Outgoing UNCG Chancellor Linda Brady has appointed a 12-member committee to study a possible name change for Aycock Auditorium, the 1,600- venue that has anchored the campus on the corner of Tate and Spring Garden streets since 1927.
The auditorium is named after Charles B. Aycock, who served as governor from 1901 to 1905. But Aycock’s name also carries a taint of North Carolina’s white supremacist past, giving many schools and neighborhoods reason to rethink bearing his name.
Brady, however, was surprisingly diplomatic:
“Governor Aycock has been widely recognized at UNCG and other institutions across North Carolina because of his leadership in supporting higher education,” Brady said. “Unfortunately, some beliefs regarding race that have been attributed to him were shared by many others during a very different era in our history.
“Today we reject such beliefs and would not support the naming of a building after an individual who would express them.”
Brady’s retiring July 31 and who knows whetehr the committee will have a recommendation to the Board of Trustees by then, even if the goal is early May. Following the controversy surrounding the fired UNCG employees —which hasn’t completely been resolved, at least in the case of Lyda Carpen —Brady might not be in the mood to wade into another hot topic.
