Dr. William V. Muse, 62, was installed as East Carolina’s fifth chancellor and tenth chief executive officer on Friday, March 8, 2002, in Wright Auditorium, in ceremonies doubling as the Founder’s Day celebration. Muse and ECU knew a major milestone was ahead. Ninety-five years earlier, March 8, 1907, the General Assembly had passed legislation establishing East Carolina Teachers Training School (ECTTS). In 1921, it became East Carolina Teachers College (ECTC), and in 1951, a four-year liberal arts school, East Carolina College. In 1967, it rose again, this time to university status. Muse’s installation honored the school’s founding with admiration while anticipating the centennial in 2007. In coupling installation and Founder’s Day, Muse’s occasion modified a precedent set by Pres. John D. Messick’s installation, March 6, 1948, the day after that year’s Founder’s Day celebration, otherwise billed as an integral part of Messick’s inaugural week.
The installation gave contemporaries cause to think that Muse would lead ECU well into its second century. Yet within two years, on September 12, 2003, Muse resigned due to health concerns as his office was compromised by irregularities in grant administration and embarrassing personal ties to Emanuele Amaro, director of housing, later convicted of embezzlement. Worsening things, one of Amaro’s emails to Muse’s wife included racial slurs directed at his boss, Dr. Garrie W. Moore, associate provost and vice chancellor for student life. Muse’s promising installation was thus eclipsed by the end of his tenure.
From the start, Muse faced unprecedented challenges: six weeks after he assumed duties on August 1, 2001, Al-Qaeda terrorists, attacked the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing three thousand and shocking a nation as it watched in horror live TV broadcasts. Muse’s installation, six months after 9/11, helped restore hope and confidence to the campus as it juxtaposed East Carolina’s proud history with forecasts of a far greater future.
Patriotic Displays and Inclusivity
Post-9/11 symbols of patriotism figured prominently in public culture nationwide, and Muse’s installation was no exception. Earlier, along similar lines, Dr. Leo W. Jenkins’ installation on May 13, 1960, during a Cold War intensified by the U-2 incident, had served as a counterpoint, highlighting national power and pride: Jenkins’ installation included three Marine generals as honorary guests plus a four-man ROTC color guard. Similarly, Muse’s featured a five-man ROTC color guard, two with ceremonial rifles, presenting colors on Wright Auditorium’s main stage at the opening of the installation.
Following the presentation of three flags — the American, the North Carolina, and a purple and gold ECU flag — Dr. Louise Toppin, chair of the Department of Music at UNC-Chapel Hill, offered an inspiring rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner, accompanied by the ECU Wind Ensemble.
As with Richard R. Eakin’s installation in 1988, African Americans figured prominently at the beginning and end of Muse’s ceremony. In addition to Dr. Toppin, Benjamin S. Ruffin, Jr. (1941-2006), chair of the UNC System Board of Governors and the first African American to serve in that capacity, offered welcoming remarks.
Concluding the installation, Rev. Sydney A. Locks (1949-2020), senior clergy at Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville and president of the Pitt County Black Ministers Conference, delivered the benediction. Forty years after East Carolina had first desegregated, the school showed strength in diversity and inclusion.
Allusions to East Carolina’s First Installation
A video presentation, “The Vision,” followed, juxtaposing the prophetic words of Robert H. Wright, East Carolina’s founding president, delivered at his 1909 installation, with the reality that burgeoned forth. With steady, triumphant musical accompaniment, the video matched images of twenty-first century ECU with challenging, visionary remarks from Wright’s address, voiced by a narrator’s deep voice of sobriety and wisdom:
“Standing here as I do on the threshold of a new institution … it is not strange if I see visions and dream dreams….
The responsibilities of life that rest upon this generation are greater than the responsibilities that have ever rested upon a previous generation. To meet these obligations demands greater preparation for life’s work than has ever been demanded before.
It was in the conscious or unconscious realization of this fact that this school was established. Here we have built, at state expense, an institution to train young men and women to go forth in our land … to equip themselves better for the serious duties of maturer years.
We are not here to destroy the old and accept only the new, but to build upon the past a structure, secure, safe and sane, to make this old world a better place in which to live, to help each generation the better to adjust itself to nature’s laws — the laws of God.
I see in … [it] a people ready, willing, and anxious for any good thing. They are filled with the American ideal…. We will give to the rising generation the purest inheritance of the nation and better preparation than has ever been given to a preceding generation. This school is an expression of that determination, it was built by the people, for the people, and may it ever remain with the people as a servant of the people.”
The video concluded with successive telegraphic transitioning: “A Dream, A Vision, A University.” Following “The Vision,” the remainder of the installation over and again paid homage to Wright and his wisdom in leading East Carolina through its opening decades of educational service.
Linking “The Vision” to national grandeur, the ECU Festival Choir, conducted by Dr. Daniel Bara and accompanied by the ECU Symphonic Wind Ensemble, performed a rousing version of America the Beautiful, followed by spontaneous applause from the audience.
