enrollments each year. His major initiatives have been to increase state and private funding for facilities, equipment, faculty salaries and instruction and to strengthen the system's essential role in workforce and economic development. He led community college participation in the successful Higher Education Bond referendum of 2000, which included $600 million for community college construction, repair and renovation. He has focused particular efforts on increasing the role of community colleges in preparing "home grown teachers" for public schools and in workforce training for biotechnology and other high-tech industries. In the summer of 2003, he was elected Chair of the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges.
Lancaster came to the North Carolina Community College System in 1997. Previously Mr. Lancaster served as Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) from January 1996 until June 1997. Before that, he served as the Special Advisor to the President on Chemical Weapons. Mr. Lancaster's other public service includes his serving as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 until 1995 and as a Member of the North Carolina House of Representatives for the preceding eight years.
Born and reared on a tobacco farm in Wayne County, North Carolina,
Lancaster graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill with undergraduate and law degrees. In 1967 he became a Judge
Advocate in the U.S. Navy, serving three years on active duty and
continuing to serve as an active Reservist until his retirement as a
Navy Captain in November 1993.
After release from active duty, Lancaster returned to his hometown
of Goldsboro, North Carolina, where he was engaged in the private
practice of law until his election to Congress.
The Lancasters, who live in Cary, have two adult daughters and one grandchild.
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