Unks holding court with one summer’s stu- dents in the Wynter Room of Swedenborg Hall, London.
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COURTESY OF GERALD UNKS
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Brushes with celebrity were not uncommon in London. Princess Di showed up
one day in their classroom building, allowing a demure nod in their direction; Frank
Sinatra surfaced at the Savoy Hotel —
where, like two of Unks’ students, he was
turned away for tea because he lacked the
proper attire. One fortunate student got
invited to a dinner party hosted by Prince
William at St. Andrews and was seated next
to the future king, prompting the rest of the
UNC group — including Unks himself —
to huddle around her upon her return to
the hotel, pelting her with questions like a
pack of tabloid-reading school girls.
But Unks’ favorite memories are those
that crystallized once London was in the
rearview mirror. Students who spent a
month walking through Muslim neighborhoods or other communities “where people don’t look like they do in Burgaw”
and who learned to jump elegantly from a
question about why British bobbies don’t
carry guns to a discussion of capital punishment, found themselves under the spell of
their own educations upon their return to
North Carolina.
“I noticed something happened to the
kids when they were abroad,” said Unks,
who originally planned to run the London
program for only four years. “They seemed
to broaden themselves, and deepen them-
selves, and do a lot of the things that I
thought of a college education doing. And I
got a kick out of this change, this magnifi-
cent change. Kids who were making really
poor grades at Carolina went over there, got
turned on to something, and began making
good grades when they came back.”
Unks still slips into the present tense
when speaking about the program; after 36
years, the habit is difficult to resist. He may
no longer pine for the logistics of London
— indeed, he may never want to see the
passport of a 20-year-old again — but
clearly the 2,424 companions who traveled
with him across four decades gave as much
to Unks as he gave to them.