Greetings
Greetings were next offered by select dignitaries, including Muse’s brother, Dr. Clyde Muse, president of Hinds Community College, Mississippi, followed by Benjamin Ruffin, chair of the UNC System Board of Governors. Robert Morrison, chair of the ECU faculty, stated with enthusiasm, “Chancellor Muse, with your vision, we are ready to dream the dream of dreams. With you at the helm, we are ready for a new dawn for ECU.”
Shelby Strother, president of the ECU Alumni Association, recalled the work of two of East Carolina’s founders, former Gov. Thomas J. Jarvis and Pres. Wright. Unable to attend in person, Gov. Mike Easley offered the state’s greetings via a recorded video presentation. The ECU Festival Choir, with Janette Fishell, organist, then performed “Swell the Full Chorus” from George Frederic Handel’s oratorio Solomon, grandly linking wisdom in leadership and judgement to Old Testament narratives.
UNC Pres. Molly Broad’s Remarks
Molly C. Broad (1941-2023), president of the UNC System, presided. Like several earlier speakers, Broad recalled East Carolina’s history, its 95 years of progress, and its promising future as it approached its centennial. Praising Muse, Broad deemed the search process “an extraordinarily successful” one, and, using a bowling metaphor, called Muse’s hire “a ten-strike for this university.”
Calling attention to East Carolina’s traditions, Broad noted that the Bible to be used in Muse’s oath of office, as administered by N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake, Jr. (1934-2019), was the one used in Pres. Wright’s installation in 1909, as well as in chapel services Wright presided over while serving as the school’s leader.
Following the oath of office, Broad conferred on Muse “the emblems of authority,” the Chancellor’s Medallion, first presented to Muse’s predecessor, Dr. Richard R. Eakin during his installation in 1988, symbolizing the chancellor’s role as leader of the school. Dr. James Bearden, one of ECU’s senior faculty, presented Muse with the University Mace, as Pres. Broad referred to it, a “symbolic representation of ancient weapon” representing the power of Muse’s position as chancellor. The mace, first presented to Dr. Thomas B. Brewer (1932-2018) during his installation in 1978, was then referred to as the Trustees’ Mace.
Muse’s Address: “To See Tomorrow”
After expressing his thanks to those attending, and especially Pres. Broad, the Board of Governors, the Trustees, members of the ECU community, and others, Muse recalled the role of former Gov. Thomas J. Jarvis in East Carolina’s founding, and observed how proud Jarvis, “the father of ECU,” would be of his “offspring.” Muse ventured to note that without Jarvis’ support for the cause, East Carolina would never have been established. Muse thus gave highest praise to Jarvis as ECU’s single most important progenitor.
Muse explained that he came to ECU from Auburn, where he had been president, because of East Carolina’s potential for growth in size, quality, and stature. The opportunity to serve an area with real needs was also a factor. To achieve this, Muse suggested that ten “conditions” needed to be attained and maintained. These he listed as:
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- “A highly effective undergraduate educational program as measured by appropriate student outcomes such as job placement, entry into graduate school, and success on qualifying exams….
- A growing graduate program, particularly at the doctoral level, in areas of faculty strength and where there is a demonstrated need for the graduates….
- A research program that is focused on areas that are consistent with the university’s strengths and directed toward the needs of the constituency we serve and the region where we are located….
- A heightened emphasis on engagement with the external community, particularly eastern North Carolina, providing the opportunities and the structure for faculty, staff, and students to use their knowledge and skills to effect positive change in the region we serve….
- The development of a “community of scholars” among our faculty that will allow individuals to focus their efforts on their strengths, consistent with unit priorities, and that will reward performance, both quantitatively and qualitatively….
- A student life program that provides students with significant opportunities to develop the skills they will need to be successful, to become fully engaged in the life of the university, and to form life-long friendships in an environment that fosters and values diversity….
- An athletic program that is a dominant force at the Conference USA level and reflects positively on the university in terms of both the on-field and off-the-field performances of those student athletes and coaches involved….
- A dedicated team of administrators and support staff that provides the facilities, finances, and services that are so essential to performance of this institution’s academic mission….
- A commitment to diversity and equal opportunities throughout our organization, developing programs and structures that nurture and reward performance….
- A greater international presence in terms of student enrollment from other countries, student involvement in study abroad programs, and faculty and staff participation in programs of an international nature.”
Muse explained that he envisioned the university’s academic mission emerging from four basic thrusts or areas of expertise: teacher education, human health, the fine and performing arts, and economic development.
Praising every college and school at ECU, Muse added that a school of engineering would be a welcome and much needed addition. He added that significant financial support from the state and from the private sector” would be needed to realize ECU’s goals and called for “a major capital campaign to raise funds from our alumni and supporters.”
Recognizing the technological advances realized during the Eakin administration, Muse emphasized that “ECU must continue to be on the cutting edge — as it currently is — in the use of information and instructional technology. We must integrate the most modern means to display and present information in the classroom and for students who are at a distance. We must maintain our aggressive movement in on-line education wherever appropriate.”
