Donor Spotlight: Maribel Carrion
By Rachel Ash
Maribel Carrion vividly remembers her first time in Memorial Hall. Surrounded by her fellow Tar Heels at freshman orientation, she was just beginning her journey at Carolina. “Our speaker told us to look around at our classmates,” recalls Maribel. “He said ‘Two-thirds of you are pre-law or pre-med. That’s not going to happen.’” Maribel was among those who forged a different path. A math major, she received her BA in 1977 and returned to UNC several years later for her MBA.
Building on the math and business training she received at Carolina, Maribel began a career in software and technology applications. She spent seven years traveling extensively with Nortel Networks, which led her around the world while supporting clients in places like Singapore, Mexico and throughout Central and South America. “I was only supposed to be gone on an expatriate assignment for two years,” explains Maribel. “But I ended up being gone for seven.” When an opportunity arose in 2008 to work at Carolina, Maribel was excited about the prospect of returning to campus. Today, she’s the director of business applications for UNC Information Technology Services (ITS). “It’s about as good as it gets,” says Maribel. “Working at my alma mater doing a job I enjoy. I love working with students.”
From her office in ITS Manning, Maribel supports the software that drives students’ academic lifecycle. She is involved in all the processes used by students from the time they apply and register for classes through when they graduate and come back to ask for a transcript. “Students are very creative in how they use and access technology,” explains Maribel. “The students coming in now have assumptions and expectations about technology that are very different from the students ten years ago.”
In addition to supporting students in her daily work, Maribel also gives back as a generous donor to the University. She recently made a commitment to Carolina Performing Arts’ Student Ticket Angel Fund in her estate plan that will ensure students have access to inspiring artists from around the world for years to come. “The tagline that CPA brings the world to Chapel Hill is so true,” says Maribel. As someone who has been fortunate enough to travel extensively, she understands the benefits of being exposed to other cultures. “I want to make sure all students have these types of opportunities, because they’re life-changing.”
Maribel’s global experiences began at a young age. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she moved around quite a bit as a child because her father was in the military. With each new city, one constant in the household was music. Remembering her childhood, Maribel remarks, “My father always, always had music on. All kinds of music — Spanish and Latin American music, flamenco, classical, popular music.” Music has been an important part of her life. Her appreciation for the arts only grew when she was exposed to live performances in middle school. “The arts are transformative,” says Maribel. “With the best artists, you believe it. You feel it.”
Though Maribel hasn’t hung up her travel hat yet, she loves that she can experience diverse artistic traditions and perspectives without having to leave Chapel Hill. She became a CPA season subscriber after the Bolshoi Ballet’s 2009 performances. “I’m one of those people who waits for the season schedule.” She loves seeing students at performances and wanted to find a way to support CPA’s $10 student tickets. As she thought about her legacy at Carolina, Maribel learned she could make a difference with a planned gift to the Angel Fund. “You can contribute in ways you don’t even realize, if you just ask.”
Preview of Gil Shaham – Bach Six Solos
In anticipation of the October 20th presentation of Gil Shaham with original films by David Michalek, we are delighted to share this preview with you.
Shaham will perform Bach’s six Sonatas and Partitas, perhaps the most challenging music ever written for the violin, alongside a slow-motion, multi-media original film by Michalek.
A preview of the film can be seen below. Tickets for the October 20th performance start at $29 and can be purchased here.
Combat Paper Project returns to UNC
When the Combat Paper Project sets up on UNC’s campus in Gerrard Hall, it offers a unique opportunity to witness how art can help tell stories. These stories, shared by veterans and the rest of us who have had friends, family, and colleagues serve in the military, become an integral part of the creative process.
This art is created from the uniforms of military veterans, who have donated these materials in order to share in the process. The uniforms are cut up and turned into a pulp, which is then transformed into paper. For participants, the process of cutting up a uniform and turning it into a work of art becomes a powerful method for understanding – and helping others to understand – their experiences in the military.
The one rule of the Combat Paper Project is that everyone is welcome at any time. You are invited to join us for a week of workshops, stories, and papermaking in Gerrard Hall. View the complete schedule here.
Aaron Shackelford, Ph.D.
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow
2015-16 Welcome from Emil Kang
Welcome to the start of a new season at Carolina Performing Arts. This is always an exciting time, one that I compare to the start of a new school year with old friends and new. This includes many of our visiting artists. There are old friends who think of Chapel Hill as a second home, where they re-connect with faculty members and dine at favorite restaurants. Then there are newcomers to our campus, bringing with them fresh ideas that, like so many of our own students and faculty, will change Carolina and the world.
The comparison with students and faculty is not an accident for us at CPA. Central to our work is Arts@TheCore, which operates with the belief that the arts have a critical role to play in the research, teaching, and service mission of the university. In just three years, we’ve expanded the number of courses that include CPA performances from 20 to 60. Crucially, these courses come from 20 departments across 6 schools of the university. In all, just one season sees over 2,200 student tickets purchased specifically for a course, connecting with more students than even the largest classroom on Carolina’s campus. At the same time, over 50 faculty—researchers in sciences, medicine, and the humanities—have joined our Arts@TheCore community, gaining new insights and talking with visiting artists and their own peers, some of whom they are meeting for the first time.
As you attend a performance this season, I encourage you to talk with the people sitting next to you. Some will be students with backpacks and notebooks because they understand that the performing arts have just as much to teach them as their chemistry lab or history lecture. An entirely new experience is about to unfold before them, one that can shape their learning and their lives. I hope you will join me in sharing these encounters with others throughout our season.
Sincerely,
Emil Kang
Executive and Artistic Director
Executive Director for the Arts
Professor of the Practice, Department of Music
The Martha Graham Legacy – Lamentation Variations
This year the Martha Graham Dance Company celebrates 85 years since Graham’s iconic “Lamentation.”
The Lamentation Variations project, originally conceived to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11, asked choreographers to create a spontaneous piece inspired by their reaction to the original Lamentation performance. They were limited to 10 hours of rehearsal time, public domain music or silence, and only basic lighting and costumes.
The audience reception of the performance was so positive that Lamentation Variations has been added to the permanent repertoire of the company. This year, four new variations were commissioned, three of which will be performed at Memorial Hall on April 14 and 15.