Muse forecasted growth in enrollment from its current level, 19,400, to approximately 27,000 by the end of the decade. He also expressed confidence that ECU could attain its ambitions, praising its previous leaders including Wright, Messick, Jenkins, Howell, and Eakin. Quoting Wright, Muse added, “We want to become leaders in our line of work. To do this means work, but it means growth; it means success; and more than both of these, it means being a real factor in our civilization.”
In concluding, Muse observed,
“This institution has always represented both a destination and a direction. East Carolina has always been in our name and in our hearts. This is a proud region that we serve and that we represent. And East is the direction in which we want people to look. East is the direction one has to face to see the rising sun — to see tomorrow. For nearly a hundred years, East Carolina has been a land of opportunity for thousands of students, helping them to see tomorrow and to prepare for it. And so shall it be in the future.”
Following Rev. Locks’ benediction, the ECU Army ROTC Color Guard retired the colors and led the academic procession out of Wright Auditorium toward Wright Circle where academic formalities were followed by a fried chicken and barbeque lunch with a jazz ensemble, including professor of music, Carroll Dashielle, Jr., performing.
The following evening, the inaugural festivities concluded with a black-tie dinner at the Jockey Club.
Inaugural Firsts and Seconds
A videotape of Muse’s installation remains extant and is in ECU University Archives collection. In 1960, Leo W. Jenkins’ installation attracted local televised coverage, but recorded versions of that coverage do not remain, nor are there, apparently, videotapes of the installations of Thomas Brewer, John Howell, or Richard Eakin. The recording of Muse’s installation makes it an invaluable resource for studying that moment in ECU history.
Also, video presentations figured prominently in Muse’s installation. Never before had a North Carolina governor attended an installation virtually, via video recording, as did Gov. Easley. His videotaped role, along with the video shown at the start of the installation, “The Vision,” exemplified the advances of ECU and the state into the digital information age, creating possibilities for virtual attendance and the broadcast of video presentations.
Muse’s inaugural address was lengthy by East Carolina’s standards. While much of it reiterated the current mantras at ECU – regional economic development, health care, teacher education, and cultural contributions, it innovated in its closing paragraph in transitioning from the East of East Carolina, to the direction from which the sun rises, and finally to seeing tomorrow, i.e., the future, and helping students prepare for it. In his memoir, The Seventh Muse, Muse later noted how his remarks influenced a marketing campaign a few months later and its new slogan, “Tomorrow Starts Here,” one that would continue in use as the ECU brand slogan until 2017 when a later chancellor, Cecil Staton, updated the ECU slogan with a new one, “Capture Your Horizons.”
Other Founder’s Day Activities
Prior to Muse’s installation ceremony, which began at 10:00 a.m., Founders Day events began earlier that day, Friday, March 8, with a community leaders’ breakfast at 7:30 a.m. in Jarvis Memorial United Methodist Church, followed by a wreath laying at the grave of Gov. Thomas Jarvis, at 9 a.m., at the historic Cherry Hill Cemetery off Pitt Street in Greenville.
An ECU Centennial Exhibit was open throughout the day at Joyner Library. Following the installation, the Ronnie Barnes African American Resource Center was dedicated at 3 p.m. on the second floor of Joyner Library, and a celebration of health sciences leadership was held in the lobby of the Brody School of Medicine Building at 4 p.m. That evening, the Founder’s Day Awards Dinner was held at 7 p.m. in the Great Room, Mendenhall Student Center.
Sources
Allegood, Jerry. “ECU chancellor is installed: Muse predicts new era of growth, service for university.” News and Observer. March 9, 2002. P. 4A.
Chen, Monica. “Chancellor Search Ends at ECU.” Daily Tar Heel. February 9, 2001. P. 7. https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92068245/2001-02-09/ed-1/seq-7/#words=Muse+Muse%E2%80%99s+William
“Dr. William V. Muse.” 2002. Photograph. University Archives # UA55.02.858. East Carolina University Digital Collections. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N. C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/50605.
“ECU Chancellor: School Expands Focus Statewide.” Charlotte Observer. March 17, 2002. P. 5D.
Milenkevich, Susanne. “Founder’s Day activities welcome Chancellor Muse.” March 6, 2002, updated March 10, 2020. https://www.piratemedia1.com/theeastcarolinian/article_8f6e3b51-1e2c-5b72-a0b6-9c2260b62a8c.html
“Muse Installed as ECU Chancellor.” Opelika-Auburn News. March 14, 2002. P. 1.
Muse, William Van. The Seventh Muse: A Memoir. Bloomington: iUniverse, Inc. 2008.
Pillai, Kavita. “Allegations Mar ECU Resignation.” Daily Tar Heel. September 19, 2003. P. 4. https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92068245/2003-09-19/ed-1/seq-4/
Records of the Chancellor: Records of William Muse, 2001-2003. Box 1: Installation papers and recordings. University Archives # UA02-10. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N. C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/ua02-10
Additional Related Material
Video of the Installation of Chancellor William V. Muse
Citation Information
Title: William Van Muse’s Inauguration
Author: John A. Tucker, PhD
Date of Publication: 4/8/2024